Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan.
Speaker 1: But I was going into Tusky station to pick up
Speaker 1: some power converters. So today we thought we would talk
Speaker 1: about something courtesy of a little listener mail. This listener
Speaker 1: mail comes from Johnny. Johnny says, hey, guys, I thought
Speaker 1: a good podcast would be on laser Tag, and you
Speaker 1: guys are number seventy one on iTunes for you, Thanks Johnny.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we get all the way up into the forties
Speaker 1: and sometimes we drop off that charting time. We're not
Speaker 1: talking about those times. Now. Let's let's talk about instead.
Speaker 1: Let's hope by laser tag. Laser tag, are you is
Speaker 1: it out of your system? Now? Not even remotely. Long
Speaker 1: time listeners will remember that any time we have a
Speaker 1: podcast in which that word is mentioned, Jonathan will do
Speaker 1: that at least once. So, however, laser tag, and at
Speaker 1: least in the off the shelf, go it to your
Speaker 1: toy store. Sense does not in fact use lasers right
Speaker 1: at least not as the instrument of of transmitting or
Speaker 1: receiving any sort of tag. But there are some systems
Speaker 1: to do, and in fact, one of the I would
Speaker 1: consider it sort of the pioneer system for the whole
Speaker 1: thing U used by the by the United States Military
Speaker 1: as a training exercise. UM does in fact use real
Speaker 1: uh lasers. So you're talking about the Multiple Integrated Laser
Speaker 1: Engagement System. Yes, I am otherwise known as MILES. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My favorite was when uh Pallette actually sent me a
Speaker 1: link in preparation for this podcast, which was to a
Speaker 1: subset of that particular system. And here is the full
Speaker 1: title because it just it tickles me. The Multiple Integrated
Speaker 1: Laser Engagement System Independent Target System SLASH Wireless Independent Target
Speaker 1: System or the MILES its wits. You know, they probably
Speaker 1: don't refer to it that way. They may actually use
Speaker 1: a number of some kind or they're just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: go grab the thingy, grab the thing that's that's actually
Speaker 1: a pretty substantial piece of hardware. That the gear that
Speaker 1: they're using is much heavier and uh much more substantial
Speaker 1: than the stuff that you will find it your local
Speaker 1: toys or us. Right now, this stuff is made to
Speaker 1: to really simulate battle conditions as as closely as possible
Speaker 1: without really putting anyone in harm's way, because clearly one
Speaker 1: thing you don't want to do when you're training your
Speaker 1: soldiers is shoot them. Yeah, that that turns out to
Speaker 1: be a bad motivator. Also you have to train new ones.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but anyhow, No, they actually affix the laser
Speaker 1: to the end of an actual weapon and the firing blanks.
Speaker 1: They fire blank cartridges to simulate the actual experience of
Speaker 1: what it's going to feel like when you shoot at somebody, right,
Speaker 1: because you don't want you don't want to have the
Speaker 1: experience of pulling a trigger and there's no recoil, there's
Speaker 1: no bang, there's no vibration, there's nothing other than just
Speaker 1: the fact that a little laser shoots out of the
Speaker 1: end of the gun. Because then, of course it's not
Speaker 1: going to handle the way it really wouldn't the true
Speaker 1: combat situation. No, but it is sort of amusing to
Speaker 1: think about actual soldiers in actual combat gear running around
Speaker 1: the field going right, you're dead, I hit you know
Speaker 1: you did, and yes, I did it totally did you
Speaker 1: know what That's funny because in this these systems actually
Speaker 1: go back to the nineties seventies from what I understand,
Speaker 1: and uh, they actually sort of did that in the
Speaker 1: very first versions. Um, when you would shoot somebody, the
Speaker 1: system would register that you had been hit, but people
Speaker 1: would turn them off and turn them right back on,
Speaker 1: which would essentially reboot the system and suddenly they were
Speaker 1: alive again, right, and there there was no connection between
Speaker 1: the gun and the sensors so um, which meant that
Speaker 1: you can keep firing, right if you if you made
Speaker 1: if you made it a connection where I mean, the
Speaker 1: thing that makes sense is that if you are hit,
Speaker 1: then you are incapacitated someone, especially if your hits some places,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a uh pretty critical wound, right if
Speaker 1: you're hitting the leg. Theoretically, you could keep on firing,
Speaker 1: although I would imagine most of us would probably be
Speaker 1: mostly concerned about trying to get undercover and and to
Speaker 1: stop the bleeding. You know, it's there are people who,
Speaker 1: in extraordinary circumstances can continue to fight even under that
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of wound. But um, but the
Speaker 1: way the system theoretically should work is that if you
Speaker 1: were hitting a critical area, your gun would no longer
Speaker 1: function because if this were a real situation, you would
Speaker 1: no longer be able to fire your your weapon. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: the earliest them did not have that connection. There was
Speaker 1: a sensor, and there were or several sensors, usually placed
Speaker 1: in various strategic areas on the body, like there might
Speaker 1: be one on the belt, there might be one or
Speaker 1: or several on a vest, on the back of the vest,
Speaker 1: maybe on the helmet, um sometimes on the arms and
Speaker 1: legs as well. Uh, before the the in the early days,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, there was no connection. So if
Speaker 1: you were hitting the sensor, yeah, it would register that
Speaker 1: you are a quote unquote dead. But you could keep
Speaker 1: firing the gun cheating, or as you said, you could
Speaker 1: turn it off, turn it back on. It's like rebooting
Speaker 1: a computer. Suddenly you're alive again. It's like getting extra lives. Sadly,
Speaker 1: this is not something that pertains to actual battle conditions.
