I am looking for any papers or publications that were published before
April of 1996 that described two-way IR communication, for possible
use between toys.  They must describe one toy causing the other to
take action, and vice versa.  The action could be any form, sound,
movement or light activation.
 
I believe there were some relevant papers written at Harvard before
April 1996, but not published.  The information can be from any
source, but must be published or publicly available before April 1996.

The first toy that I know of that did this was "Talkin' Tots" produced
by "Play by Play" in 1997.  It is described as follows:

"Talkin' Tots, by Play By Play, is a set of interactive dolls that
talk to one another. The child squeezes a doll's hand, and it speaks
to the other doll, which answers back. Each doll speaks three times
per exchange. They also sing."

(taken from this site)
http://www.s-t.com/daily/05-97/05-05-97/c06li092.htm

If you can find a toy produced before Talkin? Tots (1997), that uses
two-way IR, it might also be helpful.


A $5 tip will be given for a bulletproof source of information.

Thanks and Good Luck!

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 17 Mar 2004 13:51 PST

How about the "Photon" and "Lazer Tag" games of the '80s and '90s?

http://www.nucleardawn.us/history.htm

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Clarification of Question by chil709-ga on 17 Mar 2004 15:14 PST

Sorry, I forgot to mention.  The lazer tag guns aren't what I'm looking for.  

We're looking for something that came out in the mid 90's, and had
similar action/reaction scheme to the Talkin' Tot's.  I think our best
bet would be a published description.  If there was a toy actually
produced before the date, it most likely wasn't popular.

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Clarification of Question by chil709-ga on 18 Mar 2004 07:22 PST

Here is the article I mentioned before, (it was at MIT not Harvard),
it would be perfect, but it's just a few days over the deadline.

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/mit/sectionc/martin.html

I'm also raising the list price because I realize this will take a
good amount of digging to find.