Programmable robotic arm

Whilst the foreign car factories were laying off staff in favour of this toy’s older brothers, kids across the land were celebrating their new-found ability to move objects around the kitchen table by a mere complicated sequence of instructions input into the Armatron’s console. Of course, anything slightly more delicate than the plastic blocks included in the box (an egg, say) would break under pressure between the rubberised jaws, so any notions of performing David Banner-style laboratory experiments were soon similarly shattered.

The Armatron was manufactured in Singapore by Radio Shack, and came pre-assembled or in kit form, inspiring loads of knock-off versions in the ’80s. A late addition to the range was the “mobile” Armatron, which came on caterpillar tracks (though the remote control wire was only half a metre long, in any case).

Poorer kids had to make do with the manually ratched-operated Robot Arm, Terminator-esque Robot Hand, or Robot Claw, each of which, though less impressive, could be secreted up the sleeve of a Parka to aid in the pretence of the owner having been transformed into some kind of futuristic human cyborg.