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Post by d.ruxpin on Jan 26, 2018 18:29:42 GMT -7
Incredible!! What a wonderful surprise!
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Post by illiopmom on Jan 26, 2018 19:01:42 GMT -7
That's incredible.
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Post by illiopoctopedemusicYT on Jan 26, 2018 19:20:54 GMT -7
You are such a legend!
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Post by Kevin on Jan 27, 2018 15:19:01 GMT -7
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Post by illiopoctopedemusicYT on Jan 27, 2018 17:25:47 GMT -7
I'm curious of as to how Amber works and what her cassette player looks like, do you think you can do a video showcasing those?
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rosk
Member
Long time TR and WoW fan.
Posts: 11
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Post by rosk on Jan 27, 2018 20:39:59 GMT -7
How Amber works: The Amber in the video is actually a 2-servo plastic tape deck Teddy that I got from a thrift store years ago. I modified the clothing, hair etc. to make a close replica of the 'real' Amber. Inside, the circuit board and wiring are modified to make her respond to 'Grubby' signals through the interconnecting cable, so she does not use her tape deck at all - it is all disconnected. She uses channel 6 for eyes and channel 8 for mouth. Both her servos still worked but she had a broken lower jaw hinge pin which I had to repair - drill out and replace with a screw.
How Teddy works - the one in the video - he is an old 3-servo metal deck TR, again bought at a thrift store. All 3 servos had failed, so I had to strip them totally and clean the brushes and commutator. His head frame was also cracked, I had to wire and weld that, and the head frame clips were broken - more wire repairs. His circuit board is modified to take signals from an external connector rather than the tape deck. Signals come from my animation system. The tape deck does nothing - it is also disconnected, but I did discover that its pick-roller is 'flatted' so its not usable - has terrible 'wow'.
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rosk
Member
Long time TR and WoW fan.
Posts: 11
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Post by rosk on Jan 27, 2018 20:55:20 GMT -7
Re: "Were there ever plans for a cord to attach BOTH Grubby and Gimmick at the same time?" Not technically possible. The control system is 8-channel 'digital proportional' - as used by older r/c systems. Channel 1 is unused. 2: Teddy eyes, 3: Teddy Upper jaw, 4: Teddy lower jaw, 5: Controls which loud speaker the audio comes from, 6: Grubby Eyes, 7: Grubby upper jaw, 8: Grubby lower jaw. So there's none left for Gimmick.The channel decoder chip used only had 8 channels. Technically it may have been possible to go to 12 channels and make a more complex decode board for Gimmick so he used 10-12, but there's also the question of how to switch the audio. Apart from all that, the Alchemy II animation generation system would have needed modification to generate 12 animation channels. Mickey Mouse (and ??) (and maybe later Mother Goose?) used a 16 channel system, but channels 9-16 were used as a key to control if the tape would animate the character. Likely Disney did not want Mickey being animated by Heavy Metal tapes
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rosk
Member
Long time TR and WoW fan.
Posts: 11
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Post by rosk on Jan 27, 2018 21:06:39 GMT -7
Re: "And the idea of her [Amber] being a doctor? Super useful!" I am not sure where the idea that Amber is a doctor came from. It may have been the story/product developer's idea, or it may have another source -
Back when Worlds of Wonder factory was in full swing in South Fremont Ca. they also had a retail outlet store in Central Fremont. It was packed out 100% with ALL the WoW products. In the back was a little room where they did repairs on broken toys - and of course with the number of toys sold and their complexity + fragility there were a LOT of requests for repairs. There was a lady in charge of it, and who maybe did repairs - and she was called "Doctor Amber". Maybe Amber was already a doctor, or this lady gave her the occupation.
If Dr. Clay is still around, he would know. Anyone in contact with Dr. Clay?
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Post by illiopmom on Jan 27, 2018 21:40:58 GMT -7
Wow, this is all really impressive. Got any other cool facts on Teddy/WOW?
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Post by supaloopa on Jan 27, 2018 22:12:07 GMT -7
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Post by PACNATIC (hyperobscurehunter) on Feb 10, 2018 5:33:56 GMT -7
Do you know if Gimmick and Amber are currently in "The Vault"?
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rosk
Member
Long time TR and WoW fan.
Posts: 11
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Post by rosk on May 24, 2018 13:38:51 GMT -7
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Post by illiopmom on May 24, 2018 21:23:44 GMT -7
This is really awesome! Do you have any other fun facts to share about Teddy and the gang?
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Post by pumpkinseedruxpin on Dec 1, 2018 14:29:37 GMT -7
Hi there! Im not sure if this has been discovered yet, but on the youtube chanel IlliopOctopede they have up a cleaned up version of the Alchemy II video uploaded with permission that shpws the Amber prototype, as well as the Newton Gimic and Charlie Brown prototypes.
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Post by BeachBear on Dec 21, 2018 20:49:17 GMT -7
Hi there! Im not sure if this has been discovered yet, but on the youtube chanel IlliopOctopede they have up a cleaned up version of the Alchemy II video uploaded with permission that shpws the Amber prototype, as well as the Newton Gimic and Charlie Brown prototypes. You are incredible. I can’t thank you enough! I have waited for so long and I’m finally able to see so many things I’ve only ever dreamed of, thank you. I know this is a big ask, but can you please upload your videos onto a mega download file or something for posterity? I would go through and manually download all these but I’m away from my laptop at the moment. Happy holidays, and thank you again!!
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