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There’s a lot of awe in the comments about how limitation drove ingenuity. It’s true throughout most of the second half of the 20th century electronics, not just the toys that came at the end. The gameboy is a great example. A Z80 is an incredibly simple thing. You have to sit there and hack together games in assembly, performing all sorts of tricks to keep the memory footprint down. The first speak and spell is another example. I wish I could conjure up more, but basically any novel toy that involved electricity between 1950 and 1970 is a work of art. You don’t need a computer, or even a transistor, to use electronics tools in a creative way to make an interactive toy.


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