Slashdot Mirror
Low Tech Toys?
hypertex asks: "Remember those cardboard tubes you used to look through and see all patterns the crystals produced? I've been looking for a kaleidoscope (for my 3-yr old) and no brick and mortar retailer seems to carry them. Even finding an knowledgeable employee was difficult. Walmart, Toys R Us, Kay Bee, Discovery and Disney stores are just a few to 'just say no' or 'it's too low tech' How can something so simple fade into obscurity? What else is gone?" What are some of the toys that have such a universal appeal that they should never be removed from the shelves? What toys surprised you when they fell into obscurity and what items have shocked you by their ability to stay on the shelves?
they removed the NES
If it was hard to write it should be hard to read.
You can never get a better toy than an action figure. Or better yet, a Transformer/Voltron type of thing. Robots rule.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
The real question is, why would you want to give one to a 3 year old? They can't close just one eye at a time, making it hard to use. Worse, it contains glass and small parts (==choking hazards). Not safe for children, dude, how did your child even survive this long?
I bet most people who read slashdot regularly have heard of Go. But when I was in New York over the summer, none of the big huge retail stores carried a board! Grrrr.
Crackpot theory:
The reason stores don't carry kaleidescopes anymore is that they're not under patent or copyright, and so no one can overprice them. If one company started selling it, another company would sell them for less, until you approached the cost of production. If toys started selling for $1 or $2 for something fun and lasting, stores would cannibalize their own sales. (And profit percentages.)
End crackpot theory.
Remember those cardboard tubes you used to look through
Any cardboard tube that came from wrapping paper, paper towels, whatever, became a light saber. Too bad they broke so quickly.
Little yellow squares of construction paper glued to bigger red pieces of construction paper taped around our wrists so we could be Space Ghost.. that was great. I think I reached my creative peak there, probably because I became distracted by the glue.
Lawn darts (way before congress banned them). Now that I think of the games we played, it was probably good that those went...
This Christmas I am Passing on My fathers erector sets. YEs Connex Is out there But Nothing compares to the steel Case, Steeel Parts, And Open moters for fun and education. Not to mention It develops an attion span longer than your next kill In a video game.
If you're having problems finding it in a brick and mortar, buy it on ebay. Trust me, if it exists you can find it on ebay eventually. I'm positive that something as common as a kaleidoscope will be available on ebay. Here are 544 listing on ebay right now... It shouldn't be a huge surprise that some things go out of fashion for a while.
Here in the Portland, OR area, there are OPB Knowledge stores, and Hobby stores, and a couple of "educational" toy stores that have kalidescopes, microscopes, telescopes, chem labs, those foam dinosaurs that you put in water, sea monkeys, etc. Just a thought... That's where you should be shopping for your kids anyway... KB is just one cheap plastic piece of crap after another... (except the new transformers, which are surprisingly hard...)
it's low-tech, but enjoyable!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I have been searching for some old-fashion toys recently myself, for old-time's sake. I have noticed that the big department chains don't even carry those anymore. In fact, they have little beside the highly advertised hot items.
Then I paid a visit to my local dollar stores. Although I haven't being able to find the particular items I was looking for, I did found quiet a few other old-time favorites that I though have gone extinct.
On a side note, you can easily make a kaleidoscope with easy-to-find items... a paper towel tube, 3 reflective serfaces, and some beads coloured paper, and you get yourself a nice new toy. May even be a lot making it with your kids instead of just buying them.
Try Ebay. You may even fine a really nice one there and not a cheap $2 cardboardone.
You just have to know where to look. Most of the stores that cary more educational toys cary at least one model of kaleidoscope. You can even find places that will sell fancy kaleidoscopes with interchangable glass tubes filled with oil and whatever the other stuff is that falls by the window to create the paterns. I'm not sure if you can still find the inexpensive ones that don't use glass, but kaleidoscopes are definetely an excellent toy. Good luck in your search.
