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Prefabricated plastic toys were common enough that parents complained that the toys they had as a child were better, but they were simple - you needed to use your imagination to have fun with them.

I don't know if I'd classify them as "simple". Perhaps, as you say, they were imagination-stimulating. Maybe more so than modern plastic toys, I haven't been the market for those yet, as my kid is only 18 months.

A few of mine from the 70s and 80s included:

• Big Trak. A "tank" that could be programmed to follow a predetermined path, with much trial and error needed to get the program to work properly on any given surface. Sophisticated and creative.
• System Seven. An "assault weapon" style toy with a propeller launcher, parachute launcher, "decoder" device, periscope. Sophisticated and perhaps role-play stimulating in concept. In practice there were only so many variations of sending secret messages to your friends 20 feet away by parachute capsule. Looked way cooler than it was.
• Dark Tower. Sophisticated and fun, but not really creative. If made today, I'm sure it would have some media tie-in.
• Microvision. A handheld electronic game with multiple game cartridges available. Featured a touchpad and knob, cartridges were also overlays to create custom keypads and also to augment the graphics. Not as technologically advanced as a game boy and its heirs, but no more creativity stimulating.
• Speak & Spell. It talked in a synthetic voice and taught spelling. Whether or not this was creative depends on your opinion about learning to spell. TI built this in part to create a market for its very sophisticated DSP chips
• Lite Brite. Been around longer than me. This one would be considered simple and potentially creative, although most kids (including me) just used the premade templates. Looks like you can still get new ones.
• Etch a Sketch. Simple for sure. Not quite building blocks simple. Lots of fun trying to make any particular image with the limitation that you couldn't lift the stylus and stop drawing and also by the very-difficult-to-make diagonal or curvy line. 50 years old this year! Still in production.

So, not all toys from the era were simple. And not all were creative toys. But some were both. I find it interesting that the less technologically advanced toys from that time -- and earlier -- are still in production. The more sophisticated ones, not so much.

You can use the rule of 72.

2% inflation is 100% compounded inflation every 36 years.
3% inflation is 100% compounded inflation every 24 years.

Electricity prices have roughly tripled (5.4 cents to 15.1 cents) in 22 years.
Hershey Bars have gone up 150% in 23 years. http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq5.html#restaurant
Milk is up over 150% ($1.98 to $5.50) since 1987. http://www.inthe80s.com/prices.shtml

Meanwhile using the "official" rates, $1.77 buys what $1 did in 1987.

The government just has too much vested interest in understating inflation. It raises veterans benefits, social security, and many other CPI based raises.

For example during Ghostbusters I could somehow feel that confusing anti-drug ad with skateboarders coming up.

You mean "Be An Original" listed here?

Actually, I wish they'd run some anti-drug PSAs against Lilly, Pfizer, GSK, Novartis, etc.

• Rubiks Magic Puzzle
  
• Speak and Spell/Read/Math
  
• Etch-a-Sketch Animator
  
• Ewok Village What star wars geek doesn't want that for their kids!
  

"The goal is to knock opponents over, or off of the combat platform. If a prone robot cannot stand back up in 10 seconds, it is eliminated."

I betcha I could win this contest with a suped up Alphie Jr.

I think the Radio Shack Armatron should be nominated if for no other reason because it was so accessible. And it was genuinely fun to play with -- albeit a little noisey!

Ben Goodger went to Auckland Grammar school, he was in my class

Hahaha. Reminds me of that old 'Oil of Olay' ad.

MAN: Emerson High, 1975. You were in my class.
WOMAN: I was your teacher.
MAN (astonished): Miss Fitzhenry...?
WOMAN: Bugsy Brown...

Anyone else remember that one?

I hope you're aware that that song is about completely different sort of gaming...

The tag line for the article is:
from the in-perfect-harmony dept.

