Etch A Sketch

The classic red-and-white Etch A Sketch model

Etch A Sketch is a registered trademark for a mechanical drawing toy manufactured by the Ohio Art Company.

An Etch A Sketch is a thick, flat gray screen in a plastic frame. There are two knobs on the front of the frame in the lower corners. Twisting the knobs moves a stylus that displaces aluminum powder on the back of the screen, leaving a solid line. The knobs create lineographic images. The left control moves the stylus horizontally, and the right one moves it vertically.

The Etch A Sketch was introduced near the peak of the Baby Boom, and is one of the best known toys of that generation. In 2003, the Toy Industry Association named Etch A Sketch to its Century of Toys List, a roll call commemorating the 100 most memorable and most creative toys of the 20th century.^[1] It remains popular to this day.

Mechanics

Etch A Sketch with insides shown

The toy can be considered a simplified version of a plotter. The inside surface of the glass screen is coated with aluminum powder which is then scraped off by a movable stylus, leaving a dark line on the light gray screen. The stylus is controlled by the two large knobs, one of which moves it vertically and the other horizontally. To erase the picture, the artist turns the toy upside down and shakes it. Doing this causes styrene beads to smooth out and re-coat the inside surface of the screen with aluminum powder. The "black" line merely exposes the darkness inside the toy. Filling in large "black" areas will allow enough light through to expose parts of the interior (see picture).

History

The Etch A Sketch toy was invented in the late 1950s by French electrician André Cassagnes.^[2] Cassagnes originally called it Telecran ("tele-screen"), on account of its resemblance to a television screen. After a complex series of negotiations, The Ohio Art Company launched the toy in the United States, for the 1960 holiday season, with the name of "Etch A Sketch". Ohio Art supported the toy with a televised advertising campaign.^[3] Etch a Sketch was manufactured in Bryan, Ohio until the company moved the manufacturing plant to Shenzhen, China in 2001.^[4]

Later versions

Etch A Sketch Animator

The Etch A Sketch Animator

The Etch A Sketch Animator, which debuted in 1986,^[3] featured a low-resolution dot matrix display and used two knobs for drawing, like a regular Etch A Sketch, with several buttons to manipulate said drawings. It had a few kilobytes of memory, capable of storing 12 frames of pictures in any combination up to 96 times. It contained a speaker, which made static-like sounds when the knobs were moved and during animations.

Etch A Sketch Animator 2000

The Etch A Sketch Animator 2000 was a portable toy developed by Ohio Art in 1987, debuting in 1988. It is an upgraded version of the Etch A Sketch Animator. It used a stylus to draw on an interfacing pad, and the drawing appeared above on a low-resolution LCD screen. It had the ability to animate a sequence of frames as well as the ability to save animations on memory cartridges. The Animator 2000 could also play games loaded on cartridges. Three games were developed for it: Overdrive, a racing game in the vein of Pole Position; Putt Nuts, an 18-hole miniature golf game; and Flyby, a simplistic flight simulator. The Animator 2000 was discontinued shortly after its introduction, rendering copies of some of these games scarce.

Etch A Sketch Color

In 1993, Ohio Art launched a Color Etch A Sketch.^[3] Similar to the original Etch A Sketch, it used the traditional two-knob interface to draw, but also featured six colors. It also had the ability to produce a color copy of each picture drawn.

Etch A Sketch Electronics ETO - Plug and Play Drawing System / Etch A Sketch Wired

These are basically hand-held controllers that connect to a television and work like a regular Etch A Sketch, except on the television screen and with the addition of colors and sound effects.

Etch A Sketch art

There are a few practising artists^[5][6][7][8] who use the Etch A Sketch to produce professional lineographic work. Most artists make their work permanent by removing the aluminum powder. This is done either by drilling holes in the bottom of the toy or by removing the entire plastic backing. It is then resealed as a semi-permanent, shake-resistant piece of art.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Magna Doodle, a somewhat similar toy using a different principle of operation.

References

External links

• Official Ohio Art Company Etch A Sketch website
• Howstuffworks.com How does an Etch A Sketch work? page
• MIT - Inventor of the Week Archive - Arthur Granjean (Etch A Sketch history)
• U.S. Patent 3,055,113