Speaker 1: It turns out that if you're shot in battle, you
Speaker 1: don't have a magic reboot button, as much as I
Speaker 1: wish it were otherwise. So since that is kind of
Speaker 1: antithetical to the whole purpose of training, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: not you're not training so that you win your training,
Speaker 1: so that you understand and what you need to do
Speaker 1: in an actual battle situation. So eventually these systems became
Speaker 1: more sophisticated so that they could communicate with one another,
Speaker 1: the sensor and the gun, so that the sensor, once
Speaker 1: it was registered a hit would deactivate the guns. You
Speaker 1: could not keep firing, and you were you were dead.
Speaker 1: A many generations from that very first system now right, right, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the system they used now is is far more advanced.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the things I thought was really
Speaker 1: kind of cool about the system that the military uses
Speaker 1: is that they have they can actually set the the
Speaker 1: the burst that comes out of the gun and tune
Speaker 1: it to the various kinds of weapons they actually use
Speaker 1: or they might actually come into contact with. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's not like a laser from your your assault rifle
Speaker 1: would be the same as a laser from a handgun
Speaker 1: or say a rocket propelled grenade. Even they can adjust
Speaker 1: the power and the intensity and even the the uh,
Speaker 1: the sensitivity of the sensors. So let's say that you
Speaker 1: they they'll often use um armored vehicles in these training exercises.
Speaker 1: Well armored vehicles of course. I mean the they have armor,
Speaker 1: and that armor is pretty tough stuff and your average
Speaker 1: gun cannot pierce it. So if you were to shoot
Speaker 1: an armored vehicle with one of these guns, your shots
Speaker 1: might hit your target, but they wouldn't register as a
Speaker 1: hit because in reality, the bullet would not penetrate the armor.
Speaker 1: But if you had a heavier weapon, um, and you
Speaker 1: fired at that vehicle, then it might register it as
Speaker 1: a hit because you've used a weapon that would actually
Speaker 1: be capable of doing some serious damage to that vehicle.
Speaker 1: This kind of you know, sensitivity, really makes it an
Speaker 1: effective tool for simulating these these conditions. Now, the version
Speaker 1: that you see in the world of citizens is nowhere
Speaker 1: near as sophisticated or compl x or expensive or expensive.
