[E's Lil Theorem]

Between the ages of 4 and 10, my favorite toy was my Tonka truck. I had a few other cars just like the Tonka, but nothing topped it. Oh, my soccer ball was a favorite as well. Between those ages, I hardly ever left the house without my soccer ball.

[entrox]

Lego was definitely my favorite. I still keep them around and occasionally fool around with my Lego Technic stuff. Recently I constructed a 3-speed automatic transmission with it, but unfortunately the old 9V motor doesn't have enough torque to switch gears. You can never grow out of (the older) Lego.. you can only build more sophisticated stuff with it

The other big "toy" was my Atari ST, which I got at age 9. It marked my entry into the computing world and probably influenced me too much. Heck, my iPod is full of C64, Amiga and Atari tunes... those were the times...

[DeathMan]

Legos is a perfectly legitimate plural for Lego. Everyone I know says Legos. (Except the snobs, I guess)

I had lots of legos, he-man guys, some linkin-logs, some star wars guys, like one transformer (the black and purple star-scream), and near the end, some TMNT.

Good times. I guess. Actually childhood was pretty lame. I wish my parents would have put my in Karate or Piano or something useful. No biggie. There's lots of time to learn that stuff.

[CreepingDeth]

Damn, Legos were more popular than I thought.

The thing I thought I was pretty good at was taking totally unrelated sets and make them work. Example: Anyone remember those old ones that had the skis in space and stuff? I messed around with em until around 2000, with all the Samurai people. Very different from way back when (94 I think). I could make these completely different thing and integrate them, and somehow manage to come up with something that didn't look like total crap (tacky, gaudy, poorly assembled, just plain ugly, etc.)



If the kids are having fun, that's fine with me. I also built for making things with symmetry and consistency. I really planned out those things when I built them. "Ok, so there are about 4 parts to this. Divide them into 2 congruent sides." Then I'd go measure up the little stub things on the top, find the matching pieces, put it together, take it apart, and redo it. I always knew where to put the pieces. Although after I finished it (May 2000), It was so ****ing huge that you needed to separate segments to reach in to fix something. And those Legos were sharp! I got an ass load of scratches reaching in there. The funny part is how it turned out. I started out with this shitty little mountain with a crapper on the top next to a computer. By the time I was done, you couldn't even see it. I just kept building up stuff.

That eventually lead me into doing a brief time doing architecture (Georgian houses are the best ). That lasted maybe one year.

And here I am now.

The good ol days.



Funny, that was also the only time I liked sports. I was really good at Taekwondo back in the days. I was on the Olympic team. Spent my whole summer training for Jr. Nationals and I got 4th place. Of course there were people about 3 years older than me competing so no surprise.

If I ever had enough money, I'd use about $1000 to buy an ass load of Legos and stock pieces and make some crazy crap.

[JHromadka]

Legos and Transformers. Accept no imitations.

[paully dub]

I had all the usual stuff, but the two biggies were:

The GI Joe aircraft carrier. Basically the last big action figure toy purchase. All the little Joes were involved, including friends' ones.

The five lion Voltron set. I still get chills thinking about it.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally posted by E's Lil Theorem:
Between the ages of 4 and 10, my favorite toy was my Tonka truck. I had a few other cars just like the Tonka, but nothing topped it. Oh, my soccer ball was a favorite as well. Between those ages, I hardly ever left the house without my soccer ball.

It's about time somebody finally mentions the Tonka truck. I had the whole set in the backyard sand-box. when I was wasn't building things with Tonka my best friend and I would be playing Army with the little green soldiers (a la Toy Story). I also rode my bike *everywhere*; I still do as it turns out. We would play frisbee or throw the ball back and forth or play with his older brother's Atari unit.

I did so many things every single day it was awesome. And then my Dad walked out on the family on Christmas Day one year and my world (for the next dozen years or so) turned to complete SH|T. Ahh, good times while they lasted.

I gotta go with Lego. Still collect some today, although I seem to buy more than I have space to display. Mostly Star Wars sets. I have a Star Destroyer just itchin' to get built.

BTW, calling it Legos is like calling your computer MAC. It's Lego*. No 's'.







*if you really want to nitpick it's Lego bricks, but I don't know anyone who calls it that.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Lego was also a big favorite of mine and my friends, but I was never in to building the set on the box. We'd prefer to come up with our own things instead. Examples included some rather ingenious safes, a working Tracy Island (the swimming pool was retracted by use of hydraulics made out of surgical syringes), and a particularly violent lego "bomb" which was designed to explode when you dropped it on the floor from upstairs. That one got me into some trouble because what I was dropping it on was a nice oak parquet floor. This was in the 1970s, well before Lego had its technical sets. The most sophisticated parts we had access to were gears.

