We at P.A.G. Central Command have decided that this week is lego week. We'll be featuring high resolution scans of lego manuals and stuff like that. Why? Because legos are the greatest toy. They entertain, teach basic engineering and reward the urge to invent and build.
I remember that I was playing with the Alpha-1 Rocket Base the night that the hostages were freed from Iran, so that must have been 1980. At that time, space legos were new, I think, but I can't be bothered to check right now, as I'm on vacation. So there.
At that time in Lego History, specialized parts were still pretty novel. Cylinders! Wow! Holy jeez, radar dishes. I think that was a sweet spot in the ratio of special parts to regular old blocks, but maybe I'm biased. Now, it seems that you buy, say, a lego pirate ship, and you assemble front of boat to back of boat and you're done. Too many custom parts. Not enough room for imagination. Bah humbug.
What was really cool were the translucent parts. The Space Cruiser had a green sloped windshield and a pretty huge plate in clear yellow. These two parts pretty much insisted on being built into spaceships and fighter planes. That was reason enough to want the set.
That's the difference between a kid who has some legos and a kid who lives to build things. I got excited about a set because of the interesting parts it contained. The actual model you build was secondary.
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I'm pretty sure I had the Cruiser (the diagonal grey wing pieces, the computers, the windshields, and the engines were a MUST for making later spaceships), and I swore I had the Alpha 1 set too. I remember building that rocket. I just don't remember owning that actual set.
You're right about the modern lego sets. My daughter got one for Christmas, one of those big giant fire boats. She wasn't quite six, but she put it all together herself, and she was really proud of herself when she finished it. But once it was done, she never played with it.
On the other hand, she's still got those big Duplo blocks from when she was a baby and those things are in constant use making all kinds of things.
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