Microsoft Barney is part of
Microsoft's
ActiMates collection of toys. They are a series of
PC-aware
interactive toys for
children. There is a
Barney doll,
Arthur and
DW dolls (from the
PBS Arthur show), and
Teletubby dolls. They hook up to the PC through a port on the rear of the
doll, can play many stand alone
games, and
interact with the
PBS broadcasting
station to "play along" with the shows.
I always thought these items were a
novelty, when I saw them on the
shelves in
various retail stores. As a
QA engineer, I enjoy many of the
weird bugs that come along with any
complicated piece of
hardware or
software. Found in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base among miscellaneous sound card troubleshooting issues is, article 172653, containing this mildly humorous
possibility:
Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own
SUMMARY
Sometimes Microsoft ActiMates Interactive Barney starts playing peekaboo on his own. This occurs because Barney's eyes are light-sensitive and adjust to changes in lighting. Therefore, sudden light changes, such as moving into a dark room, passing under a shadow in direct sunlight, or passing under direct incandescent lighting, may cause ActiMates Barney to start playing peekaboo.
Given the
considerable amount of
flack that both
Barney and
Microsoft get across America, this
bug was given a large
jeering on the
Internet from many sites. The
Actimates line, which includes the
Barney doll, didn't do stellar in the
marketplace, but enjoyed some mild success in
limited markets. It is outshadowed by similar toys in the same segment, such as the
Furby from
Tiger Electronics.
Resources: Microsoft Actimates Home Page: http://www.microsoft.com/products/hardware/actimates/
KB article from support.mcrosoft.com