|
Post by lachlant1984 on Nov 27, 2015 13:48:07 GMT -7
It's always good to hear that there are more people out there willing to repair these toys and keep those of us who dearly love Teddy Ruxpin and similar toys happy. Teddy Ruxpin means so much to the people of this forum, and I speak from experience when I say that people aren't happy with their Teddy Ruxpin toys break down and cannot be repaired or are repaired improperly. Good luck. If people want you to repair their Teddy Ruxpin products, what's the best way for them to go about contacting you?
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Nov 7, 2015 2:32:53 GMT -7
That Is Really Sad. But Just Wait Till He Comes Out Next Summer. XD I agree that it's sad, but what I'm really interested in is the other things you said. "But wait until he come out next Summer". Has a new version of Teddy Ruxpin actually been announced? Do you know for certain a new version is coming out? What did you mean by that comment.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Nov 6, 2015 17:38:18 GMT -7
I think overall there were about 12 tapes for the YES Teddy Ruxpin, I have 5 of them I think, I've got The Airship, Uncle Grubby, Teddy Ruxpin's Christmas. Teddy Ruxpin's Winter Adventure and The Do-Along Songbook. I understand that Teddy Ruxpin Lullabies and Quiet Please were also released for it. I think I may have seen a complete list of the tapes available, but I can't remember where I saw it. I have the TV Video Pack for Teddy Ruxpin and I had the box it came in, I believe the box said that 12 tapes were available. Interestingly Worlds Of Wonder referred to the tapes as Animation cassettes, yet I believe YES called them Interactive Tapes or Interactive Cassettes.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Apr 16, 2014 5:24:10 GMT -7
I'd suggest talking to Dr Eeyore or Betty Jones if you can still get a hold of those 2 people, I suspect they'd be able to help you. I was in contact with Dr Eeyore some 4 years ago, she tells me she has the service manuals for Teddy Ruxpin, I suspect the service manual has a schematic diagram in it. It would not be hard to add a power socket for a 6 volt AC Adaptor, but if you're going to do that, you'll want to make sure the current rating of the adaptor is equivalent to that of 4 C size batteries, or slightly higher, Teddy does consume quite a bit of juice.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Mar 31, 2014 4:09:00 GMT -7
I just wonder what's going to happen to Alchemy II now that Ken Forsse is no longer with us? I'd assume that Ken's family and the other people at Alchemy II have everything under control and in hand, I'm just curious as to what they'll do. The other thing I've always wondered is did Alchemy II ever close up shop between the different major versions of Teddy Ruxpin? Also, I note that on my Worlds Of Wonder Airship tape, I see that it has Alchemy Communications Group printed on it, but in other placed I see Alchemy II mentioned. So does this mean that ACG closed up shop at some point during the 80s or early 90s? What other major projects, if any, were ACG/Alchemy II involved in?
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Mar 24, 2014 1:50:31 GMT -7
I know this is not that relevant and a little bit off topic, but I can't help but say it anyway. Veritel sounds like a name for a telecommunications provider like Telstra or AT&T for instance.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on May 30, 2013 17:26:21 GMT -7
Starting from the left hand side, insert the battery on the far left with the positive end of the battery pointing inward towards the contacts, next, insert the next battery with the nub pointing towards you, next, insert the third battery with the positive nub pointing inwards towards the contacts, then, lastly, insert the fourth battery in with the positive nub pointing at you. If you're lying Teddy Ruxpin on a table in front of you, then insert the appropriate batteries positive end down and insert the other batteries positive end pointing towards the ceiling. I hope that helps. Once the batteries are installed, replace the battery cover and ensure the tabs lock into place.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Jan 11, 2013 4:10:42 GMT -7
If a 5 year old child were to see the ad for the 2006 Teddy Ruxpin, do you think they'd be interested in it? I somehow don't think so.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Jan 11, 2013 4:03:59 GMT -7
What a fantastic article, I love it, this is such an eye-opening article, it really is. I know in the past that I've suggested that interactive computer software for Teddy Ruxpin would be a good idea, but maybe I focused on that too much in recent posts, but I should have made it clear that I don't think that any new version of Teddy Ruxpin should solely be based on some sort of computer connectivity type arrangement, I think such features should be optional to users who want them, I just wanted to get that point out of the way first, I may have more to say about this in the future, but right now I don't have much else to say. I read your points about E-books for children not selling well, but what do you think of devices such as the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer 2? My 3 year old cousin got one for Christmas, I played with it on Christmas Day and I couldn't put it down, I couldn't resist buying one for myself. I know there are Interactive E-books available for it, I understand that the E-books for the LeapPad 2 may be similar in a lot of ways to the Broderbund Software Living Books series of CD-ROM games from the early 90s, do any of you remember them? Do you know how well interactive E-book content for devices like the LeapPad 2 is selling compared to, say E-books for kids on the Amazon Kindle or iPad? You can buy software cartridges for the LeapPad 2, so it's not a requirement that you establish an account on the LeapFrog website or connect your LeapPad 2 to a computer if you have one for your child, but it's an option that gives you and your child a lot more scope for things to do. I think E-books as the sole media for Teddy Ruxpin would be a very bad idea indeed, a very very bad idea, the whole idea behind Teddy Ruxpin was to introduce young children to reading, that said, LeapFrog do have a system called the Tag Reader I believe, it's a small pen like device with specially designed books, when you place the pen against the pages of specially designed books words are announced and sounded out, I think that would be a great option for Teddy Ruxpin, but I must stress the word optional feature, not something that everyone must use in order to basically use the toy. I still think that the main content for Teddy Ruxpin should be on physical media with print paper books, but I think additional content available as digital downloads would ad some nice changes, maybe i'm missing the whole point of this article.
