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A little Help thinking of the name of a toy...
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:35 am
by ken
Hey all,
I want to get one of those boxes you hook up to your TV that let's you draw. It is kind of a like a self contained Microsoft Paint thing. Anyone know the brand name of this device? Maybe someone with kids...
Thanks!
Ken
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:41 am
by Niveous
Do you mean like some sort of telestrator? Or do you mean like the V-Tech V-Smile Art Studio?
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:46 am
by jb
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:04 am
by ken
Something like the V-Tech V-Smile Art Studio. The etcha sketch is cool too.
I had something like the v-smile a number of years ago and it was essentially a tablet with a stylus and a bunch of colors. You could even do stop motion animation with it I think.
Ken
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:09 am
by Reist
All I can think of is Mario Paint for SNES. I always wanted that game.
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:07 pm
by Spud
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:15 pm
by Billy's Little Trip
This is the one I was thinking of. But I couldn't remember how it worked exactly. (from the commercials)
Hey old dudes, remember Felix the cat had some primitive interactive thing for the fans. If I remember right, it was something that you taped to your TV screen and physically drew on it, lol. Probably one of those kids that had one, thought of skiddoodle when he/she went to college and became a computer wiz.
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:42 pm
by Steve Durand
I don't remember that with Felix but I remember Winky Dink. You got a transparent screen that you put on the front of your TV and you could write on it to interact with the characters
http://www.tvparty.com/requested2b.html
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:58 pm
by Billy's Little Trip
Felix stole that from Winky Dink? No wonder he later got into toon porn and changed his name to Fritz.
...how's that for a segway?

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:21 pm
by Sober
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:36 am
by fluffy
That Wiimote hack has very little to do with the wii (and could be done with any webcam with an IR filter, for that matter).
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:14 am
by ken
What about Bill Cosby and Picture Pages?
Anyway, we want something we can connect directly to a projector without a computer.
Ken
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:43 am
by jb
What do you mean "get a wii"? The fucking things are impossible to find. Might as well say "get a magic pony that farts fractals in composite video".
"Get a wii" he says. Very helpful!
Bah.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:44 am
by jb
You might have to resort to an overhead projector, Ken. Go old-school. Learn to love the silhouetted hand.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:56 am
by fluffy
Overhead projectors let you do <a href="
http://www.73q.com/video.php?vid=8509">other things</a> as well.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:23 am
by anti-m
Oooh. I forgot all about Helium. They were great.
Ken, what do you actually need this setup for? Is it for kids and drawing? For art?
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:45 am
by ken
I play drums in an instrumental band (Parker Street Cinema) and we often talk of adding visuals to our show. Instead of just playing a movie or something, we thought it would be cool to let audience members or guest artists create art while we perform. Most clubs just have a digital projector hooked up to a DVD player, so we thought this would be easy, reliable, and cool.
Ken
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:24 pm
by Billy's Little Trip
Steve Durand wrote:I don't remember that with Felix but I remember Winky Dink. You got a transparent screen that you put on the front of your TV and you could write on it to interact with the characters
http://www.tvparty.com/requested2b.html
I searched for a Felix version of this and couldn't find anything, so I must have been thinking of Winky Dink. I don't remember watching it though, and I was pretty young at the time that I remember seeing this commercial, like 7 or 8 maybe.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:34 pm
by fluffy
ken wrote:I play drums in an instrumental band (Parker Street Cinema) and we often talk of adding visuals to our show. Instead of just playing a movie or something, we thought it would be cool to let audience members or guest artists create art while we perform. Most clubs just have a digital projector hooked up to a DVD player, so we thought this would be easy, reliable, and cool.
One of the VTech devices is probably your best bet.
That actually gives me another idea for interactive in-performance art... you could hook a computer with Bluetooth up to it and do a random slideshow of the art in the Bluetooth file dropbox, and invite people to just send their random cameraphone pictures to the computer. Might be a bit hard to set up and/or explain though.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:05 pm
by anti-m
Ahhhh!
Well, I've got a lot of experience in the realm of AV club antics. I personally like fluffy's idea of using a real overhead projector. There's something satisfying about the clunky old AV equipment.
I used to help organize a group called the
The Tiny Picture Club and one of the things that we frequently did that was always a hit was "drawn on" Super 8 movies.
It's interactive and requires no expertise other than the ability to operate a super-8 projector. (Of course, if you have access to bigger format projectors, you can also have people draw on bigger film!) Have people doodle with sharpies / nail polish / any permanent medium on the film while you're setting up, then project the result as a big loop while you perform.
The results can be really neat!
If you want to drop some cash, you could get a used tablet PC from ebay.
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:33 pm
by jb
anti-m wrote:I personally like fluffy's idea of using a real overhead projector.
Hey! That was my idea!
Stroke MY ego!
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:24 pm
by fluffy
Yeah, my ideas in this thread were all stupid, rambly, and geeky.
I was going to suggest maybe getting a cheap tablet PC and installing ArtRage on it, though I figure that might be a bit too spendy and possibly too fragile in a club setting.