Pamela circuitry

[late2theparty]

This may be a stab in the dark...and likely will be.  Recently I got hold of a WoW Pamela.  Non-working although she came with 6 voice chips.  In the process of checking her for problems, I find one battery wire and once speaker wire d loose.  She is not Molex equipped, and it is wire to point wring to the board.  But what's the point?  Clear problem.  So in the event anyone here has a schematic for her circuit, or some information on her wiring that might clear the mystery. same would be most appreciated.

[late2theparty]

I now have Pamela talking. Don't ask how or why as I don't know what I did to get her moving back to life. So far, so good. But no facial movements of any kind. Now I see all those gizmos in the head that are wired back into the board by molex plug. So they must do something. But I am unsure just what it is they are supposed to do. Can anyone here provide some information on what I am supposed to be seeing. I've searched the net for a clue but the only thing I came across was one YouTube and her face in that did not seem to move at all.

[DollyPrince]

Aug 19, 2016 8:38:48 GMT -7 late2theparty said:

I now have Pamela talking. Don't ask how or why as I don't know what I did to get her moving back to life. So far, so good. But no facial movements of any kind. Now I see all those gizmos in the head that are wired back into the board by molex plug. So they must do something. But I am unsure just what it is they are supposed to do. Can anyone here provide some information on what I am supposed to be seeing. I've searched the net for a clue but the only thing I came across was one YouTube and her face in that did not seem to move at all.

Pamela's face does not move. However, she does have a sensor in her nose, and I think she has a light sensor as well.

[late2theparty]

Thanks for that information DollyPrince. Of course that leads to the question of what they are supposed to sense. There's so little information that can be found on The Pamela and the Julie dolls online, and nothing that really can be transferred over from Teddy and the WoW toys that utilize the tapes. These dolls present a different challenge. I was fortunate that the one I found had 5 of the chip cards along with her as well as an additional outfit, so a good find. It seems to me that operation is similar to Baby Teddy but with the added feature of changing the phrases she says with the chip cards, and whatever the sensors do. Guess I'll find that out with experimentation.

[late2theparty]

Thanks for that information DollyPrince. Of course that leads to the question of what they are supposed to sense. There's so little information that can be found on The Pamela and the Julie dolls online, and nothing that really can be transferred over from Teddy and the WoW toys that utilize the tapes. These dolls present a different challenge. I was fortunate that the one I found had 5 of the chip cards along with her as well as an additional outfit, so a good find. It seems to me that operation is similar to Baby Teddy but with the added feature of changing the phrases she says with the chip cards, and whatever the sensors do. Guess I'll find that out with experimentation.

[DollyPrince]

I believe she also has sensors in her fingers, which allow her to read from her books, like Julie does.

[late2theparty]

There's no wiring through the arms to the fingers in Pamela, so I think that those sensors which allowed reading from the books (that had chips embedded in the text) were unique to Julie. I don't have a Julie but just researching these two leaves open questions for her as well. What I've found indicates that Julie had sensors in the head by which she could sense light and temperature, which seems a rather far out.  And Julie has the same "chip slot" in the box in her back as Pamela.  Yet I've not seen any Julie specific chips for it.

Perhaps light and temperature were the purposes for the sensors in Pamela as well. although I've also been told that the sensors in Pamela allowed her to somehow change the phrases she "spoke." But being that both of these dolls came late in the WoW story and were beset with delivery problems that did not help the company's struggle to continue, a lot about them is shrouded in mystery. Hopefully more light will be shed on both along the way.

[DollyPrince]

Aug 25, 2016 8:46:00 GMT -7 late2theparty said:

There's no wiring through the arms to the fingers in Pamela, so I think that those sensors which allowed reading from the books (that had chips embedded in the text) were unique to Julie. I don't have a Julie but just researching these two leaves open questions for her as well. What I've found indicates that Julie had sensors in the head by which she could sense light and temperature, which seems a rather far out.  And Julie has the same "chip slot" in the box in her back as Pamela.  Yet I've not seen any Julie specific chips for it.

Perhaps light and temperature were the purposes for the sensors in Pamela as well. although I've also been told that the sensors in Pamela allowed her to somehow change the phrases she "spoke." But being that both of these dolls came late in the WoW story and were beset with delivery problems that did not help the company's struggle to continue, a lot about them is shrouded in mystery. Hopefully more light will be shed on both along the way.