There's no sig like SIGSEG
Not everything .. like used underwear, where am I supposed to buy used underwear? Seriously, the list of prohibited items is lengthy and at times somewhat disturbing. (I'd link to it but they javascripted their help -- look to eBay policy if interested.)
Hello, McFly!
Personally, I'm amazed at the shelf life of the Britany Spears' albums.
Why not make your own kaleidoscope? Get an empty toilet roll tube, tape up one end, fill it with pieces of coloured broken glass. Job done.
Make sure your kid looks down into it though rather than holding it up to the light.
Try your local dollar store. Usually in 'toys' or in the party section (in which case they'll be in a bag of 4 or 6). Dollar stores are great for 'old style' toys. Bought some kazoos recently, too.
Another place is science museum shops; they have some nice ones for $3 or less that are tiny but have a big eyehole.
A.
...was always enough for me.
... they must be old-fashioned, they don't seem to have a website) and the like. Unfortunately, they have higher prices.
;-) But the best toys are the ones that "made it" -- my kids play with my old Brio train set, which is a wonder of simplicity, and free.
Yeah, my kids didn't believe me either.
Part of the fun of having kids is getting to regress. I love these old unstructured toys that don't break and don't trap you into ding the same thing over and over ad nauseum. Unfortunately I think many have fallen victim to higher labor costs and the demand for greater margins.
We've emphasized low tech toys (no batteries is ideal) and it hasn't been to hard too find them, especially as these toys have enjoyed a sort of yuppie renaissance. The main problem I have is with the expanding use of plastic and declining quality of the toys, like Lincoln Logs just aren't the same now.
So the higher end toy stores like Zany Brainy and Imaginarium (regional?) have a higher proportion of sturdy, imagination-driven toys like blocks and alphabet jigsaw puzzles (I like the Lights, Camera, Interaction! line available everywhere, even our Borders bookstore
Of course, you can always take refuge in the internet.... Hey, anyone know why they discontinued Weeble Wobbles?
What else is gone?
Gyroscopes! Simple, cheap, die-cast gyroscopes. There's not a store within 50 miles of my place that sells them. (And a few guys I talked to didn't even know what the hell they were)
Such amazing little widgets, too.
=Smidge=
I think they still sell that child-torture toy where you squeeze a dab of multicolored rubbery goo out of a toothpaste tube and put it on the end of a short red straw and are supposed to blow it up into a bubble.
Whenever I tried doing that as a kid, I would blow on that straw so hard, I'd get an earache, headache and feel dizzy from breathing in the fumes.
I never did get a bubble.
Goddamn, I still hate that friggin' toy.
Jesus saves....And takes 1/2 damage.
--I remember my favs from the 5 and dime, when stuff actually costed a 5 or dime... hmm, slingshots, 10 cents, pack 0 trading cards with gum, a nickle, capbombs, those where cool, open the heavy end, insert one cap, close, throw, they come down, bang, great sport, marbles, would actually play for deadly serious keepsies, jackknives were good -hmm a trend here, politically incorrect toys sorta phased out a little, balsa wood gliders, the expensive ones were a whole quarter with the wind up rubber band props- now a few higher end price wise, upto the few buck range- jump ropes, clamp on roller skates, wooden boomerangs, mad scientist kits with mr lizard on the box, the invisible dude, then it got to be heathkits and shotguns and then cars and then GIRLS and all bets went off, stuff costed serious lawn mowing and snow shoveling and fruit picking and then real job money.
Walmart, Toys R Us, Kay Bee, Discovery and Disney stores are just a few to 'just say no' or 'it's too low tech' How can something so simple fade into obscurity?
Because people equate Walmart, etc. with reality. Of this list, I'm a bit surprised that Discovery didn't have them, but the others... what do you expect? Good heavens, kaleidoscopes are not hard things to find, but maybe Walmart isn't the best place to look. Or are there any other stores left in your town?
I typed in "erector set" in Google and naturally got dozens of hits for sexual dysfunction.
