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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trak ?

edit: oh boy, relevant patents are expired, there's a hacker community and everything. This looks like a delightful rabbit hole.

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Hah! Yes, that's it. Thank you!

oh boy, relevant patents are expired, there's a hacker community and everything.

It would be fun to build a modern version of this, with an Arduino or Rpi or something providing the "brains", and with some input sensors (ultrasonic distance sensor, camera, etc). But instead of just having the input buttons on top, you could also program it over the network (or USB) using a real programming language.

I guess that wouldn't be much different though, than some of the other low-end experimental robotics platforms that are out there?

Yeah, it sounds a lot like Lego Mindstorms.

I always wanted a Mindstorms set, but somehow have never gotten around to acquiring one. One of these days...

Today there are the Programming Journey Robots from Terrapin. My spouse uses the simplest, the Bee-Bot, in her kindergarten classroom. She wrote a grant to get about 15 of them. They use Terrapin's Logo and are much loved by her students.

https://www.terrapinlogo.com/products/robots.html

J Bull Electrical in England used to sell "Big Trak Gearboxes", the little plastic gearboxes with two motors, for a few pounds for *years*. For all I know they still do. Their website is as full of bizarre stuff as their magazine ads used to be - from random bags of components to Sinclair C5 motors to the aforementioned gearboxes to Chinese Army air rifles which were so powerful you needed a firearms cert for them even back in the comparatively lax 1980s!

I'm glad to see they're still on the go. Their adverts in Wireless World and Television were a great source of wonder for my geeky friends and I when I was at school some 30-odd years ago, and finding they're still as batshit as ever has cheered me up no end.

Now I wonder if Display Electronics ever shifted those 9" bare chassis Microvitec colour monitors from National Air Traffic Control, or indeed their deactivated heat-seeking missiles?

Is this the same place?

https://www.bullybeef.co.uk/

If so, they remind me a bit of outfits like American Science & Surplus, or Electronics Goldmine. Real eclectic collection of bizarre and weird stuff. :-)

That's the one. Mad, isn't it? They used to take out full-page ads with their surplus electronics and air rifles and bike tyres and ghods alone know what else.

The Contents sidebar has a category for "CARNIVEROUS".

Edit: Also "NUCLEAR", "PUB GAMES", "RADIOSONDE", and of course "FART BOMBS".

Curse you GP, for another rabbit hole.

Edit edit: Oh and "TRUTH".

Edit3: One more and I'll stop: "water resistant alarm chrono digital watches with built in refillable gas lighter!"

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