Toys of the Japanese company Tomy and today are original, but not geeky. You can’t say about them: “It is interesting to take them in the hands of not only the child, but also the stereotypical sweater-bearded IT person”. And once it was possible to say so. Who is with me on a little history?

"Video Games" that aren't really videos

The boom of the first generation of video games Tomy engineers perceived as a challenge. To do something similar, but without "this your" electronics - they set such a task for themselves. Well, not entirely without electronics - with an LED, which, however, in bright light is not necessary to turn on, if you look at a certain angle. This is how the Blip console was born.


The same idea is inherent in the Digital Derby game, the word digital in the title of which is pure bluff, and buyers understood this very well. But still they took for precise styling.

The ball overcomes the obstacle course

Video games of the second and subsequent generations are usually multi-level, and this challenge was also accepted by the developers of Tomy, showing a no less delicate sense of humor than in the previous case - with the LED in Blip. The character of the next two games is a ball, and this is several years before Sega presented Sonic and Tails to the world.

The first of the devices - Screwball Scarmble - may be familiar to you from the Soviet clone. In it, as in the original, the “closed labyrinth” level consists of two halves, one of which can be removed so that the ball can be seen - for someone this is the first cheating event in life. Look at the small differences: for example, in the Soviet game the pictograms above the controls are round, and in the Japanese game they are rectangular.



Toy Tricky Traps with a similar plot is less known, but looks stylish, not very toy.

“One for One, One for Children”

The 1984 Radio Shack catalog (see KDPV) calls for either buying two Armatrons at once, or, if the toad was succeeded in persuading only one, not to show it to children.

And again, the developers of Tomy would not have been themselves if they hadn’t used only one electric motor running continuously. Joysticks reconfigure the mechanism on the fly, like an electric typewriter key.



If desired, Armatron can be converted to steam traction. It’s just so easy, instead of an electric motor, to attach a steam side to the side - and everything will continue to work as if nothing had happened.


Such is it, the reduced collective image of robots, really widely used in the real world. Cinematographers see them as different. For example, such as this

Dancer

Anthropomorphic robots at Tomy at one time had a lot. Speaking voice owner “postman” with a tray - Chatbot, amenable to verbal “training” Verbot, falling and rising again Flipbot, diligently sweeping and vacuuming the table Dustbot, expensive multifunctional Omnibot 2000 with controlled joints ... But the most sincere - Mr. DJ


Long before the modern Sony Rolly in this device, the long-standing dream of animators of the dancing column was realized. As in Armatron, one common motor is used here, through an uncomplicated mechanism, it drives the arms and head of the robot. And its lower jaw moves the electromagnet in time with the music received by the built-in radio receiver ( circuit ). DJ, however, relies on a couple more “turntables”, but they can be painted with imagination. A good variation on the topic could be a robot bard - the same thing, only with a guitar. Perhaps you will make it?

Of course, it is absurd to argue that "this is no longer done." The niche of the goods, created, it seems, for children, but capable of smiling and geek, is busy today. But Tomy, with their current range, is no longer in the subject.