Check out Erector World. And for nostalgic toy types generally, there's Yesterday Land.
Awsome staying power for what is essentially a spring...
I've always had an urge to get a giant one and let it walk down a step pyramid or similar structure...
It's not that I'm Anti-American - I'm Pro-Freedom
but that wasn't a troll.
Timely article. I love this place:)
http://www.kaleidoscopesusa.com
They're a bit pricey.
Has always fascinated me with how simple, addictive, and satifing it is, especially whne you consider it's essentially two lathed pieces of wood and some string. Make up your own rules and wham, bam, thank you ma'am - you've got a great game.
At first I though kids nowadays wouldn't get it, being used to fancy-ass electrical toys. I brought one to the Camp where I work - bunch of well-off kids - one found it on my bed, played with it, and within a week they were making them in arts and crafts. They were hooked for the rest of the summer...Funny how things that are popular always seem to swing back into usage.
Cue The Sun...
Pick a toy, any toy. Take the toy out of the box. Play with the box.
Then there were the times your parents got a major appliance, and you got a really big box you could play inside, instead of play with. Or the time a friend's father brought home a telephone-booth box.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Try a locally-owned toy store, or toy catalogs such as Hearthsong. The Vermont Country Store catalog also has some "old" toys.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
you wouldn't happen to be a pet detective with a monkey, would you?
If there is a children's museum or hands-on science museum near try that. I know they have some kaleidoscopes at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, for example.
Liberty uber alles.
Just buy the kid a Gameboy Advance and make him happy.
Incredible Kaleidescope art! I've seen one in a gallery. Mind blowing.
...good times with the Big Bag O' Glass. To bad they took that off the market.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
You were in a small store. You should find a Walmart Supercenter that is in the top 10 of the district, You wont know you are in the top 10 till you notice the store has things other stores dont. (The buyers tend to send items that they are testing market on to the biggest stores in the districts and they also seem to send stuff they cant sell anywhere else to the bigger store.) I work at one of the larger stores, just last week our store's sales hit the highest in the Texas district.
Over beside the vision center they carry educational toys including the smithsonian stuff. You should locate the telescopes and that expanding plastic ball thing, that is where the klidescope would be at. Other interesting things i have seen there are First electric guitar (and amp), First acoustic guitar, desktop rock garden (im considering getting this one sometime). Several other things appear there, i just dont remember them
DRACO-
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
The real question is, why would you want to give one to a 3 year old? They can't close just one eye at a time, making it hard to use.
That's nuts. If your three year old can't close just one eye, it's probably because no one has shown them how. If you make a game of it I'll bet they'll have it down in a week.
-- MarkusQ
If they have them in your area, CrackerBarrel has all sorts of things like that; gyroscopes, lots of wood toys, etc.
(In case you don't know, they're restraunts often found at the edge of town and always near an interstate).
-- MarkusQ
When I was younger (I'm 16 right now), we had a box or two of Lincoln Logs. I loved building elaborate stuff with them, then taking a makeshift "cannon" out of a bunch of crap around the house, and then finding the best point to take out the Lincoln Logs. Just be sure to use the wooden ones, since the plastic ones don't have the imperfections and don't make cool noises when they fall down.
Legos are always fun. Don't get the crappy sets that take forever to put together and then you don't want to take it apart when you're finished. Just get the small little boxes and build up a collection again. I've still got somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 Legos! The programmable robot thingy (I'm working on setting it up in Linux with C or Java) is good fun, especially when it scares the cat!
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
Why don't you and your three-year-old sit down and make one yourself? It'll be an useful educational project.
If you're concerned about safety, I'm sure you can get plastic mirrors. Stick three mirrors into a triangular (cross-section) tube, close both ends with transparent plastic after putting bits of colorful translucent stuff, like spangles or something inside.
Not only do you have a fairly cheap toy, but loads of fun and some insight into how multiple reflections work.
And you get the immense satisfaction of screwing the toys cartel.
