It's the GeoSafari Jr!

This was really interesting. It reminds me of the VTech World Wizard I had as a kid. It looks like basically the same thing, maybe the VTech was a clone? The only major difference I remember was that there was a little tab with punched holes on the VTech version that slipped in to some kind of sensor and I imagine eliminated the "type in the code" step. Neat!

Was that a Friends reference in the outtro captions?

David

I actually burst out into laughter over your pacing filler bit. I am glad to be a patron.

METRIC DEGREES. I am shamelessly stealing this. Just wanted you to know :D Also Rebus puzzles; I also learned a thing! And the boop quality is a scale we need to implement.

Josh Dionne

Heat pumps work best down around 20-30F (-6.5 to -1C). At least with the system I have, the heat pump will operate until the exterior temperature is below about 15F (-9.5C). At that point, the system switches entirely to "emergency heat," which is just a fancy way of saying the furnace uses simple resistive heating elements. The furnace will supplement the heat produced by the heat pump down to that 15F mark too.

Sean Hearrell

I desperately sought out and eventually found the Make-Your-Own pack as a kid. It came with a manual that included answer tables for each game code, broken down IIRC not just by numerical answer vs. multiple choice, but also by how many questions would be part of the game (and therefore how many LEDs would be lit up). I still have it, but it’s deep in my parents’ basement, and COVID means I won’t be able to visit and dig it out anytime soon. Hopefully someone else can come commenting to the rescue!

Just going to toss a whole lot of Dutch websites your way - Google Translate will probably take care of the bits of text that are there, and the pictures are the most important part anyway. To the best of my knowledge, Jumbo - a Dutch (board)game and puzzle manufacturer, began playing around with electronic edutainment gadgets like the one you're probably remembering as early as the 1950's or 60's: https://smallmart.nl/artikelen/oude-bordspellen/69-jumbo-spellen-vraag-en-antwoordspel-electro I even found a newspaper article from 1982 that talks about how Jumbo is supposedly settling for a lower profit margin on an apparently related electronic game in order to keep prices affordable, mentioning a system they're selling for only 199 Dutch Guilders would otherwise set consumers back about 500 Guilders (roughly 180 vs. 460 euros in today's money). Google Translate isn't going to help you out here much, but I'll include it anyway since it's my source for this (and I can translate it on request, if needs be): https://leiden.courant.nu/issue/LLC/1982-11-25/edition/0/page/23 I can remember for a fact that my aunt used to own a version that is listed for sale here: https://www.marktplaats.nl/a/verzamelen/retro/m1658294025-vintage-elektro-junior-jumbo.html?previousPage=lr In the early 90's, Jumbo released a more modern version of their 'Computer Elektro', which appears to have been physically and functionally identical to the GeoSafari Jr. from the video - although the one I owned myself was dark grey, at least. See: https://www.catawiki.com/l/30425697-25-jumbo-computer-electro-educatieve-spelcomputer I'm guessing these machines were probably sourced from the same Chinese manufacturer and relabelled as GeoSafari Jr., Computer Elektro, or perhaps even more different brand names depending on the market the machine was meant for. Nevertheless, it seemed like a pretty logical evolution of the old wire games Jumbo used to make in the preceding decades (weirdly enough, they actually still seem to make the wired ones: https://www.boekenvoordeel.nl/spel-en-puzzel/spellen-voor-kids/electro-basisschool-groep-3-4.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI88W1scHg7gIViLWyCh3v3wLREAYYAiABEgJtP_D_BwE ) Anyway, the video made me feel all nostalgic, shame I got rid of my oldy ages ago :-P

Sashalicious

You can find the location of Jimmy Hoffa with the code 5120. Seriously, some comments: heat pumps don't work if the outside temp is < something like 40F. Yes? Also ever see/play "Electronic Detective"? I had one as a kid and LOVED it. 1-4 player "Clue" game without the annoying "roll dice to step N squares between rooms" and the really cool feature that most of the chars would lie on one answer, so you had to corroborate their answers.

Sierra Mistystep

I had that, too. I went through three different 2-XLs, though. I still have that third one and all the cassettes.

