What was your favorite tech gadget as a kid?

[Technician]

I had a 300 in 1 electronics project kit that I used so much I wore it out. That was my favorite as a very young kid (6 yo). I also had a crystal radio set just before that, I suppose it was to gauge my interest in that type of toy.
I liked Simon, Merlin, HO Trains, Slot Cars, Erector set (more mechanical than electronic, bit it had a motor and gearbox) Timex Sinclair, Intellivision, Sega Genesis, Pong... too many to name all of them.
They say the only difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys and my new favorite toy is my S sedan. I love the ludicrous speed Easter egg.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Does a Canon film SLR camera from the 70's count as a "tech gadget"? If so, that would be it. And yeah, you can also count me as another vote for the Atari 2600.

You were a kid in the 70's?! When I was a kid a portable transistor radio was considered hi tech. My favorite hi tech gadget way back when had to be my Scalextric slot cars set.

 

[captaincranky]

You were a kid in the 70's?! When I was a kid a portable transistor radio was considered hi tech. My favorite hi tech gadget way back when had to be my Scalextric slot cars set.

I think I may have given you the wrong impression about my age. I had the SLR when I was 21. (I never have fully grown up, and was well still into my "kid stage" til at least 24 or 27. IDK which).

I, (briefly), had a "Transistor Six", which was the 1st, (IIRC), transistor radio released by the RCA Corporation. I think I was about 9. My father would bring non repairable junk home from his work, (he was an electronics tech), and try to pass it off as a "present". Before that radio, the "portables" had 90 volt carbon zinc dry cells to power the B+ (plates), of the tubes!

In any event, I repaired the POS radio exactly according to the alleged "RCA service bulletin", and it still had the issue. So much for that.

Then there was the first, "cassette tape recorder". These had "cassettes" which were double the length and height of today's (?) cassettes. That broke in a week. This I believe is back when, "made in the USA" meant something.

Although, we were the first "kidz" on the block to have a color TV. Those were monsters, about 17" round picture tubes, and took up a minimum 4 sq feet of floor area for the tiny little picture.

I did have two store record demonstrator amplifiers. (2 6V6GC output tubes in push pull). They made about 9 watts RMS, but were absolute bears for the day. I put a stereo cartridge into my crappy mono record changer, rewired the arm for stereo, and partied on.

Still, the old Canon camera worked without a hitch. It even had TTL metering...(y)

Presentamos:

 

[ET3D]

Those calculator watches with the digital invaders game were certainly one of my favourites. I spent tons of time on that game.

 

[Technician]

I think I may have given you the wrong impression about my age. I had the SLR when I was 21. (I never have fully grown up, and was well still into my "kid stage" til at least 24 or 27. IDK which).

I, (briefly), had a "Transistor Six", which was the 1st, (IIRC), transistor radio released by the RCA Corporation. I think I was about 9. My father would bring non repairable junk home from his work, (he was an electronics tech), and try to pass it off as a "present". Before that radio, the "portables" had 90 volt carbon zinc dry cells to power the B+ (plates), of the tubes!

In any event, I repaired the POS radio exactly according to the alleged "RCA service bulletin", and it still had the issue. So much for that.

Then there was the first, "cassette tape recorder". These had "cassettes" which were double the length and height of today's (?) cassettes. That broke in a week. This I believe is back when, "made in the USA" meant something.

Although, we were the first "kidz" on the block to have a color TV. Those were monsters, about 17" round picture tubes, and took up a minimum 4 sq feet of floor area for the tiny little picture.

I did have two store record demonstrator amplifiers. (2 6V6GC output tubes in push pull). They made about 9 watts RMS, but were absolute bears for the day. I put a stereo cartridge into my crappy mono record changer, rewired the arm for stereo, and partied on.

Still, the old Canon camera worked without a hitch. It even had TTL metering...(y)

Presentamos:

I had to build my first radio. I got my first SLR camera at age 9. It was a Nikon with Nikkormat lenses. I built a tripod for it myself.

 

[captaincranky]

I had to build my first radio. I got my first SLR camera at age 9. It was a Nikon with Nikkormat lenses. I built a tripod for it myself.

