The Rokenbok Construction toys were pretty awesome too. They’re technically going out of business though, shifting focus to a line of STEM toys instead of RC trucks and factory construction.

Thus the famous court battle when Lego tried to su Elgo even though Elgo was first. The news agencies called it “Lego my Elgo Lego”.

Elgo bricks are slightly larger, but have the same 8 bumps on top and 8 sockets on the bottom. Lego’s main innovation was to use a softer plastic, so the bricks are held together by friction.

Before Elgo’s “American Plastic Bricks” a company called Halsam made “American Bricks” that were pressed wood. They were also 2×4 studs, although the bricks were 1:3:3, which made them easier to design with. They were made in the 1930’s, and my dad had huge piles of them. They did not snap together. They relied on gravity so they were really only suitable for building models of houses. Halsam later became Elgo.

The guy who attempted to restart Modulex production should have been able to just tell LEGO to go pound sand. Give it a different name and change what’s on the studs. Modulex had no special textures or other patentable, trademarkable, or copyrightable features on the bricks for architectural and other building design. The printing on the planner and sign pieces might be covered by copyright, but those are products made obsolete by large flatscreen displays.

Oh cool it’s still online: http://www.ericharshbarger.org/lego/calista.html Sometimes the web has staying power! He got a quarter million modulex bricks somehow and absolutely went to town with them.

That reminds me, years ago Hackaday had an article about using 3D printers to build adapter pieces that allowed various building toy parts (e.g. LEGO, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs? and such) to connect together.

One of the largest medical device companies in the world, BD also claims to be one of the largest users of plastic injection molded products in the world. At the groundbreaking of BD’s plant in Columbus, NE, James Borzi, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer at the time, said that the new facility will “centralize a majority of BD’s North American plastic molding production and will support multiple business units in the United States and around the world.” BD operates three other facilities in Nebraska.

On a trip to Spain in 1985 I got a few sets of Tente. Those sets were pretty great. Liked them better than legos at least at the time.

I had a bucket from another manufacturer (also 1980s) that had studs on the bucket lid so you could use it as a base. Similar bright red to the Super Blocks, but smaller and I can’t remember who made that one.

Noting that no BD syringes are mentioned in FDA’s safety communication, which recommends that users in the United States transition away from China-made syringes, Borin stressed that ensuring the safety and quality of its products is a priority at the 125-year-old medical device company. Notably, BD manufactured two billion additional syringes and needles to support the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

FDA began evaluating medical plastic syringes made in China near the end of last year when it learned of quality issues such as leakage or breakage and the potential that the faulty syringes may deliver incorrect dosages of medication. This week FDA reported in an update that the quality issues were more widespread than originally known. It sent warning letters to some China-based manufacturers of plastic syringes as well as US-based Medline Industries and Sol-Millennium, which market the syringes domestically.

One of the areas Modulex branched into (according to the video) was education. They were oriented toward geography and city planning in that space, it sounded like?

I’d heard of FischerTechnik, but never saw it until this week: I found a set of model production lines designed to be operated by 24V PLCs, as training aids. They were promptly liberated from the dusty cupboard where they were hiding…

[Peter Dibble] takes us on a deep dive through the history of Modulex, starting with Godtfred Kirk Christiansen needing a better way to model actual buildings after trying to design a house in LEGO. The LEGO brick’s 5:5:6 ratio proved challenging for modeling full-sized projects, so Modulex was conceived around a 1:1:1 ratio 5 mm cube. This change means Modulex is not compatible with LEGO System bricks.

Lest this week’s news about FDA cautioning against the use of plastic syringes made in China raise concerns of a possible shortage, BD announced today that it is increasing its US production of syringes.

I have a TYCO landline phone and at least one KRE-O brick that came with it. Grandkids think it’s the greatest thing. They are LEGO fans all the way, though.

Editor in chief of PlasticsToday since 2015, Norbert Sparrow has more than 30 years of editorial experience in business-to-business media. He studied journalism at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes du Journalisme in Strasbourg, France, where he earned a master's degree.

I remember Modulex because in the early days of the world wide web a guy was making a lot of ascii art using Modulex: big piece of hung art of like Mona Lisa made from the Modulex smooth-front pieces with letters on them, and using the relative density of the letters to make gray-scale photographs. That was about 1995, I think.

As architectural styles morphed through the mid-20th Century, designs based around blocky shapes became passe, and Modulex pivoted to targeting factory and city planning customers. Products later branched out to include wall charts and Plancopy photocopy-able planners along with reconfigurable signage. Modulex (now ASI) still goes on as one of the biggest signage companies in the world, but discontinued the bricks in 2004. An attempt was made to revive Modulex bricks in 2015, but LEGO Group bought the company that had the rights to the bricks and has no intention of producing Modulex.

Since MEGA BLOKS won freedom from being sued by LEGO over making pieces dimensionally compatible with LEGO, LEGO shouldn’t be able to stop anyone from launching a Modulex compatible brick line, especially if the rights to the things, and the Modulex name, were bought from ASI.

We love LEGO here at Hackaday, but did you know that LEGO spun off a parallel product line made for architectural models called Modulex?

Nice coïncience! Just some days ago I tried to remember that Mini-Lego’s name and failed. My father had a small starter or demo kit like amount of them and mentioned it were for architects and related use cases, but he might never have mentioned the name or it was regionally different? I’ve no idea why he hat them. Maybe back then they they gave some of these starter kits to teachers?

I had one of the buckets of Tyco “Super Blocks” as a kid that are probably still mixed in with my LEGO collection. The bucket cracked and got thrown out, IIRC though.

"BD has the capacity to support additional syringe demand and is further increasing US production to help ensure continuity of patient care,” said BD Medication Delivery Solutions President Eric Borin in today’s announcement. “Since the initial FDA safety communication in November, BD has increased domestic manufacturing of syringes in our Nebraska and Connecticut facilities to respond to customer needs.”

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Let’s not forget “American Plastic Bricks” by Elgo. They are dead ringers for Lego bricks, and came out in 1931 (a full decade before Legos). Coincidentally, the two company’s names are also amazingly similar.

The medtech giant is ramping up domestic syringe production in light of FDA’s recommendation to transition away from plastic syringes made in China.

I wonder if any 3D printer fans have been making their own Lego bricks. Or better still, how about a toy plastic injection molding machine so kids could make their own Lego bricks out of waste plastic?

FischerTechnik is not lost, it is popular in RoboCup Junior world, as it has much nicer controller for robotics then Mindstorms. https://www.fischertechnik.de/en/