• pmjv@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 days ago

      Did you know that Gigantor was supposed to star in the NeverEnding story but was replaced at the last minute by the giant turtle?

  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    Definitely prefer the ones with mechanical parts rather than the modern ones with eyes that are just backlit screens. I’ve always found animatronics fascinating, and it’s neat that they managed to sell what was effectively a mini animatronic at consumer prices.

    I’m a big fan of the various mods of them that people make, like the long furbys, hydras, etc. I’m sad that most of the mods don’t go farther, like custom microcontrollers and such. I’m shocked there isn’t some open source project to replace the guts with an rPi Zero or something hackable.

    Your question sent me down a rabbit hole and apparently the original source code is semi-available. Scanned PDF of code included with the original patent filing.

    • pmjv@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 days ago

      Thank you for engaging with my content!

      It’s hard to believe we went from this to this

      I personally think Shelbies are the superior Furby race. You can tell, since there is only one generation of Shelbies - there was no need to reboot or remake them, as they were designed to be truly perfect. I think Shelbies are the closest thing to what God may look like. Also their protective shells make them ideal warriors.

      Long Furbys are cool too. You raise a good point though. Computer-people have busied themselves too much with open alternatives to corpo laptops and processors and architectures and some other stuff. Maybe it’s time for an OpenFurbi (we’ll have to change the spelling because trademark). You should make a kickstarter.

  • Digital Mark@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    I’m still creeped out by Furbies and even Teddy Ruxpins. A machine that looks like it’s alive, repeats nonsense or repetitive questions, is a Terminator or Screamer, just doesn’t have the final firmware installed yet.

    Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of a fuzzy object that talks.

    • pmjv@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
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      2 days ago

      Well, there is no denying that Furbys (and all similar animatronics) are demonic. Or in the very least possessed by malevolent machine entities.

      In fact the first draft of Goethe’s Faust described Mephisto as a weird mixture between a robotic owl and a gremlin before it gets fed after midnight.