Scott Adams was certainly not the first author to draw a comic featuring an Etch-A-Sketch, but this classic Dilbert strip (correction: from 1995) remains the standard against which all other attempts must be measured:
This Rose is Rose strip was published nine years earlier (in 1986), but to her credit, at least Rose can tell the difference between the devices:
As computer technology progressed, more recent comics were able to use tablets (instead of laptops), which made the misidentification more believable:
Here’s a handy guide to distinguish between the two:
Of all the strips showing kids using an Etch-A-Sketch as a “real” computer, this Jump Start is my favorite:
Not everyone is so pleased by the idea of image impermanence:
The Off the Mark at the top already appeared at CIDU (on May Day 2023) but Parisi also drew two other comics that are notable for incorporating pseudo-authentic Etch-A-Sketch artwork into the drawing. The first one is truly superb, especially for including the masterful meta-pun on “line”:
This final Off the Mark comic has a fatal flaw (morbid pun intended). The “sketchy” artwork is actually its best feature, but it would have been even better with a pair of round knobs on the monitor. The tragic defect is that the author did not bother to properly credit (or apologize to) André Cassagnes, who was still alive when this comic was published in 2008 (he died just five years later).
…
P.S. Today (23-Sep-2024) would have been the inventor’s 98th birthday.
Comics I Don't Understand 
. . . and this homage to the original from Futurama!
https://morbotron.com/video/S02E19/E-KDqKwVHHcarKeu0NwWE4VXREI=.gif
Did they have laptop computers in 1985? I’m remembering that as the era of the portable computer (like Osborne, Kaypro, and Compaq), also known as “luggables”. But I see the Gavilan was introduced in 1983.
I had a Kaypro in that era. And another Linguistics grad student got a Compaq, and the whole gang enjoyed giving that q a pronunciation according to different conventions or languages
@ zbicyclist (2) – I knew someone who had bought an early Compaq in 1985 or ’86: it was both the size and the weight of a large sewing machine, and was just barely “luggable”. I had never heard of the Gavilan SC, probably because the company had already gone bankrupt before then. However, many of those early “portables” were quite sizable, which is why they were sometimes referred to as “schlepp-tops“.
P.S. A later German pun for “lap-top” reversed the terms, resulting in “Topf-Lappen” (literally “pot-rag”, meaning “potholder”).
The Toshiba T1100. It’s screen even looks a bit like an Etch a Sketch
My sister had an Osborne luggable in 1984 that she took to NZ when they moved there for a year. Her husband had a tenure-track job at University of Otago. They found it too isolated and came back after a year.
Anyway, a couple of years ago, she unearthed it in the basement. It still booted! She wiped the disk and put it at the curb, marked “WORKING” and “FREE”. No takers, alas.
In the early 90s, we had an NEC laptop at my office. It was probably $4K in then-dollars–big bucks! We called it The Craptop; it was so universally hated that the data center manager, who nominally “owned” it (or rather, his department did) would let me check it as luggage, hoping they’d lose it. No such luck.
The Dilbert is from 1995, so no worries about trying to turn that “laptop” into a luggable.
@ Darren (7) – Thanks very much for the correction; I misread the miniscule type in the gutter between the second and third frames, and didn’t think to reflect on the plausibility of the date. I’ve corrected the text above to match.
Weird Al also used the joke, in “All About the Pentiums”:
Got a flat-screen monitor, 40″ wide
I believe that yours says, “Etch-A-Sketch” on the side
Is it just me, or does this keep on changing?
In the late 80s my favorite toy was my Etch-a-Sketch Animator. There was a follow up product called Animator 2000, but I did not get one until 2000 (coincidentally) off eBay, and I don’t think I ever got it working right.
I was not good with etch-a-sketch as a kid. I did at one point laboriously clear an area in the center to look inside to examine the mechanism.
In my younger (college) days, I was not interested in computers. In the early 80s, the guys at school that were favored Radio Shack models.
After we got some IBM XTs at work, I found some things I could do on them. Then I discovered computer games, especially the Infocom text-adventure games (Zork et al). That led me down a path that resulted in becoming a software engineer.
Somewhere I still have the TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computer I bought in 1983.
@ deety (10) – After Darren pointed out @7 that I had misread the date on the Dilbert strip, I fixed that, but also made a few other adjustments to the text.
Wow, thanks for the history lesson. I had an Apple Powerbook 145, I think, in the early 1990s, but it wasn’t as capable as the desktop machine. Now, I can barely remember my last desktop machine.
Kilby – My sewing machine (cast iron dating to the 1970s) was not working for a few years and we finally got it fixed. I could barely carry it (and if I can’t carry something – no way husband can do so). I managed to get it from the car to the store (parked 2 stores away). After it was fixed the nice woman from the store took pity on me and carried out to the car for us.
I used to keep it on my work table in our studio – but same was used to hold extra food storage during the worst of Covid and was still covered in soup and other cans. I managed to carry the machine into the house and tested it on the kitchen table. After which I put under my work table. Last month he had a projected I had to do for him and I managed to carry it to the kitchen table to use it (work table too small an area for what I had to make) and then back again afterwards. I really need to finish clearing off my work table so the machine can go back on same and we won’t trip over it any more.
I have had laptop computers (Windows) since one which was a 286 (the heaviest one) with new ones to upgrade over the decades. None of them – or even my desktop computers – have been anywhere near as heavy as that sewing machine is!
(I do also have a light weight sewing machine which I used to bring when we did regular craft shows and I made baby quilts to sell. That needs to be repaired also.)
@ Meryl (17) – I don‘t know how heavy your sewing machine is, but the original Compaq Portable weighed 28 pounds (or 13 kg), and was only just barely “portable”.
It’s like the 19″ portable TV I bought when I first started working at Megacorp. It was “portable” in that it was not a cabinet console model, and you could pick it up and carry it if you were of a mind. It was fairly heavy and bulky.
At the time I was a strapping young 24, but even so transporting it in its box from the Chevy Blazer to the apartment was a task. Some 40 years later when it went to e-cycling I used a hand truck to move it from a bedroom to the Venerable Bronco.
Well carrying it did remind me WHY I kept it on top of work table at the far end out of the way! (I could just push it to the work area to use it.
It also reminded me why I bought a much lighter plastic machine to take to craft shows (indoor with electric shows only) to work on baby quilts and pillow covers when I used to do so. This machine needs to be repaired so it works also.