Mike Chimeri

Hey there, I have a Fujistu 12kw air to air heatpump (2018) capable of running 6 indoor units. I run 4, two regular splits and two floor units. I you'd like some footage let me know.

I don't know if you had them across the pond, but we used to have a shop called the Early Learning Centre. It was a shop, not a crèche, but there was so much on display that it was more like an unofficial play area, with your wooden trains and building blocks and books etc., and a stand devoted to the GeoSafari Jr.! I used to spend at least half an hour every weekend on it as a kid (if no-one else was on it, or waiting for it, of course.) My family probably got fed up of me nagging to go to the Early Learning Centre just to use it, and frustrated when me wanting to answer one more question could have made us miss our bus home. I'd be really upset if we didn't make it there on a shopping trip. I was even more upset when it eventually closed down. Ahh, nostalgia. I can see the LEDs dancing about to that musical ditty even before I've pressed play on your video, and that childhood excitement is returning at the prospect of seeing it again.

When I was a kid, I had something even simpler: I think it was called "Electro", and it was basically just a battery and a light bulb (not even an LED), and 2 wires as "probes": you had to lay a sheet with two tables on it and a hole in each cell onto a board, underneath each hole was a silvery contact. Then you had to match up things between the tables and put the probes on the contact in the hole, if the match was correct, the light bulb would light. Of course, even as a little kid you pretty soon found out the positions and knew what was where... And: bad people that teach you the stupid imperial measurement system! 😜

MrHammond

Reminds me of my 2XL Talking Toy Robot from 1992. It blew my mind then, and apparently there was a version from 1978!

Kris Pockell

"we've got to get Picard on this" 🤣🤣🤣

”When you power it on it makes a peasant greeting noise...”. Subtitles blooper fan me. :P

Tony Nilsson (The LEEC)

I've got an air source heat pump with an AC-only condenser right next to it (https://imgur.com/DQikPOU) and am reasonably competent at filming. Happy to shoot some b-roll.

This, the talking globe, and an old ibm pc or apple 2 with number munchers and Oregon trail. This whole 2020s trial period isn't working out. Let's go back to the 90s!!!

PiraTed

Dam I'd forgotten about these!

Sleeve catch. Yes but only because you asked and I had to watch it 3 times to spot it.

Jim Hewlett

I'm in the process of building a high efficiency heating/cooling system with a heat pump at its core. Let me know if I can help by contributing some footage you need :)

YES! This was my favorite toy as a kid in the early 90s. So much fun!!! I lived in Canada so we had special Canadian cards that described the Canadian holidays, like Victoria Day or July 1. It was great!

Justin Tokke

I have a 5 ton (60,000 BTU's) Goodman heat pump with back up electric emergency heating coils. It is a split system with the condenser outside and the air handler in the attic. It has a scroll compressor and runs off r-12 freon, I think. I have it set to "defrost" every 30 minutes. If you want any footage or stills, just let me know! My house is all electric and this is the only unit I have for heating and cooling. I live in Las Vegas, so the heating is only used a few months out of the year.

Vegasguy

I had a slightly later Alphie II! Its face was truly horrifying. If I recall correctly, the game parameters were selected by picking a single button with a matching symbol from a particular game card, from the bottom row of buttons.

Josh Dick

I was aware of this, but I don't really care that the readings are accurate so much as I want the visual to be there

Technology Connections

My electronic learning device was the Speak & Spell. Yes, I grew up in the late 1970s thru early 1980s. It was a glorious device!

Don Eitner

No blue LEDs?! Hallelujah!

Don Eitner

Re: thermal imaging, just in case you aren't already aware. Different surfaces have different emissivity values, which can make IR readings wildly inaccurate. A quick and easy way to overcome this is to stick a piece of electrical tape to the surface being measured, and take spot readings of the tape. I used this trick all the time in my old job in refrigeration R&D.

Microfrost

While I don’t have a heat pump, I do have a single unit multi-zone (2 thermostats, 1 air handler) Gas heat/AC unit, for my 1.5 story house. I just re-zoned/re-calibrated the house after the controller failed and replaced the damper motors on it. Also has the dreaded mandated fresh air damper as well, which is useless in Texas when it’s >90° and will pump hot air into your house on recirc automatically if it’s not disabled. My electric bills went down about 30% after getting everything sorted and zoned out correctly. If you’re interested in learning more from someone who just went through their system, shoot me a PM/Email I also still have the old motors/controller I can send to you!