Hehe 'i'd link to it but they javascripted their help' -- at the bottom of the page says:
;)
Address of this page: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/items-ov.html
Anyways, explains why i can never find fireworks on ebay
sig? uhh, umm, ok
Do they still have the Sears and J.C. Penny's Holiday Catalogs? I remember STUDYING those damn things for hours and days; circling and intialing the things that peaked my interest. I never did get that train I wanted even though I circled it every year.
Some Toy's of yester year. Even the ones that are still around aren't really the same. Actually, can you just buy lego blocks anymore?
* Erector Set's
* Lego Blocks
* Match Box Cars and the race tracks.
* Marbles (golly, I liked marbles)
* Tonka Trucks
* Adventure People
* My first ball glove (not my older brother's hand-me-down)
* Domino Rally
Yo-yos. Still around and companies like Duncan make money on marketing alone. Green army men. Those little plastic guys. They got a resurgance with Toy Story but any big toy store carries these all the time.
Get off my lawn.
Dude, it's /usr/lib/xscreensaver/kaleidescope.
.c to draw them in.
(Perhaps your locate.db is corrupt?) I give kudos to your low tech tastes; kaleidescope doesn't even -lgl --- a real antique! They don't make toys like they used to, do they?
I'm not sure I got what you meant about a paper tube and bits of crystal, but it's all OSS so I'm sure you can hack the
- undoware.ca
How about just plain old Legos? It is becoming increasingly hard to find a simple bucket of regular colored *non-themed* Legos. Instead we have the commercialized Star Wars and Harry Potter Lego sets all over the place. Sure, you can still use those sets to build whatever you want (especially after you mix them and lose a lot of the pieces like I did when I was little), but when I eventually have kids I would still like to be able to hand them a plain set of colored block and have them go out it with their own imagination, rather than have them be influenced by what the latest movie craze is...
...what they do in SOVIET RUSSIA.
-- Mod me down. I am not a karma tart. ffs,gag
Actually, used underwear can be found in vending machines in Japan. Here is one page that mentions it. Search google and you'll find more references. I heard on a television program that they are as cheap as $7 US. Not sure if that's a good price or not - never been in the used underwear market myself.
All toys are low tech and they are YOU.
I got my nephew a good quality set of nice weighty hemlock pictur/letter/number blocks one christmas.
He soon realised that it was far more fun to chuck the things against the plasterboard wall to see the funny shaped dents they made.
If you want low tech, you might as well make them yourself. Toy manufactuerers tend to stay away from anything with any longevity for the obvious reasons.
Books, a computer, drawing/writing materials, magnifying glass, and some stuff for exercise like a bike or skateboard, etc.
Oh and if you care about your child that much, I wouldnt go near public education. Home tutoring would be my bet, funds permitting.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
Not affiliated, YYY. But they are a good place to find toys and tools of all techs. Like, for example, wooden tops, those magnetic wheels on bent wire handles, chaos kits, etc.
--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
Hmm, I would like to see attribution of a few of these, like "Japanese people, in general, can't drive very well."
But I looked quickly and found a secondary reference on the underwear issue. A-ha.
And, if I may volunteer an American reaction, yuck. Not that we Americans don't have our equivalents.
Apparently gref is not close enough to href for these anal computers:
secondary reference
It's a new market niche!
1. Make your own used underwear out of new underwear.
2. Buy www.usedunderwear.com
3. ???
4. Profit!
They've been around forever, and I suspect they always will be, despite how much the anti-gun folks want to ban them.
I must admit that I am thankfull that they're not commonly made to resemble real weapons anymore.
One can buy Lego blocks in bulk, this is due more to the people who use them for artistic purposes rather than toys.
There is a set (Mechanix?) that is similar to the old Erector sets, I think it is more popular in EU.
Speaking of stuff that's gone -- I've bought a half-dozen major appliance these last few years and seen not a sign of a box. I'm fairly sure they didn't have them on the truck either. I do remember them when I was a kid. What happened? It's not fair!