So I assume Hemos was remembering the 1980s Band Aid concerts (warning: auto-playing MIDI crap). The song "Do they know it's Christmas?" hit the top of the UK charts in November 1984, and was at the top of the US charts soon after. The touching refrain was this:

Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time
Feed the world
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

What I didn't even think about, my senior year, was that the "they" we were congratulating ourselves on feeding, victims of a drought in Ethiopia, may not have known it was Christmas time at all for an entirely different reason. To wit, these stats:

Religions:
Muslim 45%-50%, Ethiopian Orthodox 35%-40%, animist 12%, other 3%-8%

So around 65% of the population would not even *celebrate* Christmas... and those that do, celebrate it on January 7th! And it's not a particularly important date, compared with Epiphany two weeks later.

Since much of the discussion of this topic centers on social questions and not "nerd" issues, I think it might be apropos to consider that one of the most well-known "feed the world" programs of its time based itself around a catchphrase that likely generated laughter and scorn among those it purported to help.

Old school? Stick with what you know, I say...

Yeah, the German version's better than the literal translation, but I think that the recorded English version that is better than the German.

Here's a comparsion

There are other versions as well.

Completely dating myself here, but...

I remember when the first time this happens and all the teachers at the elementary school I went to were so happy that a teacher was going up in space. They got the rest of us kids pumped up about it, and then brought out the TV so we could watch it live as it happened.

***BOOM***

I don't quite believe I knew I had just watched history in the making, but the teachers huge grins turned into dropped jaws very shortly, and then the television got turned off after they regained their composure. It wasn't a *big* deal for me, so I didn't really get upset.

I've heard once or twice since then that child psychologists had a field day trying to analyise the affects that this had across the nation on kids (much like the Oklahoma City/Murrah, and now 9/11 attacks... only those were much, much worse)

So, my question is, are the public classrooms going to have this on TV again? Odds of the same thing happening twice are remote at best, but still...

Hmm... quick Google search reveals this link that is interesting...

The big thing is that email is one of the "killer apps" of the Internet. Any anti-Spam solution has to be universal. I do not see micropayments for email ever being universal. This would mean that every single ISP across the globe would have to go to it to truly work.

Why does it have to be universal? And why does every single ISP have to do it?

Let's look at existing anti-SPAM measures, like MAPS and RFC-Ignorant. As such businesses like to point out, they are not a filter or censor - they are merely a list which individuals and groups may choose to use to filter their email. The same is even more true at the MUA level, where individuals may or may not use or implement filtering (such as SpamAssassin Pro)

Also, the need for it is not universal, so why need the solution be? How much is your time worth? Would it be worth it to you to charge - and be charged - a miniscule amount to have a reasonably clear email stream? How about your mother? How about the CEO of your company? Different people have different thresholds of need, and different willingness to pay and/or inconvenience their correspondents.

Systems already exist which automate the process of kicking unknown sender's mail back with instructions on how to overcome the block - again, it's something individuals choose to use today, without killing the "universal" nature of email.

And you do not get to the real question: How is micropayments for email not a step backwards.

It is a given that the problem with SPAM is that it costs the sender nothing, and there is no market restraint upon it. Therefore, I took it as a given that some form of cost is involved in the solution. You take that as a backwards step. I don't neccessarily agree - but I retain the right not to send people email if I don't feel they are worth dropping .001 cents on.

Not everything that is free is good, and not everything which costs is bad.

(You also decided not to touch upon the issue that a lot of people have problems with PayPal, the example you decided to use - these types of problems are always going to arise when it comes to a universal system involving people's money)

Of course not - because such problems are not unique to the Internet or Micropayments, but have existed since Ogg first required Mog to exchange clam shells for food. It is a given that such a system will either be regulated or not, and will either be trustworthy or not. It is also a given that even with the best controls, someone somewhere will get scalped someday, because humans suck.

It was called the Big Trak, and I think that's what was used to host the (currently /.ed) website.

Etch-A-Sketch made something just like this back in the 80's. It was called the Etch-A-Sketch Animator and as I recall, it sucked. Maybe they've got something better here, but I feel that for my money, you can't beat a tablet of paper and a 64 pack of Crayolas.

... seriously, look;

Old Easy Bake Oven
and
Modern Easy Bake Oven. It even has the same color, purple !

I wonder if Hasbro will sue.