
The Milton Bradley Big Trak - empressplay
https://paleotronic.com/2019/04/09/the-toy-store-the-milton-bradley-big-trak/
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jcoffland
I had one of these as a kid. It was awesome!! I believe it was my first
exposure to programing. I even have a picture of me with it. Plaid shirts and
programming. Not much has changed in ~40 years.

[https://blog.buildbotics.com/content/images/2018/12/1-oeEOUx...](https://blog.buildbotics.com/content/images/2018/12/1-oeEOUxk9MI5tWfjMaQs9_A.png)

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wazoox
Yes I had this too. Unfortunately it didn't support conditions or loop IIRC :)

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xnyan
It has very, very basic loop functionally. A repeat function would be more
accurate.

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andygates
Drive round the living room, fire laser (n) times to get dad's attention, wait
for dad to load it with peanuts, drive back. That was a very good xmas.

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fsagx
Any D batteries in the house got snatched up fast. Any flashlights with good
batteries usually got swapped for dead ones.

Anyone else remember their bigtrak being a matte grey, instead of white like
in the article? I remember skipping the decal installation too -- didn't care
for the stripes.

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eskatonic
The original was grey. ThinkGeek put out a "remake" a few years ago, which was
white.

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lordelph
There's a maker group local to me that constructed a drivable version called
BigHak! [http://hackhitchin.org.uk/bighak/](http://hackhitchin.org.uk/bighak/)

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mdturnerphys
For anyone looking for something similar for a younger age group:
[https://www.learningresources.com/product/learning+essential...](https://www.learningresources.com/product/learning+essentials
--8482-+stem+robot+mouse+coding+activity+set.do). My 6yo daughter enjoys it
even more than I'd hoped she would. I believe I found it on the Purdue
Engineering gift guide shared on HN before Christmas.

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Nursie
I remember the ads! I _so_ wanted one of these things :)

It was 1979? Wow. Given I was a '78 baby, I'm guessing they were either late
to the UK, or on the market for a number of years.

Relaunched you say? Huh...

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magoghm
I was 19 years old and I also wanted one of those. But I had to choose, and I
finally ended up getting a Chess Challenger 7: [https://www.schach-
computer.info/wiki/index.php/Fidelity_Che...](https://www.schach-
computer.info/wiki/index.php/Fidelity_Chess_Challenger_7)

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dkresge
There was even an add-on “dump cart” which could be towed and (IIRC) dumped
programmatically via the 1/8” mini-plug that served as part of its hitch. Fun
times!

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asciimo
Man, that was a good time. I remember writing out paths on paper that were
lines of arrows. Had to adjust turn values based on the surface friction;
linoleum needed less turn, and carpet needed more. Talk about learning to
debug...

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tyingq
Better info on what's inside the thing:
[http://www.robotroom.com/BigTrak.html](http://www.robotroom.com/BigTrak.html)

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taneq
I always wanted one of these, so when I saw a new-gen one I snapped it up
("for the kids", of course. :) Disappointingly the software seems to be buggy,
though - on a fair percentage of turn instructions it just buzzes for a second
or so and then turns backs up before turning less than it should have done. I
guess I just need to pull it apart and upgrade it...

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beenBoutIT
You can still find the original ones all over eBay.

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mixmastamyk
My dad got me one of these, may have a picture of it somewhere. Great memories
of exploring the house with it. <3 <3

One thing not mentioned. If memory serves it took something like 8 D batteries
and ate them for breakfast! My little pinball machine ate them even faster,
haha.

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LVB
Reminds me of my 255 Computer Command from the same era:
[https://youtu.be/1D1l1FImAgI](https://youtu.be/1D1l1FImAgI)

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growlist
Now even more upset for my 7 year old self that I didn't get one reading the
comments here about how awesome it was! The marketing was certainly very
successful - I can still just about remember the TV adverts 35 ish (eek) years
later.

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01100011
I had something similar on my Capsela set. I think Robotix had one too. I
think they came out a few years later though.

