Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Tricorders

If you grew up in the 1970s, you probably had your eye on the Mego Corporation's first ever Star Trek action figures and accompanying Enterprise bridge playset with "spin action transporter" and a whole "two stools". Did the Spock figurine talk to you in a dream? As well as getting your transporter in a twist, you might have spent 1976 begging your parents for the Mego Star Trek Tricorder.

Essentially a jazzed-up tape recorder with a microphone, the Mego tricorder did have a flip-top lid and a relatively recognisable rotating moiré 'display screen'. It also came with a cassette that, on one side, played 30 minutes of audio from The Menagerie Parts I & II. The other side was left blank, allowing children (overgrown or otherwise) to "tape [their] own adventures," as a commercial from the time put it. Why was it blue? Da ba dee da ba damned if I know.

The design of toy/replica tricorders has certainly improved over the years — the Playmates and Diamond Select varieties certainly look the part — and the technology is keeping up too. The Wand Company is set to release a 'functional' TOS-style tricorder with actual sensors and sound recorder, a working display screen, and interchangeable data discs.