Speaker 1: It's still it's still can be fairly complex. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be the the you know, stupid version. But uh,
Speaker 1: I guess what we should probably do is let's let's
Speaker 1: go from the low end and work our way up. Okay,
Speaker 1: So a very basic laser tag system, yes, as in
Speaker 1: the kind that originally came out back in the uh well,
Speaker 1: late seventies was when the first one started coming out,
Speaker 1: But eighties is really when I remember him because that's
Speaker 1: when I remember laser tag itself debuting. Well yes, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: the very the very first one. And I should say
Speaker 1: that I got a lot of my information from a
Speaker 1: from a website of a guy named Brian Farley, um
Speaker 1: who uh. If you're in laser tag circles, you might
Speaker 1: know him as Tag Ferret. Uh. Apparently he's a laser
Speaker 1: tag enthusiast, but he's also the software engineer and co
Speaker 1: inventor of the Laser Tag Team OPS line of toys,
Speaker 1: which is a newer version of laser Tag. Um. But
Speaker 1: he had a pretty neat that had all sorts of
Speaker 1: history um and apparently, according to what he said, the
Speaker 1: very first system was the Star Trek Phasers that came
Speaker 1: out in nine which is funny because I thought that
Speaker 1: the the arena style uh laser tag systems were popular
Speaker 1: first and that they were a take home product based
Speaker 1: on that. But apparently I was wrong, right. It was
Speaker 1: the good old set stun. Yes, yes, so it was
Speaker 1: set to laser but but no, it was a guy
Speaker 1: named George Carter the third who was inspired by the
Speaker 1: aforementioned uh sort of uh Star Wars, who decided he
Speaker 1: wanted to create an arena where you could play, uh,
Speaker 1: a laser gun game. Um, and he's the one who
Speaker 1: apparently came up with the system known as photon Um.
Speaker 1: First center opened in four in Houston. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. First system opened in Dallas. Well, the the
Speaker 1: these weapons did not use laser beams, despite their name.
Speaker 1: What they're using our infrared signals, infrared LED I believe,
Speaker 1: and uh and so it's outside the spectrum of visible light,
Speaker 1: so you can't you know, we can't see it. It's
Speaker 1: we do actually sinse infrared radiation as heat. So but
Speaker 1: there's some problems with infrared signals. Now, almost all current
Speaker 1: laser tag systems, apart from the military one and a
Speaker 1: couple of commercial ones for for entertainment use, still rely
Speaker 1: on infrared signals. But one of the problems is that
Speaker 1: it's a divergent beam, meaning that it doesn't remain focused
Speaker 1: like a laser does, doesn't have a great range, it
Speaker 1: can bounce off stuff, so you can actually get hit
Speaker 1: by infrared ricochets. But more important eight and as far
Speaker 1: as the game goes, you don't have to be terribly
Speaker 1: accurate with one of these guns to register a hit
Speaker 1: in general, I mean, you can do things to refine
Speaker 1: it as much as possible, but in general, the further
Speaker 1: a way you are, as long as you're within still
Speaker 1: you know the range of whatever the gun you're using is,
Speaker 1: because you can change the intensity of these things. Um,
Speaker 1: the further way you are, the less accurate you need
Speaker 1: to be in order to register a hit. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: you could tell doing some research actually some of the
Speaker 1: the the knockoff systems, the ones that were really inexpensive.
Speaker 1: We're using a form of visible light, but those were
Speaker 1: horribly inaccurate, right, and if you tried to play them
Speaker 1: outside you could get hit by the sun. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: sort of a sort of a problem because you in
Speaker 1: general are gonna want some kind of room to run
Speaker 1: when you're playing these games. Um. But but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and it's possible to use a lens to try to
Speaker 1: focus it down, and some of the laser tags is
Speaker 1: to over the years have done this and and to
Speaker 1: varying degrees of success. I mean, Um, a lot of
Speaker 1: the earlier systems apparently used out uh an infrared emitter
Speaker 1: with about a plus or minus five degree um, which
Speaker 1: had sort of a mediumish range like a hundred to
Speaker 1: two hundred feet somewhere in there. UM from what I
Speaker 1: read UM on Mr Farley's website. Uh, some of them
Speaker 1: more advanced systems UM. And also read read that as
Speaker 1: expensive systems can get up to around three ft three
Speaker 1: fifty feet UM. But as you said, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how you know whether or not they're as accurate from
Speaker 1: that distance as they would be if you were closer up. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's very similar. And we'll talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: remote controls in the second because the two are related related.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of like if you have a remote
Speaker 1: control where you can just kind of pointed in the
Speaker 1: general direction of the television or cable box or whatever
Speaker 1: and it'll it'll work. UM. That usually means that it's
Speaker 1: got a decent powered led in an infrared l E
Speaker 1: ED may even have more than one. Some remotes have
Speaker 1: multiples so that it gives you a wider angle that
Speaker 1: you can use to to change the channel. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know about anyone else, but I have played
Speaker 1: the game of how how how wide an angle can
Speaker 1: I get before I can't turn up the volume anymore
Speaker 1: because I don't have friends. So um. Also, well, let's
Speaker 1: work if I bounce it off the couch, how about
Speaker 1: the ceiling. Yeah, So, same thing with the some of
Speaker 1: these laser tag games is the same sort of general
Speaker 1: idea is that you don't have to be uh like,
Speaker 1: have a dead on aim in order to to really
Speaker 1: register a hit. Now, some of them actually do use
Speaker 1: lasers in the sense that they'll use them as an effect,
Speaker 1: like the there'll be a second l e ed or
Speaker 1: a second like a laser attached to the gun that
Speaker 1: fires visible light. But that's not what is actually registering hits.
