The classic red-and-white Etch A Sketch model

Discover best deals on toys and games at low prices! Lots to choose from: educational, solider toys, electric toys, diecast, games. Perfect holiday gifts!

Etch-a-Sketch

The Etch A Sketch is a toy invented in 1959 by Frenchman Arthur Granjean and introduced commercially by the Ohio Art Company in 1960. Granjean originally called it "The Magic Screen". more...

Home

Beanies

Construction Toys & Kits

Creative Toys/ Activities

Diecast & Vehicles

Educational Toys

Electronic Pets

Fast Food/ Cereal/ Sweets...

Games

Jigsaws & Puzzles

Model Kits

Other Toys & Games

Outdoor Toys & Activities

Pre-School/ Young Children

Radio-Controlled

Scalextric & Slot Car

Soft Toys/ Stuffed Animals

Steam

TV & Film Character Toys

Toy Soldiers

Vintage/ Classic Toys

Marbles

Other Vintage/ Classic Toys

Puppets

Robots/ Space Toys

Rocking Horses

Slinky

Tinplate/ Penny Toys

Weebles

Yo-Yos

Wargames & Role-Playing

The toy is relatively flat and rectangular, looking somewhat like a small television screen. Introduced near the peak of the baby boom, the classically simple Etch A Sketch is one of the best-known toys of that generation, and remains popular to this day.

Mechanics

The toy works as a simplified version of a plotter. The inside surface of the glass screen is coated with aluminum powder and styrene beads which are 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, one simply turns the toy upside down and shakes it, thus recoating the surface.

Creating a straight diagonal line or smoothly curved line with an Etch A Sketch is notoriously difficult and a true test of coordination. One solution is to carefully alternate horizontal and vertical lines in very small increments, a technique somewhat reminiscent of how such lines are drawn by raster-scan computer displays.

Later versions

Etch A Sketch Animator

The Etch A Sketch Animator, which debuted in 1987, featured a low-resolution raster 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. As with any sort of Etch A Sketch toy, the animations created would not be very smooth, unless used by an expert.

Etch A Sketch Animator 2000

The Etch A Sketch Animator 2000 was a portable toy developed by Ohio Art in 1988 as an advanced version of the Etch A Sketch Animator released one year earlier. 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 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 Art

There are a few practicing artists 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.