Calling all parents (magnadoodle vs megasketcher)

Epidemic · 01-26-2004, 11:52 AM

Ok I had this nice thing akin to magna doodle only better but one of my kids smashed it when they used it as a stage.

No I bought the thing at KB toys some time ago. I figured I would go out and grab another. Nope it aint to be found.

Looking around the internet this thing is only sold in the UK now.

Now my question is what the heck happened. Megasketcher by tomy is far superior to magnadoodle and I found it to be priced about the same when I bought it. Why did the second best product remain and the better one disapear of US shelves.

Anyone know the history of this. was it a patent infringement or something. Both appeared to be different enough to me. totally different method of writing which allowed for fine resolution drawing on megasketcher close to pencil drawings. Where as magnadoodle is using chickenwire esque method which brings the resolution down to about 1/8 of an inch pickcells.

Now what happened

John Prophet · 01-26-2004, 11:55 AM

are either like the old school "etch a sketch"?

Epidemic · 01-26-2004, 11:59 AM

Not really you draw using a magnetic stylis. as you pass it over you magnitize a grid and iron filing stick to it.

Not like those things you put the beards and hair either. It looks alot like a pencil drawing on the megasketcher.

You then appear to degause it using a swiper which works by some magic I am yet to understand.

Strange side note when you hold it upside down it the writing surface does not turn black as I would expect so I have no idea how the stupid thing works.

osprey4 · 01-26-2004, 12:54 PM

Ep, we had three of those things and I hated them for being so delicate. My daughter has a thing called a Glitter Writer (sp?) that works on a similar principle but is much more rugged. We've had it for years and it's still in great working condition. And my daughter still uses it regularly even at age 11.