 Do you remember wanting an Etch A Sketch? It seemed so magical, you would twiddle these two knobs and image would appear on its screen. Then you could shake it and the image you had just etched would disappear, letting you create a new masterpiece. In practice it was incredibly difficult to use, with one knob controlling vertical movement and the other, horizontal. You couldn’t lift the “pen” off the “page” so everything had to be one continuous line, and good luck trying to draw anything that wasn’t a vertical or horizontal line. The Ohio Art Company released the Etch A Sketch in 1960, invented by André Cassagnes, and has gone on to sell over 100 million units world wide. An updated digital Etch A Sketch was released in 1987, one that hoped to capture part of the current electronic toy boom, the Etch A Sketch Animator. It had a low resolution mono dot matrix display, 40x30 pixels. Enough memory to hold 12 images, which could be strung together in any order for an up to 96 frame animation, It kept the two control knobs and added a few face buttons on the bezel to control drawing and selecting functions. There was also a beeper that made different pitched noises as you moved the on screen “pen” around. A year later a larger more advanced version was released, named the Etch A Sketch Animator 2000, making it from the “future”. Created by James Wickstead Design Associates and sold by Ohio Art Company. The Animator 2000 launched for $139.99, the same price as a 1988 discounted Commodore 64. This grey moulded plastic device, resembled an open laptop, with a giant touchpad and no keyboard. Weirdly the screen was fixed at an angle, lacking a hinge, making it large and unwieldy. The resolution increased from the previous Animator model to 60x40 pixels, and with 196KB of memory it could store 22 images along with an up to 99 frame animation built up from those images. There was a stylus for the Magic Touchpad, along with a few buttons it replaced the knob controls. Making drawing with it much easier. It made the same cute annoying beeps as the Animator did when drawing. It took 6x AA batteries allowing it to be portable, and with it having a cartridge slot, it predates the $89.99 GameBoy as a portable gaming device. Portable gaming device?!?! I hear you ask inquisitively. There were four cartridges available, a Memory cart with a battery, for saving your creations, and an extensive library of just three games. Putt-Nuts, a 2 player fun, 18 hole mini golf game. Overdrive, a speedy car racing game, reminiscent of Pole Position. And Fly By, an ambitions flight simulator game created by Todd Marshall. All controlled by the stylus and a combination of buttons. Each cartridge was available for $29.99. This unusual device had some great ideas, but failed on the execution. If you get the chance do try one. The games are quite fun, and creating simple pixel art animations has a real charm about it. - Asobi Quang DX March 2021 Back |