8mins, that's how many minutes you beat me by to posting this link. Well done, Charles. I'm starting to think Alec had already found this, realized it was way too complicated to fit into the script, and decided to see how many people would take the challenge of finding it themselves instead.

Oh boy. I had a grand pappie of this, Alphie from Preskool, the original 1978 version.

Kevin Tangney

Alec, archive.org has an archive of the manual for this: https://web.archive.org/web/20150513021616/https://www.educationalinsights.com/text/EI/downloads/guides/8865_GeoSafariLearn_G.pdf EDIT: Definitely just realized this isn't the Jr. version, but the codes are likely similar between the two.

My mother was a teacher and had some GeoSafari units in her classroom. I remember both a GeoSafari Globe (with tethered stylus) and a gray GeoSafari like this one but with a big flat purple button on either side of the device as buzzers for competitive play.

Rich Jeanes

Oh my god this was my childhood. I haven't thought about this in *years*!

Ha, glad I'm not the only one that records all the other b-roll before doing any kind of teardown. Unless it's a repair video, I *always* record that bit last. Regarding National Geographic, I've never found a link between them either. The most concrete connection I'm aware of is NatGeo partnering with Educational Insights to release National Geographic Society maps with GeoSafari units starting in late 1993.

LGR

I didn't have this, but I did have one of its slightly later competitors, the "World Book Learning Center". It also had cards! And talked! And folded like a laptop! And IIRC did have either a touch screen or a matrix of LEDs but I forget which.

Pietro Gagliardi

Does a four head mini split system count? It all goes to a single condenser. Condenser size is about half way to a normal house condenser size. 36,000 BTU

Jeremy Whaling

So... you're not going to mod it by replacing the LEDs with blue LEDs? :D I seem to recall this from when I was a kid, but don't remember much about them, only that I wanted one.

Jason Wellband

When I was in elementary school we used these things quite a bit. Every class had 1-2 of them. Except ours where white, never seen a yellow version.

Just wanted to say I had the OG GeoSafari thing! It was completely unremarkable, but a lovely beige. My favorite beige electronic toy of this era though was the Etch-a-Sketch Animator.

John Laur

I have a larger-than-mini-split ducted air source heat pump. Would be glad to take some video of both the outside and inside units. Outdoor unit looks like your typical AC unit, indoor unit looks very much like your standard furnace. Edit: Ah.. mine doesn't have coils for defrosting, it does the reverse the cycle thing for a bit to defrost. (And makes a hell of a racket doing it)

I'm most interested in footage of systems dealing with frost, and would love if someone has a unit that has electric defrost coils rather than simply reversing the cycle periodically. And then I'd really like to have some B-roll of a ground-source system!

Technology Connections

I have a full size condenser outside that runs as a heat pump or AC. I’m actually not sure what it is, I’ve only had natural gas or oil furnaces in the past (I just know it runs when I ask the thermostat for cold air or hot air). Happy to contribute any footage you need.

Mark and Connor Herman

I certainly don't mind waiting for the heat pump video to come out. A rushed video is never a good one, and I'm glad you feel the same way! This is certainly a neat video topic in the meantime, I'd seen these in my parents' basement but never knew what it was Edit: just a bit of honest feedback, I would really have liked to gain some insight into how exactly the game's coding system works. I know you said there wasn't much documentation out there, but it felt a little disappointing to leave without knowing. I really enjoyed everything else about the video though!

Dan Fiscus

I've also got a heat pump in my apartment, also live in Ohio, and it works like trash but I can film it for you lol

Luke Hogan

Alec, I have a large Westinghouse heat pump on the side of my house. It’s a bit of a cold snap here in Ohio, so it’s been running quite a bit. What sort of footage do you need? EDIT: I will see if mine has heating coils. It’s about 10 years old so I doubt it, but I’ll take a look. And while I say it’s on the side of the house, I only mean it has a platform mounted to the foundation because the house is on a hill.

Sean Hearrell