I think a friend or relative had had one. Pretty sure I lost interest in it rather quickly. Wanted far more by that age, which didn't exist within the realm of "toys." But I've always wanted things to be the best they could be, which they never are.
> A friend of mine was cleaning out his mother's house and found an old toy. > I always wanted one.
I want to say it looks familiar, but I don't think I've seen it in person. I most likely saw it while drooling over the Sears Wishbook.
I did have The Animal back in the day. It wasn't cool and programmable like this thing, but it was a monster truck with claws that shot out of the tires. I wasn't big on subtlety as a kid.
I had a Big Trak and the Big Dump (or whatever the other part was called) back in the 70's. I played with it a lot, but the front suspension arm on mine eventually broke between the wheels, which basically killed it. Incidentally, the Big Dump accessory used to sell for large sums of money on Ebay since they were much rarer than the Big Trak itself. Sadly, I tossed both back when I was a kid after the Big Trak broke and gluing the broken suspension part didn't hold.
> A friend of mine was cleaning out his mother's house and found an old toy. > I always wanted one.
Big Trak, thought that sounded familiar...
Never owned one but it was mentioned in plans on how to build a robot that I read the crap out of (and never got around to it, I should fix that one of these days)
Yup You would use the number keypad to program it using the arrow keys and numbers to go so far and be able to turn and stuff. Haven't seen those since they came out.
> I had a Big Trak and the Big Dump (or whatever the other part was called) back in the > 70's. I played with it a lot, but the front suspension arm on mine eventually broke > between the wheels, which basically killed it. Incidentally, the Big Dump accessory > used to sell for large sums of money on Ebay since they were much rarer than the Big > Trak itself. Sadly, I tossed both back when I was a kid after the Big Trak broke and > gluing the broken suspension part didn't hold. > > From a quick google, it appears that they brought the Big Trak back in 2010... > http://www.bigtrakisback.com/ > > I always had a dream of taking this lego set, adding another set of wheels and a > motor kit and making my own Big Trak.
I had that, and a motor kit of the same era. The motor couldn't move the car, but I did get it to propel a two-legged walker using the gears and other "expert" (this was before they named it "technic") parts. Balance of course through extending bits past the center from the feet.
Oh yes! I used to have a Big Trak! I didn't have the loader attachment but it was awesome to use. It also gave me a head start in programming in LOGO. :-)
--Bekki
Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!
> I had forgotten all about the Big Trax until seeing the picture. I was never > interested in it though as a kid. I was more interested in my Big Loader
Oh man, totally had that. As I recall it was fun to set it up and get it going, but it got boring quick because it wasn't very interactive. The little trucks just kind of did their thing and that was it.
Quote: Oh man, totally had that. As I recall it was fun to set it up and get it going, but it got boring quick because it wasn't very interactive. The little trucks just kind of did their thing and that was it.
Big Loader was an awesome set! It was quite limited to what you could modify its course into. But it was still fun watching it all work.
The board game "Mouse Trap" was also fun for similar reasons: Build it all and then spring it all into motion.
--Bekki
Combating functional illiteracy with latex-clad drama since the '80s, because old video games rule!