The 1970’s was a magical time for kids like myself (which will give you an idea of how old I am :). Electronic toys were becoming common place, including the electronic hand-held LED football game, the Atari VCS (later the 2600), Simon (the electronic “Simon-says” touch pad game), and others.
In this article, a couple of novel standouts among space/electronic toys from Milton Bradley are presented. Even today, after 40 or so years, these are still sought-after novelties filled with waves of technological nostalgia.
- Starbird (from MB Electronics)
Starbird is an electronic toy space fighter that revs its engines up or down depending on if you’re tipping the craft up or down. It also has LED lights that flash like laser cannons and has some low-tech yet cool sounding gun effects as well. There were a couple versions, such as the two “heroic” ones above, and an “enemy” one in black.
MB (or Milton Bradley) also released a special “base” for the heroic Starbird to add character flair to the intended sci-fi loving theme of this great toy line.
- BigTrak (also from MB Electronics)
BigTrak was also a great toy from MB. It was programmable via a touch pad on the top of the tank-like vehicle and could accurately follow commands given to it. It even had a dump-trailer that could be used to “deliver” items to preprogrammed locations. These are still available via eBay for die-hard collectors.
- Electronic Battleship (from MB)
Finally came Electronic Battleship. An interesting take on the classic naval guess and shoot game. In this version, each player would program in the coordinates of their ship locations. With each turn, the player would enter the coordinates via push-button entry, and if there was a hit, an electronic indicator with the outline of a battleship would flash red with an explosion electronic sound effect. The game also produced almost constant sonar sound effects as well. To be honest, yours truly used it for his own “space fort” similar to the one my kids build (see Gimmick For Kids blog category) to mimic the sound of onboard spacecraft avionics.
Just a few nostalgic toys from the past to wet the space fan’s appetite, or to remind them of why space engineers and scientists do what they do. I fall into the latter category, as I often see so many in the space industry get jaded over time and let things bog them down like scheduling and budget issues. Yes those have their place to be addressed, but let’s not forget the true heart of this all . . . space exploration and knowledge!
For The Great Galactic Space Gimmick, I’m Gimmick Commander Ben Faltinowski! 🙂
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