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Showing results for tags 'Mindstorms promo'.
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Hello So today while I was excavating the back of a cupboard in my hallway, I unearthed a historical artefact. All the way from 1998! It's a vaguely eye-shaped package, in transparent bright green: 20140717_234700 by freshfroot1, on Flickr Inside is a purple case with a surface designed to look like a brain (mmmm... purple brains) 20140717_234719 by freshfroot1, on Flickr And inside that, a CDROM and an advert for version 1.0 of the Lego Mindstorms RCX system.. Your Future Starts Today! Oh wait, I need a Pentium 90 and Windows 95 to play it? Why do you have to be so demanding!! 20140717_234749 by freshfroot1, on Flickr The other side of the advert is a futuristic timeline of inventions. Still waiting for "Pathfinder" (the autonomous landmine clearer) though... 20140717_234816 by freshfroot1, on Flickr On the disc are a number of videos that reveal that the package has been sent "from the future" (2043 I think it said) to my 1998 self explaining that I was one of the chosen few who would lead mankind into a new golden age, through the medium of Lego Mindstorms robots. The future promises Lego medical nanotechnology, space exploration on Lego spaceships (real ones, not Benny's), armies of Lego robots to irrigate deserts, and so on (but what about personal jetpacks? I want jetpacks dammit!). This far removed, it seems incredibly quaint- the past's predictions of the future always do- but it's a reminder of how advanced the Mindstorms system really was at the time (compared to most consumer robot kits, which were very limited by comparison, or required electronic and/or programming skills which were quite niche). The videos emphasise the ability to create robots that think for themselves- whereas more recent Mindstorms promos seem to focus on the ability to remote-control robots... a step backwards, I think. This is a very British promo... one of the videos mentions robot footballers programmed with the characteristics of legendary players such as Pele, Cruyff and Shearer... it seems there must have been a US version as well, there is a video on Youtube that shows a similar type of thing: I am not really sure what to do with it. I don't collect this kind of thing, so I don't really want to keep it. On the other hand, it seems a shame to throw it away.. it should be in a museum or something EvilTwin