You're absolutely right about the 2006 version of Teddy Ruxpin being market towards the nostalgia, market, I've seen the ad on YouTube, it oozes nostalgia and practically screams at you "You know you want to live your childhood memories with this toy, but your kids can use it too, but you know you're the one who wants it more," maybe I'm just misunderstanding the ad, but that's how I saw it. I do have a TJ Bearytales, and you're right, he's not well liked, even by me, and I'll tell you why, it's because the stories aren't anywhere near as exciting as the ones for Teddy Ruxpin, TJ Bearytales also uses a lot of patronising childish language, Mummy, Daddy, etc, Teddy Ruxpin does not do that and never has, also, the stories for Teddy Ruxpin were much better written, and from a technical standpoint were much better produced compared to the stories for TJ Bearytales, also the tapes for Teddy Ruxpin covered a much broader subject base than TJ Bearytales. That's about all I have to say for now, but I really think you've done a fantastic job on this article, very well produced and very well thought out and written. I'm beginning to wonder if LeapFrog Toys would be a good candidate for producing a new version of Teddy Ruxpin.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Jan 11, 2013 3:33:16 GMT -7
Hi. I'm sure it would be possible to do such a modification, if you're really really knowledgeable with this sort of thing and you really really want to do some major modifications, I think you could possibly completely remove the tape deck, take an unwanted iPod docking station apart and remove the dock connector then install the dock connector into Teddy Ruxpin in place of the cassette player, using the pinouts for audio from the dock connector and running them to the circuit board's audio inputs previously used by the tape deck, if you're going to go this far and insert your iPod into Teddy Ruxpin's cassette player like a tape then I'd strongly recommend you use the 2010 model iPod Nano, because it's the smallest iPod out there not counting the iPod Shuffle, if you want to use the iPod Shuffle then you're probably have an easier time modifying the Teddy Ruxpin, no need for modifying a dock connector, you'd just need to somehow disconnect the tape playback had and possibly drill a hole somewhere for an audio connection. As to the recordings, try and record your audio in 44.1 KHz PCM waveform format, I wouldn't recommend MP3 because it's a lossy audio format and depending on how much audio compression you use there could be problems with animation. Speaking of the animation coding, it's not Pulse Width Modulation, it's Pulse Position Modulation (PPM), I believe Josh Isaacson himself has written a small article about the animation functionality on this very website.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Dec 21, 2012 15:53:04 GMT -7
That's a great tribute Josh, I enjoy this forum a lot, it's lots of fun talking about Teddy Ruxpin with everyone here, I still enjoy Teddy Ruxpin a lot despite the issues I've had in trying to get my original Teddy Ruxpin that I bought 2 years ago restored, and I'd like to hope that continued interest in Teddy Ruxpin will mean that the creators will see that there may be interest enough for them to consider returning Teddy Ruxpin to the public eye, I certainly hope so. Let's spread the word.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Dec 3, 2012 4:09:02 GMT -7
LB: I think that's called singing Tweech. Tweeg: LB, when are you gonna get my name right? It's Tweeg, TWEEG!!!!!!!!!!!!! That still cracks me up.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 26, 2012 23:31:18 GMT -7
The Forsse's have been friends of mine for about 15 years and contacted me initially through the site - so they're definitely aware of at least this slice of the online Teddy community Mr. Baron is an acquaintance and also aware of the site. Other voice talent I've been in contact with through the years includes Katie Leigh, John Koensgen and Abby Hagyard. As far as anyone getting involved here - that is totally up to them. Sometimes a few overzealous or mean spirited fans can ruin the opportunity for the many. This pertains to anything, and not necessarily to anyone involved with Teddy. Just sayin'. Sometimes people just want to maintain a certain amount of privacy. Well, that's all fair enough, and I guess your last paragraph is why they've so far chosen not to publically post to the forum as far as we know, you're so lucky to know this people Josh, I have so much respect for Teddy Ruxpin and the other characters, I just thought i'd put that out and see what others out there think. It would be wonderful if said people showed up as posters to this forum, but if they don't then that's up to them as you say.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 26, 2012 14:57:38 GMT -7
Perhaps Josh could talk Mr. Forsse into joining up here. Hint, hint. Hint hint indeed. I've love that, that would be so awesome.
|
|
|
Post by lachlant1984 on Sept 26, 2012 14:55:34 GMT -7
I know this is starting to get off topic, but are you saying you're not supposed to leave game cartridges in the original front loader NES when not in use? I didn't know that, but then again I didn't ever own a NES myself. But did you know that Mattel Toys distributed for Nintendo in Australia in the 80's when the NES came out? They also distributed the Super NES, the GameBoy I think, and they also distributed, wait for it, Teddy Ruxpin! Yes, that correct! I've been told that Mattel Toys distributed Teddy Ruxpin outside of the USA. But I realise now I'm going way off topic here. It gets better: The first distributor of the NES in the US was... Wait for it... Worlds of Wonder. ;D Yes, I read about that a few years ago courtesy of www.old-computers.com. Worlds Of Wonder also made that horribly lame excuse for a video game system, the Action Max. Ewwwwwww.
|
|