OK OK how much more awsome are toys ...

Ok guys you have got to admit that toys when we were kids sucked compared to todays Chinese made stuff.
Agree.
I mean like the nintendo DS. How cool would that have been to haveone of those if you grew up in the 60's?
Hell we had PONG.
Or hell what about the little micro helecopters? or other electric radio controll aircraft or watercraft.
Hell I had a car with a cox 0.049 engine which maybe went 5 mph in a circle.
or those terrible airplanes on strings going round and round.
Toys today are so much better...
Yaesumofo

yaesumofo said:

Hell I had a car with a cox 0.049 engine which maybe went 5 mph in a circle.
Yaesumofo

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Was it the Baja Bug? With the glow plug.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-COX-BAJ...ryZ34055QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I had dirt bikes, guns and lots a wooded space to utilize both, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I totally agree with you! Not that I dont feel like a kid anymore..

Or maybe its because of all the cool toys today that makes me feel like a kid!
I dont think I ever will stop playing with toys!
And not as long as there are coming newer cooler stuff all the time!

I'm a bit younger, but for all the cool things that are available now there are things lacking that older toys had.

While the Wii is a step in the right direction providing some sort of movement and excercise, same goes for earlier games like DDR, many things nowadays just don't promote physical activity.
Furthermore in my personal opinion no toy can come close to beating the simple set of Legos for thinking, spacial reasoning, creativity, etc. I'd much rather have a box of legos over any modern toy... including my Wii (I'm a rather hardcore gamer at times too). Tinkertoys, k'nex, erector sets, lincolin logs a lot of the building type things that required some actual concentration and mental focus are absent from the lives of kids today.
When I was a brat, Transformers were one of the cool things, and I'll tell you my old transformers are way better than the new ones. The way many of the old ones were put together and "transform;" the design was much more ingenious for the majority of them as compared to modern counterparts.
Also back in the day, you could get way better stuff in home chemistry and electronics kits. Now most of the stuff you get is lame, and almost any kid would roll their eyes at you if you gave them a science kit anyway.
And of course I had some of my best playtimes outside in the yard. No toys required, just me, the trees, the grass, dirt, swing set and neighborhood friends.

I'm not sure I'd trade having a Wii for some of the things that aren't around as much.

I agree completely. I see the toys available today and wish I was still a kid. When I play MS Train Simulator, I wish software like this and PCs had existed 30 years ago. I wish I could have typed term papers in MSWord and printed them on a laser printer, rather than banging them out on a manual typewriter. Today's kids don't know how lucky they are in some respects. Not all, but some. Especially the toys.

Technology wise, the advances yield some pretty nice toys. We gave our niece a learning console that has interactive DVD program. Learning like that, the kids pick it up easily and it is fun. Parents who have HD TV's give kids nice system when coupled with the gaming consoles. The off shoot to this is, as kids we'd go outside, run-around and play typical stuff. Kids these days of what I see are largely sedentary. I dunno about that.

Most toys/games these days emhpasize response to stimuli, like training a rat in a lab. Older toys allowed for creative open-ended use. The guys who mention construction-type stuff are right on. I had endless fun with Erector Sets, Legos, Construx, wooden blocks, etc. And real train sets--actually be able to physically set up an elaborate thing on a table and mess with it. Then there are plastic army men, board games, and on and on.

I can think a few things are a lot more fun. The little helicopters and remote control cars, for example. Although the gas-powered line-control planes involved a lot of good mechanical work that you don't get with the electric stuff.

Toys also used to last, and kids were encouraged to keep them. Most people older than I have loads of toys from when they were a little kid. Metal cars, wood blocks, etc. These days, just like every other part of the culture, kids are supposed to use whatever cheap junk they have until it breaks then throw it out and buy something else.

The availability of cheap low-quality technology is also making for some really inapproriate gifts. Many people I know have taken to giving their kids (little kid) things like portable DVD players, iPods, and cell phones all the time. Sure it's fun to use that stuff, but you get a kid who's glued to his electronic entertainment device. Hell, I remember when I was younger I had to fight my parents to get a telephone in my room when I was a teenager.

I don't think today's kids appreciate their toys anymore (probably less) then we did. Of course we think today's toys are cooler, because we can compare.

BTW, I had the most fun with the boxes.

