deskthority

I'm kind of surprised not to find a Lego thread here, so I'm starting one.

Mine is a sad story: I used to own the amazing Black Seas Barracuda (6285), King's Mountain Fortress (6081) and Black Knight's Castle (6086). Now that my parents are moving out, I looked for those great sets and I found them gone!

Not all is lost, though. I've still got a couple of small but nice Town sets and a couple of Technics, plus a wealth of mini sets such as veichles, a bucket and a building case with random surviving bricks and minifigs in it.

Here are the Town sets: Holiday Home (6388) and Derby Trotter (6355), both issued in 1989. As you may notice, sadly some of the original bricks and accessories are gone and I had to substitute them with similar ones. I plan to improve the diorama with the small platform that's missing on the right (already ordered it through ebay) and possibly other details, a car maybe.

And here's the more badass Technic sets: Luckily those two are complete and I still have the original boxes. The car is an alternate and smaller model from the great Barcode Multi Set (8479). This set is driven by a unique programmable bar code reader and powered by a 9v motor. And then we have a Pneumatic Log Loader (8443). Both issued in 1996-1997.

I have several kg of Lego and Lego Technic but it's in the attic. My childhood = Lego.

The only thing I have in my room is the first Lego model I got when I was 5 years old (I only had Duplo before that).

You are too late!


The Lego-man has gone -- forever!


RIP, Ripster...

ne0phyte wrote:

Nice vehicle for keyboard cleaning, you have!

Yeah, in between his occasional rants and trolling he did show some Lego love! But I bet he's not the only one here.

The goal of this subreddit is simple.
THIS IS A FUCKING WHINY BITCHING FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS SUBREDDIT WHERE RIPSTER BLOWS OFF STEAM.
Who IS this Ripster Character?
The Number One Keyboard Expert On Planet Earth.
It started at GeekWhack.organ.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Ripster/



I'm almost embarrassed to admit this :
I don't own a single piece of Lego any more -
How un-Danish is that ??

Woah, that's really hard on the eye!

I have been very tempted to start doing Lego again, as an adult... But I know that if I start I will lose myself in it, like I have done with my other hobbies..

Yeah, I've been keeping myself from buying new ones and only rebuilt my ancient sets. Besides I don't like too much the look of the newer models, I find that there are too many special pieces and they've lost the simplicity and ingenuity of older sets. There are still some impressive ones though.

Special pieces are the stuff of ideological warfare! Is Lego a general purpose tool, capable of building universally, or is it a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle? To the barricades!

With my 1970s stuff I might only able to build barricades!


I still have railway tracks and some related equipment!

I like a few of special pieces. The 70s sets mostly lack them and look too spartan to me. On the other hand, from the 90s the special pieces seem to take over. Each minifig have a different face and clothes, there are adhesives on the vehicles, the accessories look more like the real thing – so you need no imagination to guess what they represent. Everything is less and less stylized. I liked it when most minifigs had the same smiling expression in monochrome, and then you got the pirate captain with a red beard and a black eypatch. That really stood out and really felt special. But then again, those are the toys I grew up with, so maybe I prefere them just because of the nostalgia.

Nostalgia is certainly powerful stuff. This forum and we collectors are evidence of that.

That's why I expected MOAR Lego pics!

My oldest Lego kits are from the 70s... will post pics when I get round to it. My fave is the Eagle moon lander, and you have to build the men from bricks...

Muirium wrote:Special pieces are the stuff of ideological warfare! Is Lego a general purpose tool, capable of building universally, or is it a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle? To the barricades!

Some of those new sets look like heavily pixelated Airfix-sets !

Basic low-res building blocks. Lego is doomed by 3d printing like Kodak was by digital photography.

webwit wrote:Lego is doomed by 3d printing ...

AFAIK, Lego bricks are moulded with quite high precision. I think that it will take quite a while before commodity 3D-printers print ABS plastic (which Lego uses) at that resolution.

Kodak, yesteryear, "We think it will take quite a while before commodity digital cameras can shoot photos with sufficient quality".

Still, I think 3D printing will take quite some time to really catch on with more than enthusiasts, the reason being, like so often, that software has to catch up first. It's still way too complicated for most people to create 3D objects to print.

@topic: I was more of a fischertechnik kid.

Never heard of Fischertechnik, maybe they weren't imported in Italy. I used to have some Meccano, Playmobil and Mic-o-mic, but Lego was my favorite.

I think it will be more like replicators. You could program sci-fi replicators, but more likely, you just ask for a coffee and it will get you one because it has the design already. With 3d printers, if you want a toy or part, most will just download an existing design instead of make their own. The future of toys like this will be the sites/apps that provide such designs or design tools so the kids can create their own in a minecraft sort of way. That business will be pioneered, but probably not by Lego.

Meccano was much more like engineering. My old man had some (apparently too obscure to Google…) "Trixx", which was like the Emacs to Meccano's vim, while Lego was Notepad.exe. Or MSpaint.exe when they put artwork on it.

That business will be pioneered, but probably not by Lego

Nope, the Kirk Kristiansen family will spend some of their billions on lobbying the politicians
for never-expiring patents instead - If that fails, they will start to monitor your smart-printer
and have their lawyers send you 'pay-up or else' letters..

To prevent that they must use blocks with Cherry mount!

Muirium wrote:Meccano was much more like engineering.

Yeah Meccano was fun to build, plus it was mostly metal and thus felt like serious stuff. However the models don't look half as good as Lego on the shelf. Instead Mic-o-mic is great on display, but it's strictly for that – you can't build anything with the pieces except the one model they come for.

Halvar wrote:@topic: I was more of a fischertechnik kid.

Streber!

Anybody remember Tente?