5 ms·

Gakken Ex-System

70 points by walterbell 3y ago

usr1106 3y ago
I have never heard that name. Unfortunately the article does not seem to mention in what countries those kits were sold. Having grown up in Germany I remember the name Kosmos. They seem to still exist. Not sure whether they were the most common / best ones. There is even a forum dedicated to the topic of electronic experimenting kits (in German): https://www.experimentierkasten-board.de/ https://www.experimentierkasten-board.de/ Edit: Based on http://www.elektronik-labor.de/Lernpakete/Ebaukaesten.html http://www.elektronik-labor.de/Lernpakete/Ebaukaesten.html I'd conclude that in the 1960s Kosmos was technically/didactically the leading one. In the 1970s probably surpassed by Philips. From the pictures I remember my friend had a Philips, the spring contact system was really good.
- borninakihabara 3y ago
  Maybe, it's sold only in Japan. It's famous for family with scientific culture in Japan.
cjk2 3y ago
I bought one of these many years ago. Extremely unreliable and inflexible. Worse than even the springy Rat Shack ones. I really wish someone would put together a decent kit and guide these days. I did consider designing and marketing something myself for a couple of years but I never got past the conceptual stage. It wasn't going to be a "here's a load of instructions to follow" but experiments that lead to "why" through instruction rather than just mechanical reproduction of circuits verbatim. Even all the Make stuff is pretty lame shiny marketing crap with few explanations and intuition being developed. I have spoken to a lot of people who bought a load of stuff and learned how to plug things into things and copy and paste code. When it comes to "I want to solve problem X" there are too many gaps which leads to demotivation and large lots of arduino crap being sold in bulk on eBay.
- djmips 3y ago
  Yeah it was disappointing. The 'springy' ones are easier to debug.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    The 200-in-one thing I had with coil spring contacts was also pretty unreliable for complex circuits.
- kazinator 3y ago
  > Extremely unreliable and inflexible. I can see from the Wikipedia photos that the metal contacts are not of great quality, tarnished and all. If you polished the contacts (e.g. with Brasso) and the coated with a thin layer of grease (dielectric grease, vaseline, ...) it would probably quite a bit more reliable.
ghgr 3y ago
Reminds me of Scatron (sold in Spain in the 90s) https://jvgavila-com.translate.goog/aypetronic.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://jvgavila-com.translate.goog/aypetronic.htm?_x_tr_sl=...
makach 3y ago
I owned one of these. The experiments were so-so. The magic of building blocks this way inspired to creation, however as someone else wrote - they are extremely unreliable.
2sk21 3y ago
I had this back in the 1980s and I learnt a lot about electronics from it. Was one of my favorite kits!
theyinwhy 3y ago
So, what's a great kit to recommend today?
- Solvency 3y ago
  There are none. We live in an era where anything remotely unique (like that new Knob keyboard) costs $500.
  - theyinwhy 3y ago
    Isn't the knob keyboard ... a keyboard? I was referring to electronic kits for learning.
    - Cheer2171 3y ago
      The point is that this would cost the same or even more than a customized mechanical keyboard.
- evan_ 3y ago
  My kids like snapcircuits but it’s pretty basic- nothing approaching the 60-in-1 radio shack kits.
- brudgers 3y ago
  A second hand Radio Shack kit. They are a great piece of product design and come with lots of things to do instead of lots of words to think about. They receive criticism for this. But normalizing the construction of circuits and deemphasizing theory is a feature not a bug…there are books for that (and these days websites and YouTubes for that too). For less than 100 eBay units — often much less — you can get a time tested educational tool.
- snvzz 3y ago
  One of the many "Arduino" breadboard kits. Great value from China (e.g. aliexpress).
baumschubser 3y ago
15 years ago I stumbled across Gakken, because they released a super cheap little synthesizer, controlled by a stylus. It sounds really cool and there exist even hacks to replace the stylus with a MIDI input. I bought one and it is the oldest item in my box of things that I will come back to when I have some free time :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALla261Zuo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALla261Zuo8
29athrowaway 3y ago
If you are looking for something like this try: - https://shop.elenco.com/consumers/brands/snap-circuits.html https://shop.elenco.com/consumers/brands/snap-circuits.html - https://upperstory.com/spintronics/ https://upperstory.com/spintronics/
ataylor284_ 3y ago
I own a Gakken GMC-4 microcomputer, which appears to be a remake of the FX-System. It's a fun little 4-bit computer with a hex keypad for input. For output, there's 7 LEDs, 1 7 segment digit lcd, and a speaker. It has 16 instructions, one of which is an escape code to a further 16 built-in IO routines. It has 96 4-bit words of actual memory plus some memory mapped registers. Loads and stores can only target the data segment, the top 16 words in memory; it has one 4-bit wide index register that allows indexed access as well. It's a fun challenge to do something interesting in that constrained environment, but since there's no non-volatile storage of any kind, you have to tediously key in (admittedly necessarily short) programs each time it's powered up.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
Ah, so this is where Varmilo ste^W gets the inspiration for their hipster gear. https://varmilo.com/products/shurikey-hanzo-keyboard https://varmilo.com/products/shurikey-hanzo-keyboard
jldugger 3y ago
My dad picked one of these up at a garage sale in like 1990. It seemed like a great idea but I don't think I learned anything from it, other than that transistors broke my fundamental concept of electrical circuits.
kazinator 3y ago
> Some circuits require apparatus which are unsuitable for putting inside blocks, for example, a crystal earpiece. These have wires which terminate in flat metal contacts, and they are connected to the circuit by sliding the contacts between the metal strips of two neighbouring blocks. Surely, it is not impossible to produce a block that houses a 1/8" jack???