Imagine the maze you could build with a few dozen of these.
Of course what I really want is to do a cornfield or strawbale maze. As you can see from the link, country people take these seriously. Alas, I live near the city, and can't see doing a good maze on our 1/8 acre, except maybe one for mice.
Dollar Stores, and other clearance stores can be good for classic / lo tech toys.
What the heck happened to Big Wheels? I went to ToysRUs to get one for my daughter, and couldn't find them. Found PowerWheels all over the place, but I'd like my hyperactive kid to at least get *some* pedalling exercise. I know there's a high end one that's made by the folks who make scooters and runt-bikes...but what about the good ol' plastic tires/plastic seats kind?
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
To be practical, you have to stock Monopoly. People will come in asking for it, and probably not come back if your stock is that lame. Never mind it's a lousy game, it's popular. So price control could have some sting.
;-)
In the States, requiring a single product be sold at list is lately not per se price fixing. There is a market power line crossed where monopoly concerns kick in, in Hasbro's case that might be because multiple products were involved. (I don't know squiddle about British law, and see the Hasbro investigation was under a new year 2000 law so maybe the British don't yet fully know what it means, either. Certainly it could be stricter, as our law once was.)
One story reports, "The maker of Monopoly is being accused of monopolising the board games market through price-fixing." I.e., monopolizing not just Monopoly (ha-ha), but the board game market, and possibly other toy products. They control a number of popular games including Monopoly, Pictionary, Twister, and who could forget, My Little Pony? (Never heard of it.) Pressuring retailers not to discount with or without an MSRP could also be price-fixing, as (I think) it's just another way to attempt to vertically integrate the market. There are many manufacturer-retailer relationship on everything from price to shelf space. I don't think they're necessarily in the interest of the consumer, but it's a fact of life.
YMMV. The news accounts of the Hasbro action are sketchy and contradictory -- how unusual for the general press.
Here's a snippet about Hasbro getting into pricing trouble in the U.S., here allegedly colluding with other toy manufacturers and Toys"R"Us. Again I can't quite figure out what happened from the story, but imagine Google sould clear that up.
The dark underbelly of the toy business.
Interesting that retailers sometimes complained about too much margin. Such is our love of a great deal.
A prominent allow-no-discount company here is Bose, the speaker mfr.
Bart checks the decrepit old Spirograph[tm] factory. A lone man plays with a Spirograph on a slanted desk.
Bart: Yo, Dr. S: have you seen Milhouse today?
Dr. S: No.
Bart: OK, thanks. [starts to leave]
Dr. S: Wait: did you know that there's a direct correlation between the decline of Spirograph and the rise in gang activity? Think about it.
Bart: I will. [walks off]
Dr. S: No you won't. [goes back to drawing]
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
How about good quality, wooden, metal toys for that matter. Everything seems to be made the cheapest way now, plastic. I find this tough to comprehend. I am only 16 and I see my brother (9) playing with cheap plastic toys for only a few months, meanwhile, he has had hand-me-downs from myself for the past 7 years. The world is shifting toward "easy", "fast", "quantity" rather than "quality", this is dissapointing.
Well, for those readers in Seattle, there's an awesome place I found for all the great old school stuff. Imagination Toys, there's one in Wallingford Center, and I believe in Ballard. They have everything, Legos, Brio trains, kaliaedescopes, costume stuff, educational toys, they have the WORKS.
It's like all the quality stuff from my childhood crammed into one place. It rocks.
1. Metal Tonka Trucks
2. A decent Generic lego Set...they used to sell
like 300+ piece generic lego sets I can't find these any place now.
3. Tinker toys...Kinda like wooden konentix(sp?) but much cooler.
4. Bristle Blocks
5. Crystal Climbers
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Most webcam girl sites will sell you used underwear. They're not much of a bargain. Usually they cost more than the new stuff! Go figure.
Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
I didn't need to look through the cardboard tube to appreciate the effect of the crystals... and anyhow, it was stuffed with fabric softener so that the people in the dorm hallway couldn't smell us out.
