'It draws and writes like magic!" says the announcer, in the eager tones of early sixties TV advertising. "No crayons, no chalks, never any mess!" The key word in that early pitch for the Etch A ...

We've all labored over an Etch A Sketch at some point in our lives, painstakingly turning the two knobs to create a single-line black drawing on the gray screen. It's a classic toy that hasn't changed ...