Retired software developer and vintage electronics enthusiast Michael Gardi has brought back a Star Trek tie-in toy from the golden era of the original series: MEGO’s Star Trekulator, a handheld electronic calculator with little resemblance to anything seen on-screen, now featuring a working touch-screen display.
“In the ’70s MEGO was known for making Star Trek toys, including a cassette player that (sorta) looked like a tricorder and communicator styled walkie-talkies,” Gardi explains of the original hardware. “One of these products caught my eye. Released in 1976 the Star Trekulator was a working six function calculator with a Star Trek themed ‘look.’ It doesn’t appear to correspond with any actual artifact from the series but to drive the point home it featured a cool still image ‘screen’ featuring Kirk, Spock and Uhura plus some blinken lights for effect.”
Spot the difference: the replica Star Trekulator, left, next to MEGO’s 1976 original. (📷: Michael Gardi)
Having tracked down an original — no mean feat, as it was not a best-seller — Gardi set about recreating it using modern hardware, including two custom PCBs and a controlling Espressif ESP32-WROOM-32 microcontroller module. While a 32-bit microcontroller with wireless connectivity may seem like overkill for a simple calculator, Gardi’s recreation goes beyond the original: that fake “screen” of MEGO’s imagining has been replaced with a 3.5″ full-color 480×320 touchscreen panel — the sort of technology that, at the creation of the original Star Trekulator, would have truly been science fiction.
The PCBs are housed in a 3D-printed chassis designed to replicate the original, complete with calculator keypad and a numerical display below the now-real viewscreen. There’s also a built-in amplified speaker — and if you use the touchscreen to poke at a character’s face you’ll hear a randomly-selected quote from the series, while buttons along the side of the screen trigger sound effects or a slideshow mode.
“The touch screen can be used to implement some cool interfaces,” Gardi adds. “For instance one thought I had was to implement some scientific calculator capabilities using the touch screen to add buttons to trigger these new functions while continuing to use the seven-segment display for results. Or how about adding a Tricorder like interface. The sky’s the limit as they say.”
Gardi has published a guide to building your own Next Generation Star Trekulator on Instructables, with source code, 3D models, and PCB design files available on GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3.