Not to find or buy one necessarily, I just remember loving this thing and would like to look up its history online.
It was an educational toy - I thought I remembered it being called “Maxx”, or “Maxxx”, or some other number of xs. Google-fu is failing me.
It was kinda a kid-size little touch field, albeit circa mid-1980s. Not a touch-screen - it was pressure-sensitive, and had an attached stylus for pointing (and pressing, usually hard.) There were numerous interchangeable screen overlays (you’d put a plastic overlay sheet (which had pictures, words, etc) on, somehow key into the device which overlay was active, and then you’d go to work with the stylus.
I remember it was kid-sized, red plastic frame, stylus had a white soft tip.
Anyone else remember this? I’d love to find some info online about it.
I thought you were talking about that one device that had various cartridges you could connect to it. And along with the cartidge was attached a book that looked more like a check book.
The device would pull up a random number and you’d have to look up said number in the book that had a multiple choice question associated with it. Then you’d enter the answer in on the device and it would tell you if you got it right or not.
I remember something similar that my kids played with. It did not look exactly like the Maxx pictured in the link above. I remember spending an embarrassingly long time trying to figure out how it knew which card was in use. I had various theories, but eventually I had a eureka moment. Each card had a start button that you had to select with the stylus. I finally noticed that the start button was positioned differently on each card.
Thanks, this looks like the one! …except mine didn’t have that R2D2 head at the top. Maybe I wrecked it? But I think you found it. Also didn’t realize that ebay was still a thing, looks like there are a few other sellers.
…God, that thing looks old. Guess I’m getting old at 32.
I was trying to remember an educational toy from the 70s the other day. A friend of my sister had it, and I remember being completely transfixed by its little games. I was suddenly reminded of it the other week and spent an absurd amount of time trying to track it down. Unfortunately I didn’t find it, because I think I’m misremembering it.
When I stumbled on an image of the earliest version of the Speak and Spell from 1978 (which is the year in question, maybe 1979) with the raised buttons, it looked very close to what was tickling my brain - the colours, the pictograms on the game buttons, etc. But I recall it being handheld, narrow, almost calculator shape. I also don’t remember it having any talking feature, it was all maths and word games.
I knew it wasn’t the Merlin that I was remembering. A different friend had one of those and I was quite familiar with its noughts-and-crosses type games.
So I was stumped. But, unless there was a cheap knockoff of the Speak and Spell that came in a different shape, I think I’m just confused and merging it and the Merlin into one toy.