I was also pretty into my various Dinky Gerry Anderson vehicles -- especially the Space 1999 Eagle Transporters, UFO Interceptor, etc. Those are worth a bit of money now, but not in the condition I left them in.

Another toy I wish I still had was a really nice metal pedal car made like a Jaguar E Type roadster.

Other play didn't involve much in the way of toys. I grew up in an English village so my friends and I had endless fun constructing secret forts by tunneling into thousand year old hedges. The fun was that those hedges were so dense that you were totally camouflaged once inside.

[xi_hyperon]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I was also pretty into my various Dinky Gerry Anderson vehicles -- especially the Space 1999 Eagle Transporters, UFO Interceptor, etc. Those are worth a bit of money now, but not in the condition I left them in.

I still have a Space 1999 Eagle Transporter in my attic. It's not in perfect shape but I didn't damage it as much as I did some of my other toys. I actually forgot about that until I read your post.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by xi_hyperon:
I still have a Space 1999 Eagle Transporter in my attic. It's not in perfect shape but I didn't damage it as much as I did some of my other toys. I actually forgot about that until I read your post.

Yeah, that was a cool space ship. I remember vividly when I first saw it. It was in 1974, a few months before the show came out. I saw it in a toy shop window and thought it was the coolest looking thing with its Gemini windows, and sort of bolted-together, only-flies-in-space look. It was love at first sight.

I also had a complete set of Space 1999 action figures, bellbottoms and all. I wonder how much those would be worth now -- if I still had them.

[Doc Juansinn]

Damn! Lots of Lego lovers in here.

First I had a Big Wheel. It was great. I don't know how, but eventually it broke in half.

Lincoln Logs came next. I never did have enough to make the structures I had in mind, but it was fun anyway.

Then came the GI Joe stuff. I mean the REAL GI Joe - the big one with lots of cool theme kits and uniforms. I still have them.

Then my red Schwinn StingRay. Fantastic bike that was durable enough to withstand all the BMX riding I could give it without cracking or breaking a weld. It was stolen and I replaced it with a Webco. When that was stolen, I got a Redline. I'd rather of had a mongoose, but I saw a few of those break.

Then I got my First real good instrument - a white 1974 Rickenbacker 4001. It's still my favourite "toy".

[Patrick]

Wow, that lego site brought back some memories. I was really into the space series, and had several of the sets shown on the website. These were two of my favorites:




It was never that long before I'd take them apart and start building my own creations� that was the really fun part. The alternate designs on the back of the boxes were nowhere near as cool as what I'd come up with.

[CreepingDeth]

Originally posted by Patrick:

That's pretty close to what I was thinking about. But the sets, if anyone remembers them, were those space sets with the green window pieces. They looked very very dark with those green accents. Also, does anyone remember that big ol Aquanauts (or something like that) set that had those HUGE doors on the side?

[Edit]
Very First Lego Set


Those was the days.

[Still no news on that old space set]

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by CreepingDeth:
That's pretty close to what I was thinking about. But the sets, if anyone remembers them, were those space sets with the green window pieces. They looked very very dark with those green accents.

That's what I was thinking of, but it's not that dark of a green.


This was one of my favorite sets. Still have the tape of my opening it at Christmas.


http://www.hccamsterdam.nl/brick/sca...0/6780/001.jpg

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by CreepingDeth:
That's pretty close to what I was thinking about. But the sets, if anyone remembers them, were those space sets with the green window pieces. They looked very very dark with those green accents. Also, does anyone remember that big ol Aquanauts (or something like that) set that had those HUGE doors on the side?

These ones? There were only a few green window sets IIRC. I never had any of them, since they weren't released in Canada. We always got shafted on a lot of the cool new sets.



Only big Aqua door thingy:

[RobOnTheCape]

I loved Lego, and now all my 4 1/2 y.o. boy wants is Spiderman lego for Christmas. I was thinking back to the toys I had in the mid sixties and how they couldn't be sold now. Johnny winchester rifle (this when I was five). Creepy crawlers, which was an oven and molds which you poured this goop into to make rubber like bugs. Extremely hot and most definitely toxic. They probably still sell this, but I remember Tinkertoys and the sharp edges on the metal pieces.

Still loved them all though.