Speaker 1: That's just all it is, is just a visual effect
Speaker 1: to give it that extra little so that when you're
Speaker 1: pulling the trigger, you're not thinking, hey, my gun's not
Speaker 1: doing anything right. So, um, I hadn't actually realized that
Speaker 1: some of them actually used lasers like that. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: it's just as an effect, it's not it's not as
Speaker 1: a way to transmit a hit. And these infrared systems
Speaker 1: can get pretty advanced now. In the old laser tag system,
Speaker 1: um pretty much meant that any hit was gonna register
Speaker 1: on your target, like any any hit from any other
Speaker 1: laser laser tag gun. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you could
Speaker 1: essentially shoot yourself and because the the very first system
Speaker 1: named laser tag and that's laser with a z uh,
Speaker 1: which came out by Worlds of Wonder Um and um
Speaker 1: yeah it the gun wasn't connected at all to the sensor,
Speaker 1: so it had no idea who was shooting whom and
Speaker 1: whose team you were on or any of that information.
Speaker 1: It was just a since or and just an emitter really,
Speaker 1: that's all it was. And it helped to be standing
Speaker 1: within three feet of your target because otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't as accurate as you might like it to write. Now,
Speaker 1: the more advanced laser tag systems can do much more
Speaker 1: sophisticated things. For example, you can build into your sensor
Speaker 1: a database of codes. This is again very similar to
Speaker 1: what remote controls do. And in the guns you can
Speaker 1: set it so that the the infrared beam that it
Speaker 1: shoots has a very specific series of pulses, so when
Speaker 1: the sensor is hit, it can actually detect who shot you.
Speaker 1: And that's very much what goes on with your remote control,
Speaker 1: because your remote control is using a series of codes
Speaker 1: as well. Um. Otherwise it wouldn't be able to tell
Speaker 1: which number you're pressing if you want to change your channel,
Speaker 1: or whether you want the volume up or down or off.
Speaker 1: Each of those has its own identifiable code. So um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, like if you push, if you volume up,
Speaker 1: this series of this series of pulses comes out. And
Speaker 1: then what happens is the receiver that the sensor picks
Speaker 1: up those series of pulses, it converts it into binary
Speaker 1: and then consults its little database to see what that
Speaker 1: command translates to. Same sort of thing with laser tech.
Speaker 1: It'll look up its database and say, oh, well, player
Speaker 1: two was the one who shot you, And so you
Speaker 1: can see at the end of the game who it
Speaker 1: was that was, you know, plaguing you, and if it
Speaker 1: was someone from your own team, you can chew them out.
Speaker 1: But uh, and and a lot of these systems also
Speaker 1: will include a radio frequency transmitter and that is sending
Speaker 1: signals to the master control not the master control program
Speaker 1: was about to go into tron there for a second. Uh,
Speaker 1: the master control unit, which will then kind of act
Speaker 1: as a score a scoreboard, you know, keeping track of
Speaker 1: who shot whom and which team is winning and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And um again, it's just that the
Speaker 1: sensor picks up the it sends a signal to the
Speaker 1: RF transmitter which then sends a signal to the master
Speaker 1: control unit, and uh, you know, it keeps record of
Speaker 1: your score. It's pretty cool system. I'm I have never
Speaker 1: played in one of those laser tag arena type things.
Speaker 1: I've played the back when I was a kid in
Speaker 1: the eighties, I actually did play with the the laser
Speaker 1: tag system that the first one that hidden in eight six.
