Etch-a-Sketch

Etch-a-Sketch was a red plastic square-shaped toy with a grey screen. When you turned the two knobs a line would appear on the screen. One dial made the 'cursor' move up and down and the other moved the 'cursor left and right. To draw a complex design took a lot of patience as it was only really possible to draw images with straight lines. Diagonal lines were drawn by carefully moving the up vertical dial and then the horizontal dial. Circles were impossible.

When you were finished with your design, or you'd given up on something that was overly ambitious to start with you cleared the screen by shaking the Etch-a-Sketch up and down. One of the most frustrating things was that you couldn't 'undo' a line if you made a mistake - so you had to start all over again.

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Michael Johnson

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Do You Remember Etch-a-Sketch?

Span on 2018-10-19 21:14:45

I had an etch-a-sketch in the early 70s when I was about 10. It was almost impossible to draw anything that even remotely resembled what it was supposed to be, so instead I used to spend days removing every bit of the silver screen so you could see the inner workings of the actual toy. I led a very exciting life as a young kid!

thebhoywonder on 2010-04-12 11:00:33

very difficult to draw with these...

alan on 2009-11-02 14:46:48

I had one of these. Unfortunately,i was as much use with this as i was with paper and paint/crayons,etc. Not very good at all! Still great fun though.

jadedoz on 2009-09-26 08:48:13

I still have my etch a sketch, I could never draw anything good with it.

Action Man on 2008-09-30 22:57:10

I thought it was great and was so excited when I got one for Christmas. In the instruction book there were mystery pictures that you could draw by dialing in a sequence of the numbers printed on the up/down knobs and lo-and-behold a wonderful picture would appear on the screen. It rarely did though and I always ended up with a vague shape of wiggly lines and 90 degree angles. Still around today though, completely unchanged, so it must have something going for it.

Chunko on 2007-07-21 22:55:45

Ideal if you wanted to create abstract square or rectangular shapes. Not much use for anything else. Clever piece of gear though, I suppose.

Anonymous on 2006-03-24 09:35:18

I nagged my mum for one of these for christmas one year in the 70s. I was so excited when the big day came and remember being really disappointed that you couldnt write swear words because everything had to be a continuous line!!

Anonymous on 2005-03-15 13:04:58

I had one of these as a kid along with some activity sheets such as mazes to go with it. Now I just have a keychain. My biggest gripe about this toy is that it leaves ghost lines behind.

Anonymous on 2004-12-18 03:04:40

I could never do a darn thing with this toy.