Armatron

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The Armatron was a toy from the 1980s made by TOMY and distributed by Radio Shack. It consisted of a crane-like arm with two attached joysticks which could be manipulated to pick up small objects. It is essentially similar to industrial robots of the 1980s, though it is strictly user-controlled, with no automation built in. The Armatron existed in both the original fixed version and a mobile version with a wired remote. It included an "energy level" indicator (actually a countdown timer) and a series of objects such as boxes and spheres designed to be manipulated by the arm.

The term is now in use by a toy company called PowerGear to name a simpler trigger-controlled gripping arm [1].

[edit] External links

• Armatron Collection Photos of Armatron, Mobile Armatron, scan of instruction manual.