My dad blocked off the front room of our house for a few weeks before Christmas (I was about 5 or 6 years old). Christmas day they lead me around to the room, and there was a full train set with stairs for me to climb up to the control center. The train engine puffed smoke, I could stop the cars where I could load coal or logs automatically from the control center. Through mountains, lights, figures. An amazing set up. One of those "I wish I still had that stuff" kinda things.

That year that was the best toy for sure.

[AB^2=BCxAC]

I guess, after Star Wars (no explanation needed), I loved the Buck Rogersand Micronauts toys the most. Probably because I only had a few, I could project more imagination on to them. And they were more durable than Star Wars stuff.

[eyevaan]

Micronauts

I had a pile of them - fully articulated action figures that you could take pieces apart and build others. Amazing stuff - I miss them sometimes.

[dlefebvre]

I was into Lego. I had a few basic sets back then in the seventies. No fancy car or spaceship. The only fancy stuff I had with Lego was a little motor. I was envious of my neighbour who had twice as much as me. Cars, helicopter. etc. God I enjoyed the countless hours i played with these.

[djohnson]

Transformers
Legos
Micro Machines

[Scifience]

My computer.

I got my first computer (a Packard Bell) at age 7. I have been sitting in front of computer monitors in most of my spare time ever since. I now make about $3000 a month (not bad for a high school student) off of my various internet-based businesses.

Other than the computer, do books count as toys? How about D&D?

When I was younger (5 and 6), I liked playing store with a real cash register that my parents found somewhere for cheap. I would sell my mom the food to make dinner.

I also liked playing with Matchbox cars (well, knock-offs, really) and running them around on a plastic mat "city" that my aunt got me.

[Goldfinger]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
Only big Aqua door thingy:

I still have that one, intact, standing in my basement. A long with a few other intact Lego things and about 8 crates of loose Lego bricks. I'll give them all to my children someday.

[CreepingDeth]

I week ago, I found one of those Rock Raiders sets, the big base one. I also found my pneumatics kit I ordered like four years ago. Oh man, I made something awesome. It was like a toll booth.

I basically made a raised platofrm about 6 inches above the top of the raised rock (there is a trench in the middle of the base piece). There was a rift in the center where I put that raising arm. After working out positions with trial and error, I placed the perfect place to piston, which was connected to the bottom of the arm by a Lego chain. That way, it would raise more and faster because it was near the fulcrum. Then I connected the piston to the pump. Then I connected it to a three way switch with 3 little holes for the tubes. In the middle was the pump tube, and the up tube was on the bottom and the down tube on the top. I like it better inverted. So I got that out of the way. It raised flawlessly. Then I added the little decocrations, nicened it up a bit.

In the middle was a raised level (which fit the car I made perfectly). You'd go up on a angled Lego piece and go across on some of those thin smooth pieces to the other side. I also started fooling with a compound lever. It was a much more effective road block. I had the piece directly connected to the block (made out of those technic pieces) attached to the building, then one that connected that and a one attached to the lego base. It was awesome.

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally posted by CreepingDeth:
... It was awesome.

Sounds nifty. Pics?

[CreepingDeth]

Originally posted by E's Lil Theorem:
Sounds nifty. Pics?

Naw. I lost my shitty Nikon three weeks ago. That sucks. It was cool.

[kmkkid]

When I was younger I played with lego, justice league figures, and ninja turtles!

[Phat Bastard]

Lego was a great toy of mine as well, but I have found memories of these as well:

-Micromachines (making the city with your friends from the individual components like gas stations, police stations, etc, was fun)

-Nintendo (Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, Castlevania, Contra, all kicked ass)

-I have memories of this little black sound maker thingy, it had like four buttons that would each make a different sound, like a bomb dropping or a ray-gun...that thing rocked!! I was so upset when I lost it!!!

[MacMan4000]

Originally posted by Spliff:
Matchbox cars, not Hot Wheels...

Are you kidding!? I loved Hot Wheels cars! Matchbox cars were crap when i was growing up. I remember getting Hot Wheels cars all the time and then for christmas my grandma would buy some matchbox cars and I'd use those when I was feeling destructive and just beat the crap out of em. Then I got into Legos for a while. i still have hundreds of em in the basement. The only video game system I had as a kid was the original sega genesis. I only had 4 or 5 games, 3 of which were Sonic the hedgehog , Sonic 2, and Sonic 3. I love those games.

OK, i just stopped and played the first "act" of Sonic 2... I haven't played that in months. brought back good memories. I took a few screenshots for you guys.