Speaker 1: Like you said, Um, but that was very primitive compared
Speaker 1: to these. Yes, yes, um, yeah, there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of history out there about those systems. Um. I was
Speaker 1: one of the people that, Um, apparently, when World's Wonder
Speaker 1: went into bankruptcy, Uh, it was really easy to pick
Speaker 1: up the original laser tag system on the cheap, which
Speaker 1: is what I and two of my closest friends did
Speaker 1: in high school. And I remember, Um, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: go up to school at night and run around in
Speaker 1: parts of the area where they had you know, the
Speaker 1: school trailers and stuff. Uh, and we would play laser tag. However, UM,
Speaker 1: it would probably have benefited us if we had paid
Speaker 1: attention to what it was going on, because um, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, somebody was somebody was. Actually it's
Speaker 1: not funny. I don't didn't mean to to laugh, but
Speaker 1: it's ironically enough, somebody was actually killed playing at a
Speaker 1: school when a police officer who was responding to a
Speaker 1: call about somebody running around the school with a gun. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he was investigating, and when the kid had
Speaker 1: the laser tag gun and pointed it at him, he
Speaker 1: fired in what he thought was self defense. So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't recommend if you decided to go out and buy
Speaker 1: a laser tag kit that you run around in places
Speaker 1: where it is dark and you may or may not
Speaker 1: appear to be up to no good. Yeah, of course
Speaker 1: it's back in the eighties. This was back still in
Speaker 1: the time where you would be able to purchase toy guns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the toy guns that looked like at least, you know,
Speaker 1: an analog to a real gun. Nowadays it's all neon colors.
Speaker 1: Of course, that always raises the question in my mind,
Speaker 1: what stops someone from painting a real gun on neon color?
Speaker 1: But let's not go there. Well enough people paint the
Speaker 1: fake guns black, so the people it's just a big
Speaker 1: crazy um. But no, actually, in response to that, Worlds
Speaker 1: of Wonder, although it was still operating under bankruptcy conditions,
Speaker 1: uh did make some white different white weapons, and they
Speaker 1: came out with a whole bunch of other stuff too.
Speaker 1: After UM They after they initially went under, the company
Speaker 1: re emerged a couple of years ago. They a few
Speaker 1: of the original founders formed a new company UM and
Speaker 1: UH called Shoot the Moon Products, which is still in existence.
Speaker 1: UM and they licensed their stuff to to Tiger, and
Speaker 1: they came out with a whole bunch of new stuff.
Speaker 1: They even had a basically a blast bazooka laser tag
Speaker 1: bazooka that would function as a mortar, as a bazooka,
Speaker 1: or as a rifle, depending on what it was attempting
Speaker 1: to do. I guess that just increases the area of effect. Yes, yes, well,
Speaker 1: I mean if you're using it as a bazook would
Speaker 1: it would fire any in a very short pattern, but
Speaker 1: in a wide array, so virtually anybody within a certain
Speaker 1: area is going to get hit. UM And in mortar
Speaker 1: mode it would actually fire in an arc UH and
Speaker 1: protect its sensor from an attack from the front. And
Speaker 1: if you used it as a rifle, it would actually
Speaker 1: Now I'm going from the marketing compy, I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how you fire infra red ray in
Speaker 1: an arc. Yeah. I was kind of wondering that too,
Speaker 1: but that's what it's supposed to have done. And then
Speaker 1: in the rifle mode it is is a highly you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very precise and more precise and precise. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it was. It wasn't uh sending
Speaker 1: the signal out over his wider ranges when it was
Speaker 1: in the other mode. But apparently it was really neat
Speaker 1: and again really expensive because you know, it was a
Speaker 1: larger toy. Yeah, and some of the guns would have
Speaker 1: I remember reading about one that would have sensors on
Speaker 1: the gun itself so that if the gun were hit
Speaker 1: it um a certain number of times, it would stop working.