What a guy!

I see the seminal rift between Canon and Nikon emerging. Although IIRC, Nikon's line of interchangeable SLR lenses have always been called simply "Nikkor", with suffix letters designation their ancillary functions. AF-S, AF-D, and so forth.

The "Nikkormat" was a specific camera body model. Why don't you bone up on that at Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikkormat so you don't sound like you're so full of s***.

 

[mcborge]

My old slightly hacked Amiga 500+ that had 2mb chip ram (the slight hack), a 40mb hard drive and 6mb of ram on the zorro slot and it was parnet linked to a cdtv as a remote cd drive. Ahh happy days.

 

[captaincranky]

My old slightly hacked Amiga 500+ that had 2mb chip ram (the slight hack), a 40mb hard drive and 6mb of ram on the zorro slot and it was parnet linked to a cdtv as a remote cd drive. Ahh happy days.

2MB of RAM would have made you practically a god in the Atari / Commodore days! (y)

 

[Technician]

My old slightly hacked Amiga 500+ that had 2mb chip ram (the slight hack), a 40mb hard drive and 6mb of ram on the zorro slot and it was parnet linked to a cdtv as a remote cd drive. Ahh happy days.

The Commodore (Vic 20) was awesome compared to the Sinclair, I remember the whopping 16k memory expansion I got for my Sinclair and what a big improvement that was, I wrote a program to pick what size sprockets I'd need to get for my 10 speed bike to avoid any duplicate gear ratios. Then it was printed out on thermal paper (like a receipt tape). I still have that today, but I don't have the cassette recorder that was the storage for it.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I had the Mattel Electronics Handheld Football game... used to play for hours! 1 9 volt battery could last for ages too

http://www.saintstevensthingery.com/mybackpages/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mattelfootball1.jpg

 

[Technician]

Yeah, those were fantastic. Do you also remember the ones that used the little plastic men and then you turned it on and they vibrated around?

 

[Technician]

Ha, my wife just proved my memory wrong, my first camera was an Agfa Silette. She just pulled it out of the closet. I guess the Nikon was the second. The lens on that one just says Nikkor, not Nikkormat as I thought it did. Maybe my sister had the Nikkormat body on hers then. I'll have to give her a call and see if she still has that. Anyways, close enough, I think most people know what a Nikon camera is since they have the best lenses in the business. I also made a pinhole camera in a photography class I took and that silly thing took some great pictures for the simple design. Anyhow, back to the vibrating football game already in progress.

 

[mcborge]

The Commodore (Vic 20) was awesome compared to the Sinclair, I remember the whopping 16k memory expansion I got for my Sinclair and what a big improvement that was, I wrote a program to pick what size sprockets I'd need to get for my 10 speed bike to avoid any duplicate gear ratios. Then it was printed out on thermal paper (like a receipt tape). I still have that today, but I don't have the cassette recorder that was the storage for it.

Nostalgia overload!
Before my amiga I had the c64 and a tonne of tapes and 2 or 3 of those datasette tape decks, I even had the c64-gs cartridge system.
I was always a commodore guy, I never liked the amstrad or sinclair systems. I even had an old 8k commodore 8096 based on the pet.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I think I may have given you the wrong impression about my age. I had the SLR when I was 21. (I never have fully grown up, and was well still into my "kid stage" til at least 24 or 27. IDK which).

I, (briefly), had a "Transistor Six", which was the 1st, (IIRC), transistor radio released by the RCA Corporation. I think I was about 9. My father would bring non repairable junk home from his work, (he was an electronics tech), and try to pass it off as a "present". Before that radio, the "portables" had 90 volt carbon zinc dry cells to power the B+ (plates), of the tubes!

In any event, I repaired the POS radio exactly according to the alleged "RCA service bulletin", and it still had the issue. So much for that.

Then there was the first, "cassette tape recorder". These had "cassettes" which were double the length and height of today's (?) cassettes. That broke in a week. This I believe is back when, "made in the USA" meant something.

Although, we were the first "kidz" on the block to have a color TV. Those were monsters, about 17" round picture tubes, and took up a minimum 4 sq feet of floor area for the tiny little picture.

