I think I mentioned once that I really wanted those 1980s Tomy Omnibot
robots back in the day. But they were truly rich kid toys. So expensive
that nobody even knew a kid that owned them.

Well, Ready Player One author Ernest Cline owns a few and loaned them
out to LGR to review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK6sqxT0ttQ

Reality really shatters the childhood fantasy of owning one.

On Friday, January 12, 2024 at 6:22:08 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:

> I think I mentioned once that I really wanted those 1980s Tomy Omnibot
> robots back in the day. But they were truly rich kid toys. So expensive
> that nobody even knew a kid that owned them.

I got a regular Omnibot, which was honestly a lot of fun when you're ten years old. I always wanted the Omnibot 2000, though. It could do a lot of stuff that the regular Omnibot couldn't do. The smaller Omnibot didn't have a motorized head or arms (the 2000 model was like having an Armatron built into the design). But, the regular Omnibot was $200 and the bigger one was like $500, which is the equivalent of spending $1400 today. (So, a Robosen, basically.)

Regarding the video... wow, how disappointing to open up a sealed Omnibot only for the damn thing to not work properly. That's a huge let-down.

I guess the radio interference has increased severalfold since the Omnibot was initially created. On the smaller one, I was able to speak through the remote and project my voice through the robot's speaker, and it didn't sound like total garbage like it does in the video. It just sounded like I was talking through a walkie-talkie.

When I recorded an instructional program on the Omnibot on cassette tape, and played the cassette back on a regular tape player, it registered as different-pitched tones. So I always assumed that Omnibot recognized the different tones, and each tone corresponded to a different movement. It wasn't jerky like it is in the video. It actually worked pretty well.

What you were actually supposed to do was program the robot to activate a routine at a certain time of day. Like, you could program it to drive down the hall and go into your little sister's room and say "hey, wake up, stupid" or something and then drive off. That's why it had a built-in clock, so it could activate a routine at a specific time.

Maybe I wasn't missing out on that much in not having the Omnibot 2000. That gear-driven drinks tray, especially, looks super janky. I also had a few of the low-end toy robots Tomy made during that era—Ding-Bot and Verbot and Flip-Bot and Hoot-Bot (yes, it was an owl).

Cool video, thanks for sharing!

Zob (I still have my Omnibot controller and tray, but I left the actual robot behind when I moved out of my dad's place... sad face)