Ahh Big Trak. The truck that was chunkier than volvo estate and fitted with AI. The future had arrived.
Released in 1979 by those toy and electronic game stalwarts Milton Bradley (MB), Big Trak was the stuff of every schoolboy's wildest technological dreams.
This classic toy was a six wheeled tank type vehicle with an uber cool sounding front-mounted blue photon beam headlamp. It also had a keypad on the topmost part of the unit.
The toy could remember a whopping 16 commands in total. These commands could then executed in sequence, such as 'forward 3 lengths', 'pause', 'turn 30 degrees right', and so on. You could even get it to 'fire' the front mounted phaser. Take that Buzz Lightyear!
There was also a 'repeat' instruction allowing simple loops to be constructed - but the novelty of that soon wore off.
There was also the trailer as an optional extra accessory (bought separately of course!), which when hooked to the rear of Bigtrak could be programmed to dump its cargo.
You could say that Bigtrak was the pre-cursor to the likes of the more modern Robo-Sapien toy - and a comeback for this year (2010) is planned. So keep em peeled for a modern faithful copy of a truly classic toy!
UK Advert for Bigtrak:
Classic Toys and Vintage Classic Toys
Nice memory. I like your article.
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