Triang Lionel Plastics Engineering Lab.....

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

did anybody have one of these 60 years ago ? ....

[Max Demian]

There was a plastics kit I wanted at about that time but I'm not sure if it was that one.

Instead I got a poxy Gutenberg printing kit with a bust of Gutenberg, a plastic printing press and a plastic block to print the first page of the Gutenberg Bible plus plastic letters to print anything else. I already had a John Bull printing outfit with rubber letters which worked much better.

'Educational' toys! Spit!

[Jim GM4 DHJ ...]

John Bell printing sets were cool ....

[Graeme]

In message <am9rH.422309$ [e-mail], Jim GM4DHJ ... [e-mail] writes

I had the telephone one, with a bust of Alexander Graham Bell.

[charles]

I moved onto an Adana some years later. Of course it's all done by computer these dasy. ;-)

[Chris J Dixon]

Nearly as slow as John Bull was a toy typewriter where you had to turn a dial to select each letter, before then striking a lever to hit it against the paper.

Like this

I think there was also one with both caps and lower case.

The next level of sophistication did have a set of keys, but the mechanism connecting to the strike arms appeared to be nylon strings.

I recall desiring one of the Lionel products, but time has dimmed the memory.

Chris

[Martin Brown]

Were they the famous inventor ones that came in fish tank like clear plastic boxes with a cardboard base?

ISTR I had Hero, Bell, Edison, Cartright in that series. I think the model loom might still be in the loft somewhere.

[Max Demian]

I think those were the ones advertised on the back of Meccano Magazine for £9. *Nine pounds!*

They had a fake tin keyboard and were for gurls who wanted to be typists.

[Graeme]

Yes. I had the clear plastic top for many years afterwards, but little else, although a few of the brass parts are still around. It did work, and quite well.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Yes educational toys, often the education was taking them apart to see how they worked. Who remembers Magic robot. I was very young when I got it but really any half intelligent child would soon realise that all the answers were displaced from the questions by the same number, so when you put the robot on the mirror the magnet simply lined up the pointer because the base had a notch when placed in the question side that rotated it with respect to that pointer. I guess you were supposed to learn the knowledge in the q and A, but I took it to bits and was more interested in the magnets.

Brian