This is Cyberpunkpic.twitter.com/PaqpbeAqrF
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This is Talk with Me! Barbie It's a Barbie from 1997, where it can talk (like many other speaking Barbies) but also can be hooked up to a PC and you can customize what she says.pic.twitter.com/MI0GqRKqgt
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The system requirements. Yep, it's serial-port based. USB certainly existed in 1997 but it wasn't common enough to rely on yet.pic.twitter.com/7aNSiacAeC
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Opening it up and seeing this definitely didn't make this slightly surreal experience any more... real.pic.twitter.com/H0e1YAugh8
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It came with an addendum because they apparently had to update the Barbie to make it auto-shutoff, which breaks if you don't let it finish a download.pic.twitter.com/qeQWzQfZYq
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One thing I really don't like about electronic Barbies (and I own more of them than you'd expect) is the FLESH COLORED SCREWSpic.twitter.com/vXv6DFbpGs
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So two special things about this barbie: Her mouth can move, and she has a big Jewel Necklace built-in.pic.twitter.com/1JKyMc69Ai
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Here's the little CRT part of the computer. I know it's supposed to be a CD-ROM but I can't help but think it feels like it's a WHEEL OF FORTUNE gamepic.twitter.com/JCigxfvceu
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I wonder how much they had to pay to get the rights to "Intel Inside"? Also, I bet 1700/200 is the name of a computer... but I can't easily find it.pic.twitter.com/99JRPwzP3J
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The keyboard has no windows keys, no escape key, and not enough rows in the main QWERTY area. Also, no inverted-T arrows, it's a solid block there.pic.twitter.com/jBu79RNurO
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There's something hidden on the screen. Shine a bright enough light on it and you'll see that there's two LEDs inside there. (or an LED and a photodiode)pic.twitter.com/f4gyMXXS8a
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Put the whole thing together and you get this! Barbie on her computer.pic.twitter.com/4QHdNY8AHW
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Not very good ergonomics, Barbie. You should have that monitor higher up, or a lower down chair.pic.twitter.com/7uloCcLGtT
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Anyway that jewel necklace is another IR transceiver, so the Barbie can communicate with the computer. (The plastic one, not the real one)pic.twitter.com/aUePzaE6SH
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Fun fact: So it has a set of names loaded on the CD, but you can get other ones. You can call them up and order a new one, and get them to mail it to you on a floppy disk.pic.twitter.com/r2FCAt0ydE
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Sadly the site was a CGI search engine thing, so while the internet archive has the pages, it's not really usefulpic.twitter.com/VcQyDVnKA3
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The batteries it came with are not doing well after 23 years Weirdly it comes with the LR44s but not the AAAs. So it's "Some but not all batteries included"pic.twitter.com/KC1in6siCL
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It's got a CD fulla software. I'm gonna have to install this onto my Win95 Pentium, but it has no CD-ROM drive.pic.twitter.com/gBegdEED3G
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I'll be putting the CD up on the internet archive later, along with a full manual scan.
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I like how the registration card thinks there are only three processors (386, 486, Pentium) but "Gender" is just a blank space to fill out. Good on you, 1997 Mattel.pic.twitter.com/DRnDVLMhsh
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The only accessories you get with it are a pair of shoes and a giant hairbrushpic.twitter.com/IUHL3gV8on
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Interestingly... there was also a game called Detective Barbie in The Mystery of the Carnival Caper, which had an option to have Barbie say your name, and it made you pick from a list. How much you want to bet that they used the same set of names for both of these?
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@lazygamereviews and@PushinUpRoses did a video on that game:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiZvk0WRBxs …Show this thread -
I'm gonna have to go hit up a drugstore and get some LR44s. I don't have enough of them on hand to power up this barbie.
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But I'm excited to hax this thing. It sounds like it has to transmit the audio files over IR to the Barbie's internal RAM, right? Which means that by building my own software to drive the Barbie Computer Transmit Unit, I could send my own sound files to Barbie!
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You have to completely take all her clothes of (including the shoes!) to get to the batteries. That must be a huge downside for any real cyborgs out there.pic.twitter.com/uq8J3fVNuA
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She's got the same chest-mounted speaker as the Teen Talk Barbie (the "Math is hard, let's go shopping" one.pic.twitter.com/FXanwIOniw
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