70 points by walterbell 3y ago

I have never heard that name. Unfortunately the article does not seem to mention in what countries those kits were sold. Having grown up in Germany I remember the name Kosmos. They seem to still exist. Not sure whether they were the most common / best ones. There is even a forum dedicated to the topic of electronic experimenting kits (in German): https://www.experimentierkasten-board.de/ https://www.experimentierkasten-board.de/ Edit: Based on http://www.elektronik-labor.de/Lernpakete/Ebaukaesten.html http://www.elektronik-labor.de/Lernpakete/Ebaukaesten.html I'd conclude that in the 1960s Kosmos was technically/didactically the leading one. In the 1970s probably surpassed by Philips. From the pictures I remember my friend had a Philips, the spring contact system was really good.

borninakihabara 3y ago
Maybe, it's sold only in Japan. It's famous for family with scientific culture in Japan.

cjk2 3y ago

I bought one of these many years ago. Extremely unreliable and inflexible. Worse than even the springy Rat Shack ones. I really wish someone would put together a decent kit and guide these days. I did consider designing and marketing something myself for a couple of years but I never got past the conceptual stage. It wasn't going to be a "here's a load of instructions to follow" but experiments that lead to "why" through instruction rather than just mechanical reproduction of circuits verbatim. Even all the Make stuff is pretty lame shiny marketing crap with few explanations and intuition being developed. I have spoken to a lot of people who bought a load of stuff and learned how to plug things into things and copy and paste code. When it comes to "I want to solve problem X" there are too many gaps which leads to demotivation and large lots of arduino crap being sold in bulk on eBay.

djmips 3y ago
Yeah it was disappointing. The 'springy' ones are easier to debug.
- kazinator 3y ago
  The 200-in-one thing I had with coil spring contacts was also pretty unreliable for complex circuits.
kazinator 3y ago
> Extremely unreliable and inflexible. I can see from the Wikipedia photos that the metal contacts are not of great quality, tarnished and all. If you polished the contacts (e.g. with Brasso) and the coated with a thin layer of grease (dielectric grease, vaseline, ...) it would probably quite a bit more reliable.

ghgr 3y ago

Reminds me of Scatron (sold in Spain in the 90s) https://jvgavila-com.translate.goog/aypetronic.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://jvgavila-com.translate.goog/aypetronic.htm?_x_tr_sl=...

makach 3y ago

I owned one of these. The experiments were so-so. The magic of building blocks this way inspired to creation, however as someone else wrote - they are extremely unreliable.

2sk21 3y ago

I had this back in the 1980s and I learnt a lot about electronics from it. Was one of my favorite kits!

theyinwhy 3y ago

So, what's a great kit to recommend today?

Solvency 3y ago
There are none. We live in an era where anything remotely unique (like that new Knob keyboard) costs $500.
- theyinwhy 3y ago
  Isn't the knob keyboard ... a keyboard? I was referring to electronic kits for learning.
  - Cheer2171 3y ago
    The point is that this would cost the same or even more than a customized mechanical keyboard.
evan_ 3y ago
My kids like snapcircuits but it’s pretty basic- nothing approaching the 60-in-1 radio shack kits.
brudgers 3y ago
A second hand Radio Shack kit. They are a great piece of product design and come with lots of things to do instead of lots of words to think about. They receive criticism for this. But normalizing the construction of circuits and deemphasizing theory is a feature not a bug…there are books for that (and these days websites and YouTubes for that too). For less than 100 eBay units — often much less — you can get a time tested educational tool.
snvzz 3y ago
One of the many "Arduino" breadboard kits. Great value from China (e.g. aliexpress).

baumschubser 3y ago

15 years ago I stumbled across Gakken, because they released a super cheap little synthesizer, controlled by a stylus. It sounds really cool and there exist even hacks to replace the stylus with a MIDI input. I bought one and it is the oldest item in my box of things that I will come back to when I have some free time :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALla261Zuo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALla261Zuo8

29athrowaway 3y ago

If you are looking for something like this try: - https://shop.elenco.com/consumers/brands/snap-circuits.html https://shop.elenco.com/consumers/brands/snap-circuits.html - https://upperstory.com/spintronics/ https://upperstory.com/spintronics/

ataylor284_ 3y ago

I own a Gakken GMC-4 microcomputer, which appears to be a remake of the FX-System. It's a fun little 4-bit computer with a hex keypad for input. For output, there's 7 LEDs, 1 7 segment digit lcd, and a speaker. It has 16 instructions, one of which is an escape code to a further 16 built-in IO routines. It has 96 4-bit words of actual memory plus some memory mapped registers. Loads and stores can only target the data segment, the top 16 words in memory; it has one 4-bit wide index register that allows indexed access as well. It's a fun challenge to do something interesting in that constrained environment, but since there's no non-volatile storage of any kind, you have to tediously key in (admittedly necessarily short) programs each time it's powered up.

justsomehnguy 3y ago

Ah, so this is where Varmilo ste^W gets the inspiration for their hipster gear. https://varmilo.com/products/shurikey-hanzo-keyboard https://varmilo.com/products/shurikey-hanzo-keyboard

jldugger 3y ago

My dad picked one of these up at a garage sale in like 1990. It seemed like a great idea but I don't think I learned anything from it, other than that transistors broke my fundamental concept of electrical circuits.

kazinator 3y ago

> Some circuits require apparatus which are unsuitable for putting inside blocks, for example, a crystal earpiece. These have wires which terminate in flat metal contacts, and they are connected to the circuit by sliding the contacts between the metal strips of two neighbouring blocks. Surely, it is not impossible to produce a block that houses a 1/8" jack???