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You should all know of the company Ohio Art. creator of the infamous Etch-A-Sketch. Well In 1986 they introduced "The Animator" a primitive device, which was basically a digital etch a sketch. It had dials like the EAS, and one of it's ony features was you could animate just 12 frames of pixel art. Paltry by today's standards.

The next year they introduced "The Animator 2000". This machine could create 24 frames of animation, but also included extra features like a cartridge for saving your animation, as well as other cartridges to save your game. I'll never forget the day I played the demo at KB, and begged and begged my dad I wanted it for christmas. It WAS educational right?!

The Animator 2000 was ahead of its time back in 1987, as it used a primitive touch screen and style for you to draw digital art using its using rather large black pixels But back then it was heaven to me. I actually made my first Mario movie with it, having him run up to a ? block and pound out a mushroom. (after studying the sprite designs best I could on my TV. Of course it was a start, and is what started me onto the road of flash animations I make today. Mario Paint for the SNES would later become my new love, with it's mouse, colors, and many other features, but it was the Animator 2000 that started my love my computer animaton.
For more info and a photo of this machine check out my blog, VGDC PIPELINE

Updated: 04/29/08 11:52 AM Log in to comment! | Share this!

The People Have Spoken

51 Comments

Apr. 29, 2008 | 12:01 PM K111 says:

looks like a fucking DS...awsome

Apr. 29, 2008 | 12:04 PM wreckages says:

that actually looks immense, even by todays standards.

Apr. 29, 2008 | 3:22 PM Randy-Solem responds:

yeh it was big, almost the size of a notebook. but had a nice drawing screen. What was cool was you would have to hold one of the left or right top gray buttons to start drawing as you touched the pad. No pressure sensitive wacoms at that time.

Apr. 29, 2008 | 12:40 PM MadnessApple says:

super sonic vs mario!

Apr. 30, 2008 | 12:11 AM Greenskullkid says:

haha, thats awesome.. do they still sell them.. I hope :3

Apr. 30, 2008 | 12:35 AM Coincidence says:

Whoa! That's a pretty nifty looking device! Looks like a huge DS.

Tell me, does it play games?

Apr. 30, 2008 | 12:38 AM MysticShinHanKu says:

Ha! As said...looks like a DS. At first when you were saying "before the..." I was like ...before? That's a DS! lol

Very cool though, I'd love to try one out.

Mario Paint was incredible though.

Apr. 30, 2008 | 4:27 AM PiGPEN says:

So before you used to steal art you used to actually make it?!
IM SHOCKED SIR!

Apr. 30, 2008 | 4:28 AM PiGPEN says:

IM SERIOUS! SHOCKED@!

Apr. 30, 2008 | 4:29 AM PiGPEN says:

HE USED TO DRAW HIS SPRITES!
WOW!

Apr. 30, 2008 | 11:35 AM Emanhattan says:

look at that old hero

:´¨)

makes me wanna cry

hey randy where have you been the last 17 years of NG??? please send in something

Apr. 30, 2008 | 3:44 PM puddinN64 says:

That's badass. I want one for retroness.

Apr. 30, 2008 | 6:05 PM TjA says:

i used something called "advanced GIF" or something similar, before flash was created

Apr. 30, 2008 | 8:17 PM notorious says:

man by having 20 years of animation experience you think you could do better than ripping sprites by now

May. 1, 2008 | 5:29 PM jackbliss says:

Um... this may be a stupid question but do you perchance still have the first Mario animation you did with this Animator 2000 saved in a cartridge somewhere?

May. 4, 2008 | 11:29 AM latino-toid says:

Finally SOmething news

Yeah i remeber Mario Paint

May. 11, 2008 | 5:47 PM e104joker says:

Wow .. well i have a difrent little story about aniamting..
i first started with those kid lap tops that had a tiny screen and games and all that, when i was 6 years old ,and it had a game that was called animation fun and u chosed your BG your character and the action you wanted him to do
there where like 3 options each XD
and then when i got a real computer i just wanted to know how to amke animations, and since i did not know about any program i tried with power point and made lots of sprite movies there XD
then my sister came home one day with a program called "Corel"
and it had lots of programs and i found one called "coral rave" i think most of you know it and i made my first flash animation there, it was so cool but i lost them years ago...
then i discoverd macromedia and i was like OMG its so easy to use (since RAVE was kind of hard and your movie size was like 40 mb and it always got huge)
and that's how it started all :)

May. 11, 2008 | 10:47 PM e104joker says:

O and by the way i always wondered are you realy 73 O=?
or what is your age ^^?

May. 17, 2008 | 1:31 PM Trixiaoyu says:

The Animatior 2000, so this is some OLD SKOOL animation software?

Who used it and can it connected to a PC?

May. 18, 2008 | 12:37 AM Ducktapegirl says:

A little off topic, but where do you get your sprite backgrounds? I can't find any good ones.

