27 Aug
2010
27 Aug
'10
1:11 p.m.
On Thu, 26 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
Err, no... You are joking surely.. There was nothing particularlly new or
cleaver in the originial Big Trak, otehr than it being an inexpensice
toy. The principles of the control system were surely well known by then...
This is off-tipic for 2 main reasons : (1) the
device in question is not
even 1 year old yet and (2) it's not a computer. But I suspect many
people here rememebr the MB Big Trak programmable toy tank from the early
1980s, and may even rememebr the Circuit Cellar article that involved
modifying one. So anyway...
Does anybody remember the guvmint hassles about it? ("But the control
circuitry of it could be installed in a real battlefield device!")
I can see one of the original ones from where I sit right now. In the top
box of that pile!
The accessory trailer is no longer around, which is too bad, because that
was what I used for "pen-up"/"pen-down" for playing with it as a
large
format plotter. The O-rings that provided traction on the circumference
of the wheels are rotted away, and it sat for too long with batteries in
it, although that cleaned up surprisingly easily.
Tony,
Do you want it?
Yes please, but only if nobody else nearer to you wants it. I think
shipping it would be expensive and it may well not survive (I am told the
plastic axles break very easily, and the body plasitc is possibly brittle
by now). I would much rather it was not wrecked by United Parcel Smashers
or ParcelFarce, or ...
-tony