(click the image for full screen)

[MacMan4000]

Originally posted by CreepingDeth:
Very First Lego Set

I had one of those! I loved that one. but one day i got mad and threw it at the wall... it exploded. A few days later i was not so mad and decided I wanted to play with it again and I couldn't find the instructions anywhere. I saved all my instructions from every set i ever bought, but those disappeared. I was sad

[jcadam]

Originally posted by kiwibabe:
Um, I hate to admit it but it would have to be my Barbie doll.

my sister would sometimes enter her room to find that I had posed all of her Barbie dolls in 'unnatural' positions.

[jcadam]

Loved my Master of the Universe slime machine.
I ate the slime, though, and it made my poo green for a few days (I'm pretty sure I was under the recommended age when my parents bought me the toy).
I also liked building huge towers with my Legos.


But really, once my parents bought the Apple //e, I was in front of that thing most of the time.

Later, in my early teens, we bought one of them newfangled 2400bps modems for the PeeCee, and I discovered the internet. This was before the WWW boom, so I found USENET and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.* VERY interesting.

[Athens]

LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Amorya]

Originally posted by DeathMan:
Legos is a perfectly legitimate plural for Lego. Everyone I know says Legos. (Except the snobs, I guess)

I had lots of legos, he-man guys, some linkin-logs, some star wars guys, like one transformer (the black and purple star-scream), and near the end, some TMNT.

Good times. I guess. Actually childhood was pretty lame. I wish my parents would have put my in Karate or Piano or something useful. No biggie. There's lots of time to learn that stuff.

Is that a transatlantic difference?

I would say Lego - because it doesn't refer to the bricks themselves. Counting them would be one brick, two bricks. Lego as a word I would use for the concept, or a quantity in the abstract... some Lego would be ok.

Amorya

[voyageur]

I loved my dolls. I liked to make clothes for them and restyle their hair. I still have them all, with their crazy new hairdos and hand-sewn clothes that don't fit quite right. I liked to take them into the woods and build miniature houses and forts for them out of sticks stuck into moss.

I had a big collection of Matchbox cars and little wooden houses and trees. I loved to recreate my town in miniature with them, by mapping out the roads with toothpicks, and making little ponds by lining dirt depressions with plastic.

As for Legos, well, I think I was about 12 or so when I first heard about them. They looked like the best toys ever, and I wanted some in the worst way. But being a girl, and a teen to boot, I was too embarrassed to ask for them.

Now my children own a lot of Legos, and I've had plenty of chances to play with them as an adult.

Originally posted by Amorya:
Is that a transatlantic difference?

I would say Lego - because it doesn't refer to the bricks themselves. Counting them would be one brick, two bricks. Lego as a word I would use for the concept, or a quantity in the abstract... some Lego would be ok.

Amorya

The proper plural is Lego bricks. They are bricks. But the accepted form is Lego.

Legos is wrong. People say "legos" but that is out of ignorance.

[MacMan4000]

Originally posted by hayesk:
The proper plural is Lego bricks. They are bricks. But the accepted form is Lego.

Legos is wrong. People say "legos" but that is out of ignorance.

OK, well I am from Kentucky, so Im allowed to be ignorant

Side note: the making of LEGO bricks

[demograph68]

One more for "Legos." (Who gives a **** if it's plural or not anyway?)

[Sven G]

... And what about electric model trains? I was a fanatic of M�rklin, and also very interested in real trains when I was a kid (roughly from 1970 to 1977, 5 to 12 years). Also Lego, of course - but the trains were just so much more realistic. As for the Space 1999 Eagle, I also had one; there was also some "Action-Man" (fortunately, almost my only incursion into the military-style games) figure at those times. "Lego", BTW, comes from "leg godt", which in Danish means "play well"; at the times, I lived in Denmark (�rhus), and also visited Legoland, in southern Jutland, two times, IIRC...

[OreoCookie]

Lego: spent hours playing with it.
Amiga 500: multitasking in 87: check; 32 bit CPU: check; linear memory addressing: check; stereo sound: check; color monitor: check ---> great machine for its time.

[effgee]

• Legos
• My Carrera slot racers; missed them so much that I bought myself two "Carrera Exclusive" sets for Christmas last year!

[jcadam]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
Lego: spent hours playing with it.
Amiga 500: multitasking in 87: check; 32 bit CPU: check; linear memory addressing: check; stereo sound: check; color monitor: check ---> great machine for its time.

The Amiga 500 used the same 16-bit 68000 that the 1st generation of Macs did.

Now, my Amiga 1200 used a fully 32-bit 68020.

But yeah, Amiga Workbench put the MacOS to shame in 1987.

[misc]

Litebrite!

I got one a couple of weeks ago. They no longer are the CRT type things but more like LCDs.