The Julie (and Pamela) cartridges came with the extra books/outfits. I believe they would change the subjects she talked about, relating to the theme of the package. Very similar to Playmates' Amazing Ally, Maddie and Allysen. Julie's extra accessories are quite rare, especially complete with everything.

Yes Julie did sense temperature and light, and she can sense motion too. She will say "Are we going somewhere?" if picked up.

I would love to have one of these dolls, especially Julie. She was especially amazing for her time.

[late2theparty]

From what I've been able to find out, Pamela had 6 or more cartridges/chips (I've identified 6 anyway)  that could be inserted into the slot in her back and would change the "conversation."  These came is a sort of cardboard themed fold out.  The chip was contained it it in a plastic envelope and there were a group of stickers, also themed the same way, that were like the old Colorforms that came out in the late 50s-early 60: plastic, and reusable to a point.  The Pamela I found fortunately came with 5 of these sets.  I do see these being sold on e bay now and again.

As  for Julie, I've have seen a copy of her instructions, which indicates that there were additional books (which she could "read" with the sensors in her fingers as described above) that were to come with the same type of cartridges as well as the same kind of Colorform type stickers.  But I've not seen any of these on ebay or elsewhere. Given that Julie was a 1987 offering at a time when WoW was in trouble, I wonder whether or not these additional book and cartridge sets were ever actually put into production. And I also have to wonder whether or not the Pamela cartridges would work if inserted into a Julie.  But apparently not only could she sense light and temperature, but could be "taught" to recognize a voice and only respond to the person or people whose voices she recognized.  The process by which she "learned" voice recognition involved pressing a small button with a pen tip that would have her ask whoever to say certain words which triggered the voice recognition function.  Quite an advanced toy for its time!

[DollyPrince]

Aug 28, 2016 8:10:09 GMT -7 late2theparty said:

From what I've been able to find out, Pamela had 6 or more cartridges/chips (I've identified 6 anyway)  that could be inserted into the slot in her back and would change the "conversation."  These came is a sort of cardboard themed fold out.  The chip was contained it it in a plastic envelope and there were a group of stickers, also themed the same way, that were like the old Colorforms that came out in the late 50s-early 60: plastic, and reusable to a point.  The Pamela I found fortunately came with 5 of these sets.  I do see these being sold on e bay now and again.

As  for Julie, I've have seen a copy of her instructions, which indicates that there were additional books (which she could "read" with the sensors in her fingers as described above) that were to come with the same type of cartridges as well as the same kind of Colorform type stickers.  But I've not seen any of these on ebay or elsewhere. Given that Julie was a 1987 offering at a time when WoW was in trouble, I wonder whether or not these additional book and cartridge sets were ever actually put into production. And I also have to wonder whether or not the Pamela cartridges would work if inserted into a Julie.  But apparently not only could she sense light and temperature, but could be "taught" to recognize a voice and only respond to the person or people whose voices she recognized.  The process by which she "learned" voice recognition involved pressing a small button with a pen tip that would have her ask whoever to say certain words which triggered the voice recognition function.  Quite an advanced toy for its time!

Yes that's right. Julie is amazing for her time, one of the most fascinating WoW toys.
Apparently her processor was made by Texas Instruments. You can see many famous computer  company's parts in the advanced toys of the time. Such as an Intel 8051 microprocessor in the Jill doll!
They are really like little androids.

I remember finding one of Julie's accessory sets on eBay a long time ago...  However, I do not remember which one it was. They were also mentioned in the 1990s Toy Fair booklet Blueoctopede uploaded.

According to thr Toy Faire booklet, the cartridge/book sets are:
Fun and Games
School Time
Julie's Neighborhood
When Julie Grows Up
Julie's Favourite Places
Let's Go To Julie's House

Actually, even though WoW was at the end of their time, Julie was also released in Brazil! Her name is Nadia and she, like Teddy Ruxpin, was sold by TecToy under license from WoW. I think she had a little more success in Brazil than in the USA. I am not sure if Pamela was released.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqgTbFWdVYw



As for swapping cartridges, I think the Pamela cartridges may be slightly smaller, but I may be mistaken. But even if not, they will probably not recognize the other doll's cartridges at all. They are rather different and their software is probably incompatible.