I have main unit (CIB).
type Educational electronics construction kit
The Denshi-Gakken EX-150 — The Japanese Electronics Learning Kit
The Denshi-Gakken EX-150 (電子ブロック) was a Japanese educational electronics kit produced by Gakken — a major Japanese educational publisher and toy manufacturer — designed to teach children and young adults the fundamentals of electronics through hands-on experimentation. The EX-150 allowed users to build up to 150 different electronic circuits by connecting spring-loaded electronic components — resistors, capacitors, transistors, LEDs, a speaker, and more — on a plastic base with snap-in connections that required no soldering.
Learning Electronics the Japanese Way
Japan’s post-war emphasis on science and technology education produced a rich culture of educational electronics toys and kits throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Gakken’s Denshi block series (電子ブロック) — of which the EX-150 was a premium model — were among the most successful, introducing generations of Japanese children to the principles of electronics that underpinned the country’s remarkable technological rise. Many Japanese engineers credit these kits with sparking their interest in electronics and computing.
Historical Significance
The EX-150 represents the educational technology that created the engineers who built Japan’s electronics industry — the same industry that produced the components, peripherals, and eventually the computers that shaped global technology throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Its inclusion in a retro computer collection is entirely appropriate: the engineers who learned electronics on kits like this went on to design the chips inside many of the computers displayed alongside it.