Speaker 1: And and of course a lot of the laser tag
Speaker 1: games that are in arenas or whatever are in systems
Speaker 1: where similar to the military, if you are hit a
Speaker 1: certain number of times, your gun will stop working and
Speaker 1: you have to go and recharge or to uh to
Speaker 1: continue playing. Um. It's a lot simpler now than it
Speaker 1: was back in the eighties when really the only option
Speaker 1: you had back then if you wanted to try and
Speaker 1: achieve that would be to tether the gun to the vest,
Speaker 1: which you know then affects your mobility. Yeah, but it would,
Speaker 1: and it also would involve some hacking, especially on these
Speaker 1: off the shelf systems that you would get forty or
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. What's interesting is I have seen plans on
Speaker 1: the internet for building your own laser tag gun and
Speaker 1: sensor systems. Interesting. I looked through them and they are
Speaker 1: well above my area of expertise. So after reading the
Speaker 1: first three or four steps, I said, this is a
Speaker 1: good project for someone much more electronically inclined than I. So,
Speaker 1: so you're not handy with a soldering iron, is what
Speaker 1: you're saying. I'm a left hander. I find that most
Speaker 1: tools are designed for right handers. And that's my story,
Speaker 1: and I'm stick and do it that I'm a sinister
Speaker 1: kind of guy. That's an old French joke for you
Speaker 1: guys out there, alright, Well, not like an old French
Speaker 1: it's a joke about never mind. Um right, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's go back to remote control just for a second. Sure,
Speaker 1: so I know where you're gonna We gave the connection
Speaker 1: between remote controls and laser tag uh. We should, of
Speaker 1: course say that this means remote controls that are using
Speaker 1: infrared signals not. Most most modern ones do, although some
Speaker 1: of them do use radio signals, right, And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if some started to use things like you know,
Speaker 1: you're over your home networks, right, or bluetooth. That would
Speaker 1: be another another one that would make sense. But if
Speaker 1: you go back to the early and you hadn't forgotten this, now,
Speaker 1: this is this is a sidebar, a sidebar on the
Speaker 1: whole laser tag remote controls discussion because it has to
Speaker 1: do with sound as opposed to light the sidebar and
Speaker 1: how old we are? Yeah, the old old remote controls
Speaker 1: used ultra sonic some signals in order to make your
Speaker 1: television do things. There didn't even need to be a
Speaker 1: battery in the remote control. No, it didn't use a
Speaker 1: battery at all, because all you're doing is pressing a
Speaker 1: button which caused a tiny aluminum bar to vibrate at
Speaker 1: a very high frequency and ultra high frequency. Uh, and
Speaker 1: the receiver, once it quote unquote heard that frequency would
Speaker 1: react the appropriate way. UM. So example examples would include
Speaker 1: power volume, that kind of thing sort of the sort
Speaker 1: of similar to, um, what the the the current remote
Speaker 1: controls do? Um? This meant that if you were a
Speaker 1: fidgety child who happened to have a who happened to
Speaker 1: have a popular toy that was around in the seventies. Um,
Speaker 1: you could accidentally affect the behavior of your television. Would
Speaker 1: you like to reveal the name of said toy? Oh?
Speaker 1: Uh well, actually for me, it was a different toy
Speaker 1: than it was for you. What was the toy for you?
Speaker 1: For me? Remember those? Uh? Well, they still make them,
Speaker 1: the the magnet kits that have all the little metal
Speaker 1: pieces and you can basically sort of shape the magnet.
Speaker 1: You could. There are two magnets, and then you can
Speaker 1: pick up the little metal pieces and make them into
Speaker 1: a little arc, kind of make little animals out of them.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while, I'd be playing with that
Speaker 1: thing in my grandmother's house and she had one of
Speaker 1: these TVs with the Zenith Space Command TV remote, and
Speaker 1: uh when the pieces would all fall, you know, it
Speaker 1: would I would basically make something that that had no
Speaker 1: structural integrity and it would fall in on itself as
Speaker 1: soon as it made a certain noise, the change the
Speaker 1: channel would change on the TV. And I don't know
Speaker 1: what those are called, so I don't have a name.
Speaker 1: So the little the little metal piece of little metal
Speaker 1: pieces would vibrate at the right frequency, and the television
Speaker 1: would think, oh, I need to change the channel or
Speaker 1: or adjust their volume or whatever. Apparently, a neighbor's dog
Speaker 1: who came by every once in a while to their
Speaker 1: dog tags would rat would jingle at the right frequency
Speaker 1: and change the channel on it. For me, Um, I
Speaker 1: will tell you it was the slinky slinky it walks
Speaker 1: downstairs and right. The slinky convinced me that I had
Speaker 1: the powers of a television god because I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: have the remote in my hands, and yet I could
Speaker 1: affect the channel and the volume, not in any predictable way.
Speaker 1: So clearly I had a long way to go. But
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I figured, you know, I'd grow
Speaker 1: into my godly powers and eventually use them for good
Speaker 1: and fighting crime in various television related escapades. Um, As
Speaker 1: it turns out, No, it was just that when I
Speaker 1: was moving the slinky back and forth, that was occasionally
Speaker 1: iterating just the right ultra high frequency to uh to
Speaker 1: affect the television. Crazy stuff. Oh and I also had
Speaker 1: another toy later on in life that does relate back
Speaker 1: to laser tag. Yeah, I can't let this go either.
