Tomy Bots
July 28th, 2009 by Mr RoboticsA long time ago (well, 30 years ago), in a Midwestern state far, far away (well, 3700 miles away), I was a young boy who dreamed of robots. While my sweet mother bought me an Intellivision (so much better than Atari. Loved that talking B-17 bomber game), what I really wanted was a robot. Not some silly wind up robot. No, a real one. Of course I knew that R2-D2′s level of intelligence was far off, but still, a robot would be cool. And you could get a robot. There was a fantastic Japanese company, Tomy, that made real robots, called OmniBots.
Alas, I never did get an Omnibot and still don’t have one, even though I now own around 200 robots (no really. 14 humanoids alone. Two life-sized R2-D2′s. Twelve omni-wheeled soccer bots. My wife must love me…). But a guy can reminisce. And what with the internets and databases and all, I can surf for all the robots that I missed out on as a kid:
July 28th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Ah, youthful robot lust! I’m amazed I didn’t get kicked out of Radio Shack for excessive lurking.
One minor correction: I think you got the mileage wrong. Even Bangor, ME is only 3300 miles. And I’m pretty sure they’re not midwesterners. They smell different.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
I had Intellivision as well. I loved that thing. My friends made fun of me, until they too played it. I was the most popular boy on the block, in my dreams.