I have a dim childhood memory of this device and have been looking for it for years without success. But I recently saw it again: on a rerun of an old TV show from the 60s - "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.".

The Finny Foot Affair

In this episode (Season 1, Episode 10), a young Kurt Russell plays a boy who has a novelty version of the machine, made out of black plastic with a large metal toggle switch to activate the mechanism. It appears in Act 1 and again in Act 3, where it is used as a distraction to thwart the bad guys.

I saw this same evil perpetrated back in the mid 70s on a RSTS time sharing system. A devious friend of mine created a routine that, about once every 30 seconds or so, would add a random character to the keyboard input stream.

The hapless victim, a fellow high school student trying to type in a computer program, would type a line, get a SYNTAX ERROR, curse, retype the line, lather, rinse, repeat, for hours on end. He never noticed the extra characters appearing and couldn't understand why he kept making typos. He also couldn't understand why certain people looking over his shoulder kept dissolving into giggling fits every 30 seconds or so.

I guess some uses of technology never go out of style.

What is there to say, really?

Provided warm lap for numerous cats

Came, saw, took lots of naps

Danced, wondered, searched, found, lost, accepted

Life takes longer than you think