Etch A Sketch
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The Etch A Sketch is a toy invented in 1959 by Frenchman Arthur Granjean and introduced commercially by the Ohio Art Company in the 1960's. Granjean originally called it "The Psychedelic Screen."
The toy is relatively flat and rectangular, looking somewhat like a small television. Introduced near the peak of the baby boom, the classically simple Etch A Sketch is one of the best-known toys of that generation, and remains popular to this day.
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[edit] Mechanics
The toy works as a simplified version of a plotter. The inside surface of the glass screen is coated with aluminum powder which is then scraped off by a movable stylus, leaving a dark line on the light-gray screen. The stylus is controlled by the two large knobs, one of which moves it vertically and the other horizontally. To erase the picture, one simply turns the toy upside down and shakes it, causing styrene beads to smooth out and recoat the inside surface.
Creating a straight diagonal line or smoothly curved line with an Etch A Sketch is notoriously difficult and a true test of coordination. One solution is to carefully alternate horizontal and vertical lines in very small increments, a technique somewhat reminiscent of how such lines are drawn by raster-scan computer displays.
The "black" line merely exposes the darkness inside the toy. Filling in large "black" areas will allow enough light through to expose parts of the interior (see picture).
[edit] History
The device was invented in the late 1950s by Arthur Granjean, who first called it ``L'Ecran Magique," or The Magic Screen. He tried selling it to toy manufacturers and eventually got the Ohio Art Company interested. Through television advertising in the 1960s, it became a popular toy. The toy has changed very little over the years.
[edit] Later versions
[edit] Etch A Sketch Animator
The Etch A Sketch Animator, which debuted in 1987, featured a low-resolution raster display and used two knobs for drawing, like a regular Etch A Sketch, with several buttons to manipulate said drawings. It had a few kilobytes of memory, capable of storing 12 frames of pictures in any combination up to 96 times. It contained a speaker, which made static-like sounds when the knobs were moved and during animations. As with any sort of Etch A Sketch toy, the animations created would not be very smooth, unless used by an expert.
[edit] Etch A Sketch Animator 2000
The Etch A Sketch Animator 2000 was a portable toy developed by Ohio Art in 1988 as an advanced version of the Etch A Sketch Animator released one year earlier. It used a stylus to draw on an interfacing pad, and the drawing appeared above on a low-resolution LCD screen. It had the ability to animate a sequence of frames as well as the ability to save animations on cartridges. The Animator 2000 could also play games loaded on cartridges. Three games were developed for it: Overdrive, a racing game in the vein of Pole Position; Putt Nuts, an 18-hole miniature golf game; and Flyby, a simplistic flight simulator. The Animator 2000 was discontinued shortly after its introduction, rendering copies of some of these games scarce.
[edit] Etch A Sketch Electronics ETO - Plug and Play Drawing System and Etch A Sketch Wired
These are basically handheld controllers that connect to a television and work like a regular Etch A Sketch, except on the television screen and with the addition of colors and sound effects.
[edit] Etch A Sketch Art
There are a few practicing artists who use the Etch A Sketch to produce professional lineographic work. Most artists make their work permanent by removing the aluminum powder. This is done either by drilling holes in the bottom of the toy or by removing the entire plastic backing. It is then resealed as a semi-permanent, shake-resistant piece of art.
[edit] See also
- Magna Doodle, a somewhat similar toy using a different principle of operation.