As a kid I loved the Edmund Scientifics catalog (thanks to my grandparents) and guess what... they do indeed have a website.
I spent a total of five minutes and found gyroscopes, gears, pulleys
If ES is too high-tech, there's a great site dedicated to "Science Toys You Can Make wWith Your Kids". Instructions on building kaleidoscopes can be found there.
Oh hell, or just look here
tHope I'm not too late posting here..Hawkin's Bazaar here in the UK sell all manner of low-tech toys, and will ship internationally (although it may be wise to club together with some friends & buy a load of stuff & split the postage)
Matt
I'm amazed to see He-Man and Cabbage Patch Kids making a comeback. But, I guess with the new He-Man series and that fact that Cabbage Patch are good alteratives for traditional baby dolls, it shouldn't surprise me too much. G.I.Joe, considering that the new toys look stupid and that there is no cartoon airing; it surprises me to see those on the shelves. Really though, there will always be those couple hot toys per year, but any kid could latch onto one brand for their own mysterious reasons. And if one kid latches on, all his/her friends may follow soon after. Parents know how that works: "Mom, Kevin's got one; I need one to be cool." I had a LOT of toys as a kid in the 80s, but I was pretty focused on Tonka trucks, Matchbox and Hotwheels, Transformers and Gobots, Star Wars and G.I.Joe, Lincoln Logs and Construx. And of course I used to merge Star Wars and Joe armies and build their forts with Lincoln Logs (fun to crash vehicles into!) and Construx (you could build wicked towers and forts!). I just bought Lincoln Logs for my little newphew, knowning that he could use them with his Rescue Heroes and Bob The Builder toys. He already stopped playing with my old Tonka trucks I passed to him. The last "toy" of my childhood though, was a model train table (HO scale), all custombuilt by me and my father; that is quite a bond builder between father and son; expensive habbit though. I have tons of Star Wars items from then and the current run that I'm willing to sell, if anybody is interested (packaged and not packaged, but all complete and in fair to very excellent condition).
Here in New Zealand. Since it's Christmas, I'll organise them for anyone who needs them - I'll even send them to you wherever you are. Drop me a message and we'll get in touch.
:-)
DISCLAIMER: While this is a serious offer, I'm not really interested in getting into the Kalidescope export business. Offer is good for the first 20 people only
...I really miss all the "old" toys. I love me some computer-y gadgets, but nothing beats: * Kaleidoscopes * Etch-e-sketch (AND those little film things you put over for like mazes and games) * Legos, especially my old castle set. I'd give worlds for that now. All it was was lego blocks, lego knights, lego horses, a draw bridge, and stuff to make wagons with. Gaaaaah...I wish I could have that back. I'd play with it every week. * Those glow peg thingies. Lite Brite? * Those water tic-tac-toe games, where you filled it with water, and tried to get all the balls in a row. * Variants on the Rubix cube. * all those fun things at the science stores, like magnetic balls, and gyroscopes, and perpetual motion thingies. *sigh* The Good Ol' Days of playtime. I must be like, a geek, or something, but I really wish I had those things again. And board games like Sorry, Go to the Head of the Class, Mouse Trap, Life, And this hippo game I had where you basically played volleyball with these plastic piggy/hippo things that poofed air, and you blew these little light styrofoam balls back and forth. Sort of whiffleball or something? I don't remember what it was called, but it was fun.
Bah.
Getting a microscope or telescope, or chem lab from any toy store is a serious let down. Even as a kid, you just don't know how bad you've been ripped off yet. But you figure it out later.
If either of the first two cost you less than $500 each, you have been taken. And I don't recall them letting kids play with bottles of NaOH, or nitrate toluene, or perform extractions with dichloromethane.
If you want to really educate your child, quit treating them like a child and respect the fact that their capacity for learning is much much greater than your own. Get them some real equipment, train them how to use it, then let the real learning begin.