Big Trak was just so cool. I never owned one myself as a kid, but a few of my friends did. I desperately wanted one, but my dad said it was a waste of money since all it did was move around after pressing a few buttons. Needless to say, he did buy me a radio controlled car.

If the truth is to be know, the real reason was that he probably feared the machine since it looked complicated to use, and would look stupid in front of his impressionable young son if he tried to use it. It’s one of those things a father must do. He must show his son how to use something before the small poor kid had a chance to play with it himself. Or perhaps that was just my dad.

Early one Christmas I receive the poor substitute, although it was a rather awesome 4×4 radio controlled car. I never did get to play with it that Christmas day though. He had to show me how it worked, and by the time he got bored with it and passed the control to me, the batteries ran out. As every kid knows from an early age, no shops are open on Christmas day. No shops, no new batteries, no fun.

Anyway, enough of my deprived childhood, Big Trak – It was a lunar-tank shaped toy that you programmed to move. By pressing buttons on it’s keypad you could get it to move around in all directions for specific periods of time. You could also get a trailer for it (I don’t think it came included with the main toy itself, although I can’t say since I never actually had one). You could also add to the program the tipping of the trailer.