So glad to see this video! Much of this stuff seems to be lost to history, it took me several years to track down DACTA catalog scans from the 90's as most teachers threw them away. I was homeschooled growing up so we got all kinds of educational catalogs in the mail, if only I had the foresight to hold on to them! Technically this set is from the late 80's but since it was an educational set it was sold well into the 90's, even alongside the DACTA serial interface that came after it. Sharing this around to a few friends, most are aware of and still use this interface but your video was very well done and entertaining to watch!
I live on the other side of the earth and will probably never be able to visit your museum, but I'm very grateful that you put these video's out for us to watch.
The sight of the motors and the axles and grey gear wheels stirs some distant but definite memories of handling these things. I can't recall if it was at school or home, but as you say it wasn't really available to general consumers I suppose it must have been at junior school, which was late 1980s/early 90s for me. I know that there was no interaction with a computer though, because we didn't have IBM PCs either at home or at junior school, though the school did have BBC Micros and, at a later date, an Acorn Archimedes. Perhaps the one I played with was a different product that used a lot of the same parts but didn't require a computer to operate.
This product was available in the UK for the BBC Micro; in the U.S., it was only pushed for PC or Apple II (though it was available worldwide on Commodore 64/128).
oh you had confused for a second there when i saw lego's but i remember i had a class in high school in the mid 2000s using not this specifically but some sort of small building block thing with controllable motors and sensors that would send light info and stuff back to the computer (which was also non dos software in win98/xp machines). but we'd first have to build something and then program it do things like navigate around an odd shaped track with getting the correct amount of move forward and turn x amount or however it was. or stuff like drag race at full speed then stop once it goes under a tunnel and see's the light change (that was easy). the trickiest one i think was when we had to have a little crane pick up 3 different color blocks in random order and depending on the information the light sensor picked up, it would have to rotate and drop it in the matching color bin. and the light sensor would just give a numeric value so a bunch of tweaking with the if greater & less than values. it was a really fun class tho so thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I had some of the pneumatic dacta sets, my mom, who's a teacher got them for me back then. I really wanted the set you're showing in this vidoe but it was too expensive for her to buy me :P Later I got a LEGO RTX set though, which I had a lot of fun with.
Ah, the pneumatic one might be what I played with, that rings a bell too. So long ago, it's hard to be sure! The thing is, I do think I used those little motors too.
@@danyoutube7491 I found the set number for the set I had, "lego dacta 9604" I did also have one of the 4.5V motors with wire and a batterybox, that I inherited from someone else. But otherwise I had the newer 9V motors of various generations.
So glad to see this video! Much of this stuff seems to be lost to history, it took me several years to track down DACTA catalog scans from the 90's as most teachers threw them away. I was homeschooled growing up so we got all kinds of educational catalogs in the mail, if only I had the foresight to hold on to them!
Technically this set is from the late 80's but since it was an educational set it was sold well into the 90's, even alongside the DACTA serial interface that came after it. Sharing this around to a few friends, most are aware of and still use this interface but your video was very well done and entertaining to watch!
I'd never heard of Lego Dacta before, but I've been drooling over the Lego Mindstorm series back in the early 2000s.
This was fun and interesting to watch. Thanks for sharing!
I live on the other side of the earth and will probably never be able to visit your museum, but I'm very grateful that you put these video's out for us to watch.
The sight of the motors and the axles and grey gear wheels stirs some distant but definite memories of handling these things. I can't recall if it was at school or home, but as you say it wasn't really available to general consumers I suppose it must have been at junior school, which was late 1980s/early 90s for me. I know that there was no interaction with a computer though, because we didn't have IBM PCs either at home or at junior school, though the school did have BBC Micros and, at a later date, an Acorn Archimedes. Perhaps the one I played with was a different product that used a lot of the same parts but didn't require a computer to operate.
This product was available in the UK for the BBC Micro; in the U.S., it was only pushed for PC or Apple II (though it was available worldwide on Commodore 64/128).
Aaron, thank you for so many hours of entertaining and educational content this year. Happy Holidays to you, the crew at the museum and your families.
Thanks so much for watching and Happy Holidays to you and yours!
I now have the rover from Richard Lawsons Robot books.
oh you had confused for a second there when i saw lego's but i remember i had a class in high school in the mid 2000s using not this specifically but some sort of small building block thing with controllable motors and sensors that would send light info and stuff back to the computer (which was also non dos software in win98/xp machines).
but we'd first have to build something and then program it do things like navigate around an odd shaped track with getting the correct amount of move forward and turn x amount or however it was. or stuff like drag race at full speed then stop once it goes under a tunnel and see's the light change (that was easy).
the trickiest one i think was when we had to have a little crane pick up 3 different color blocks in random order and depending on the information the light sensor picked up, it would have to rotate and drop it in the matching color bin. and the light sensor would just give a numeric value so a bunch of tweaking with the if greater & less than values.
it was a really fun class tho so thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I had some of the pneumatic dacta sets, my mom, who's a teacher got them for me back then.
I really wanted the set you're showing in this vidoe but it was too expensive for her to buy me :P
Later I got a LEGO RTX set though, which I had a lot of fun with.
Ah, the pneumatic one might be what I played with, that rings a bell too. So long ago, it's hard to be sure! The thing is, I do think I used those little motors too.
@@danyoutube7491 I found the set number for the set I had, "lego dacta 9604"
I did also have one of the 4.5V motors with wire and a batterybox, that I inherited from someone else. But otherwise I had the newer 9V motors of various generations.