I did have two store record demonstrator amplifiers. (2 6V6GC output tubes in push pull). They made about 9 watts RMS, but were absolute bears for the day. I put a stereo cartridge into my crappy mono record changer, rewired the arm for stereo, and partied on.

Still, the old Canon camera worked without a hitch. It even had TTL metering...(y)

Presentamos:

I vaguely remember us having a vacuum tube B&W TV when we lived in Southampton in the UK all those years ago but I was still a baby back then, I can't remember much but that was the only thing I remember us having with valves. That and a Hammerstein radiogram which I still have. It doesn't work anymore though, but the cabinet craftsmanship is great.

 

[GhostRyder]

I guess mine would have to be my first computer which was an old Power Mac 6100 I got when I was 5. My mother got it because it somehow stopped working and we got it working so she gave it to me since she had a machine. Loved that thing, had it around and still functional up until 2006

 

[Technician]

I guess mine would have to be my first computer which was an old Power Mac 6100 I got when I was 5. My mother got it because it somehow stopped working and we got it working so she gave it to me since she had a machine. Loved that thing, had it around and still functional up until 2006

I remember those. They were great but very painful compared to modern PC.

 

[Reachable]

Of course I loved my six transistor radio and my record player, but when I think high tech I think of a Sanyo Cadnica Lite that came my way because probably someone gave it to my father in his travels, when I was about 12 or 13. That was so modern and futuristic looking. Little gizmos still look like that today, I think.

 

[Technician]

They still make those today but are no longer leading edge, they use halogen instead of LED still.
I remember getting a Casio calculator watch that seemed very **** Tracy back then.

Lol I can't use his first name. Richard Tracy doesn't sound right.

 

[captaincranky]

Nonetheless, we get the gist.

 

[mcborge]

2MB of RAM would have made you practically a god in the Atari / Commodore days! (y)

It had 8mb in total, very handy for memdisks but very expensive, back then a 1.5mb expansion card cost around 80 pounds.

 

[captaincranky]

It had 8mb in total, very handy for memdisks but very expensive, back then a 1.5mb expansion card cost around 80 pounds.

When I get into a store and get handed a bill like that, seemingly way out of proportion with the service or product I have been tendered, I suddenly blurt out, "OW MY A**". It seems to be an autonomic function, far beyond my mortal control...

 

[mcborge]

When I get into a store and get handed a bill like that, seemingly way out of proportion with the service or product I have been tendered, I suddenly blurt out, "OW MY A**". It seems to be an autonomic function, far beyond my mortal control...

He he! That's why I switched to the pc platform. People say piracy killed the amiga.. I think it was the cost of components that killed it and killed subsequent attempts to bring it back.

 

[Row1]

I remember when the first pocket calculators came out. They were LCD. I did not have one - they were not accepted as normal for school back then. Once the LCD pocket calculators came out, then everybody had one.

We could do stuff like type 0.7734, turn it up-side-down, and read "hello." That was awesome.

Soon after, the first handheld electronic football game came out - I never had one, I could only patiently wait to borrow a friend's.

But back then, in the early 1970s, Radio Shack had little electronic kits - so we made those kits, soldering the component connection wires together on the underside of whatever the mounting surface was - I can't remember now what the mounting surface was.

From that time, a bunch of gizmos started coming out. Remote control cars, the Simon game, etc. Back in the day, you almost literally could name all of the processor-dependent games, and many kids had nearly every one of them.

Then, we advanced to the 1980s, and Radio Shack had their home computer - TRS-80, and their Moog synthesizer - we would hang out at the Radio Shack and play with either as much as the employees would let us.

I guess you can tell that Radio shack was like the coolest place in the world. Maybe it was, after the skate park, back when Perelta was just beginning to skate for Powell, and they were not yet Powell-Perelta. [Yes, I am that old.]

 

[Technician]

Remember when Heathkit made tons of kits to build all kinds of cool gadgets? I remember riding bikes there and browsing for hours.

 

[Technician]

I just came across perhaps the first (low) tech gadget I had as a kid. I loved this thing:

It might be the first tool/toy that helped to inspire me to become a technician / fixer.