It sure as heck was!!!!
MOfo

Beamhead said:

Was it the Baja Bug? With the glow plug.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-COX-BAJ...ryZ34055QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I had dirt bikes, guns and lots a wooded space to utilize both, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Click to expand...

yaesumofo said:

...snip..
or those terrible airplanes on strings going round and round.
Toys today are so much better...
Yaesumofo

Click to expand...

Those "airplanes on a string" are U-control - still fun to fly - take that same .049 black widow engine, mount it on a balsa airplane that weighes may 1/4 what the plastic airplanes weigh, and they were real fun.

Better yet, you go up to an engine size of .36 Cu in, put them on an airplane that only weighes may 1/2 -3/4 thos plastic planes - steel wires etc, run 40% nitro fuel through them, hang a 10 ft long crepe paper streamer behind the plane, and put 2 of them in the circle at the same time - trying to cut the entire streamer off the other plane - picture 110-120mph, 6" off the deck, able to make a complere loop in about 5 ft diameter, coming in inverted, so you have a closing speed of well over 200mph. I'll bet you the first dozen time you try, you'll be shaking from the rush - even NOT flying in a match

Here is a link to the "full sized" airplane (.36) stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e10bGw-ilpE

and yeah - you did see a LOT of midair crashes - rule of thumb? Going to play, bring a plane and engine for each stange of the match - heck, on a Sunday practice, it was not unusual to lose 2-3 planes from hitting the ground

and this is 1/2A combat - those same engines on those plastic toys we had
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFJtbhBeowA

PhantomPhoton said:

I'm a bit younger, but for all the cool things that are available now there are things lacking that older toys had.

While the Wii is a step in the right direction providing some sort of movement and excercise, same goes for earlier games like DDR, many things nowadays just don't promote physical activity.
Furthermore in my personal opinion no toy can come close to beating the simple set of Legos for thinking, spacial reasoning, creativity, etc...

Click to expand...

I agree with you there. When I was a kid I had a mixed bag of lego part from different sets and every few days I would make something new and then take it all apart and make something else. I don't consider myself exceptional but I think I do have pretty good spatial reasoning, creativity etc. and a large part of that is the toys I played with. I think I used my imagination a lot more than some of the kids I see today. I wonder what our kids generation will be saying when they grow up?

I am having my 1968 Schwinn Stingray that I got as an hand-me-down restored. I am not using NOS hardware because my 7 year old is pumped about having it. He saw a movie of me riding a wheelie for over a quarter mile. His other favorite toys are my old Johnny Lighting cars from the late 60's and early 70's and a repro track I bought back in 1999.

I agree that most games today tend to stifle creativity. When I got such games I made it my purpose to hack them into working in ways they never were intended to.

Aside from that, I must say that, while I don't envy today's children in general (mostly for the society they're forced to live in), I definitely envy them their toys. I don't know what I would have given to have something like a Picoo Z when I was 10... everything I had were toy helicopters that didn't fly. *sigh*

yaesumofo said:

Toys today are so much better...

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Toys tomorrow will be better still...

Yeah, but when I was a kid I had guns. And I've still got all of my fingers, toes, eyes....and some of my friends. I wouldn't want to be a kid today for all the farms in Cuba...

My favorite toy ever was a spirograph. I don't think a computer simulation could substitute.

I am glad toys were simpler back then because I grew up with no money available for the fancy stuff of the day. Couldn't imagine growing up today with, for example, no money for a current PC.

I always wanted, but never got, a brand new box of 64 Crayola crayons, mine were used scraps held in a coffee can. I might just go and buy a box today to sit them next to my SureFires.

Sorry to get off topic but that's what comes to my mind when I think of toys then as compared to now.

My favorite toy was a Mechano set in conjunction with Log Building Set. I am sad to report the fun toys did not make me a builder. I also had a "Dynamo" squeeze light which I wore out in a month. It was long ago and the fascination remains.

marlite

yaesumofo said:

Toys today are so much better...

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure. Not much beats a Big Wheels in the driveway (link), a Schwinn Stingray tooling down the sidewalk or some Hot Wheels driving around your imaginary town on the couch. Today's toys have removed imagination from the equation, and that was the best part.

Those prop driven planes on the wire that you spun around with were just great. I mean what better death trap could there be? Don't like your sibling? Ask for one of those for X-Mas!