Speaker 1: So in the late eighties there was a series of
Speaker 1: toys and then a cartoon that was truly terrible called
Speaker 1: Brave Star. Go to YouTube search for Brave Star. Yep,
Speaker 1: it's actually it's technically three rs because there's one after
Speaker 1: the B. But yes, b R A V S T
Speaker 1: A R R and it's all one word. Brave Star
Speaker 1: was a space cowboy. Some people called him Marie and
Speaker 1: he uh he had a he had a horse that
Speaker 1: would turn into an nthropomorphic horse. But the toys that
Speaker 1: came out had these little laser tag type backpacks and
Speaker 1: you could put one on the bad guy one the
Speaker 1: good guy, and you can actually have a little shooting
Speaker 1: fights between the two, and the little backpacks would register
Speaker 1: shots and and and hits, which I thought was pretty
Speaker 1: darn cool because I was lame. And if you try
Speaker 1: and watch one of these cartoons on YouTube, first of all,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and second of all, um, you know I
Speaker 1: have no I had no taste as a kid. It's
Speaker 1: only marginally gotten better as an adult. Ouch. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: that that pretty much wraps up this discussion on laser
Speaker 1: tag and remote controls. I would say we actually wrapped
Speaker 1: that up a few minutes ago we kind of did.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but but no, it was it was good
Speaker 1: to go back to the space command thing because I
Speaker 1: always did think that was fascinating, and you know, I
Speaker 1: had no idea as a kid. How how much of
Speaker 1: it's easy to find if you're interested in in that remote.
Speaker 1: There are tons and tons of photos of them, of
Speaker 1: varieties of them. They had them out for years, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, for many many years. So it
Speaker 1: was pretty much the first considered as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, the first remote UH made only had like
Speaker 1: four button song it. Yeah, the the remote that we
Speaker 1: had before that one was me Yeah, yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: one that we had for a long time until we
Speaker 1: got our first cable box. Go and change the channel, son,
Speaker 1: turning the knob, trying to get that was my father,
Speaker 1: the widely published author and scholar of American literature. Clearly
Speaker 1: he talks just like that. Now that we've wrapped that up,
Speaker 1: let's go on quickly to our second round of listener mail.
Speaker 1: This listener mail comes from our friend Ben Ivy, and
Speaker 1: Ben Ivy is what we call a super fan. He's
Speaker 1: also a big fan of stuff you should know as
Speaker 1: well as other uh how stuff Works podcasts and blogs,
Speaker 1: and Ben sent us something that was really cool. Let
Speaker 1: me read the email. We can't let stuff. You should
Speaker 1: know his Facebook page be the only one with fan art.
Speaker 1: So here's a little something for your consideration. It's nothing new.
Speaker 1: Perhaps in the future I'll incorporate your pictures into something.
Speaker 1: The big fan of all the house stuff Works podcast.
Speaker 1: Please keep up the great work, Ben. So, what Ben
Speaker 1: has done is he has created his own fan logo
Speaker 1: for tech stuff and you can actually view this on
Speaker 1: our Facebook page. We've uploaded it into an album for
Speaker 1: or fan art and it's pretty cool, very retro, kind
Speaker 1: of has a Transformers vibe to it. Uh, the old
Speaker 1: animated series, not the new new movies. But so, if
Speaker 1: you guys have any fan art you want to send in,
Speaker 1: you want to try your hand at something like that,
Speaker 1: you send it over, we might upload it up to
Speaker 1: the fan page and and have it up there on
Speaker 1: our our Facebook page. Yeah, pretty cool stuff. We look
Speaker 1: forward to seeing more of that. If you have any
Speaker 1: fan art you'd like to send, or comments, questions, more
Speaker 1: topics incident to our email address, which is tech stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Chris and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. If you're a tech
Speaker 1: stuff fan, be sure to check us out on Twitter
Speaker 1: Text Stuff hs WSR handle, and you can also find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook at Facebook dot com tech Stuff h
Speaker 1: s W. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff Works dot com and be sure to
Speaker 1: check out the new tech stuff blog now on the
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works homepage, brought to you by the reinvented
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you