Jun. 2, 2008 | 11:27 AM GoldenPickaxe says:

Like jackbliss said,can you show us a video of your old mario animation?Please?

Jun. 11, 2008 | 8:28 AM Ninsega091 says:

When exactly is Mario Gets Luck Again coming out?

Jun. 15, 2008 | 1:08 AM Spartan204 says:

I know this has nothing to do with anything above, but Zango sure has you site by the balls, huh? I've always been a tremendous fan of your work and I visit your site frequently with the hope that you have a new movie up, and every time Zango tries to force me into downloading their product. I know that sites cost money, so I can understand, just putting that out there...

Jul. 18, 2008 | 12:13 AM tacomaster95 says:

i cant find this on ebay, but i can find pics on google

Aug. 19, 2008 | 4:07 AM seelkadoom9000 says:

wait if your so old why are you still in newgrounds i mean the jon profesional idiot old poeple dont talk that way

Aug. 27, 2008 | 10:00 AM Mat-The-speedstar says:

Holy crap, are you really over 70 years old?!

Aug. 29, 2008 | 6:23 AM LLEDNARTWEM says:

Really?

Sep. 8, 2008 | 12:07 AM toxicdevil93 says:

Your Website Is An Attack Site With Viruses
Please Try To Get The Fuck Rid Of Them

Sep. 10, 2008 | 9:28 PM Xmenace says:

Woah, to think that that was the beginning of you making awesome sprite movies

Sep. 19, 2008 | 3:36 AM higgles says:

Why were so many good accessorys made in 1986?

Sep. 27, 2008 | 3:42 AM Legend-of-Zelda says:

Your avatar is totally Newground Mod worthy.

Oct. 12, 2008 | 4:48 AM MissingNYC says:

that takes me back... WAY back

Oct. 14, 2008 | 9:46 PM olipido says:

your the only person who i know is vgdc who hasnt submitted a mario green mushroom chase flash....why not? isnt it almost over? your the best vgdc guy out there! you gotta make one!

Oct. 17, 2008 | 2:45 PM Wraith2000 says:

73?

Nov. 2, 2008 | 7:39 PM rome-lherison says:

oh holy shit dong

Dec. 18, 2008 | 6:52 PM Chad-T says:

MAKE ANOTHER EPIC!

Jan. 17, 2009 | 7:26 AM MasterSarge300 says:

Damn... I wish I could have lived in your time and got this game.

It looks kinda cool.

May. 7, 2009 | 8:30 PM BazookaJack says:

stop being such a mario nerd lol

Jun. 26, 2009 | 10:11 AM sunshinedafox says:

^
Agreed!

Aug. 1, 2009 | 8:39 PM Silentbob3561 says:

i know this has nothing to do with this old post but if you read this, what happened to your site? i used to love it but now it just attacks computers with viruses and stuff. Why do you let this happen? plz get rid of zango and use something else to make money for your site. thanks.

Aug. 6, 2009 | 5:43 PM huntdawg98 says:

you should make another awsome mario series

Aug. 14, 2009 | 9:57 PM ihatesonic1 says:

When will Randy return to Newgrounds?

Aug. 20, 2009 | 10:06 PM jakenator85 says:

I never heard of you.

Sep. 7, 2009 | 11:20 PM Reviewmaker says:

I guess you died...?

Sep. 14, 2009 | 4:00 PM DYNAKYRIS says:

EEEEEEH?! You mean there was a version of the Etch-A-Sketch Animator which you could ACTUALLY SAVE STUFF ON?!?!?!?! Holy CRAP. If I had known about this thing in '92, I might've asked for this one instead...

Oct. 27, 2009 | 9:56 PM TheToolOfTheDay says:

kinda looks like a gameboy

Nov. 8, 2009 | 4:10 AM Goldfire64 says:

I miss you.

Come back to us.

Nov. 9, 2009 | 4:24 AM NGFreak7496 says:

are you really 74 CAUSE AN OLD MAN ON NEWGROUNDS THATS JUST WIERD

Nov. 9, 2009 | 4:24 AM NGFreak7496 says:

WE REALLY MISS YOU COME BACK TO US PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SOBS SOBS

Nov. 14, 2009 | 4:41 PM RazandBullidom says:

If he truly was 74 maybe he's dead from old age?

Nov. 27, 2009 | 10:47 PM MrSaturn33 says:

Dude, we miss you. I tried going to your site, and there's this ad that makes me install some weird toolbar just to view it. Are you aware of this? Not even a blog post? I even PMed you. Dude, I don't even care if you stop making flash at this point. At least tell us what's been going on.

Dec. 15, 2009 | 2:19 PM Littleluckylink says:

You guys are idiots. He's not REALLY 75.
He's fucking 30 or something.