 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Silicon Chip mag
  Page 2 of 2 |
|||||
| Author | Message | ||||
| JohnS Guru  Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4084 |
Some people (never a majority) will still be interested in how things work, including electronics. I was, from quite a young age, but not via school or relatives. (Heck, I even played with a carbon arc, ahem.) Things like the micro:bit may even help - perhaps. If it gets hard to buy components with solderable leads, that'll be a deterrent. It's handy if there are magazines but I suppose not essential. I hope those that exist stay around for those who could benefit. I suppose web sites will fill in for those that cease. I've never tried a simulator but they have a place - and Harm's posts show how good they can be! hmm... how to encourage kids to be curious and to mess around (safely)? John |
||||
Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8156 |
There's a very simple simulator available here. I got a stand-alone version of it ages ago. It doesn't do everything and I wouldn't recommend it as a serious design tool, but it's fun and teaches electronics. I don't have a lot of success with it as a web app. Edited 2025-10-03 01:15 by Mixtel90 Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3426 |
No joke. I did too--made a science fair project with a plaster of Paris box open on one side, round holes in the sides through which I could slide wooden dowels to which were attached carbon rods taken from D-sized batteries to which 120V AC was connected. Switch on with the carbon rods touching, and then pull them apart. I don't know how it didn't blow fuses. Maybe I had it inline with a light bulb. I think the only reason no one prevented me from doing it is that they didn't know how dangerous it was. Neither did I. I don't remember how I got the idea. One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was an electronics kit. This would have been in the late 50's. It ran from a transformer as I recall (maybe batteries, maybe either). It taught wiring, switches, light bulbs, buzzers, rheostats (wires run zigzag to different screw points to which you could move a contactor--dimming or brightening lights), the difference between series and parallel wiring for lighting flashlight bulbs. It taught me a lot. I've tinkered ever since then. I had almost all Dr. Dobbs magazines, and Byte, and later PC Magazine. Disposed of all copies when I moved to Canada. Haven't subscribed in decades. PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8156 |
Hehe... My first "electrical kit" consisted of a few MES bulbs (a couple painted red and green), a couple of holders for them, a few switches and buttons, some lengths of solid core wire, a battery (I think it was a 4.5V flat type) and a screwdriver with a built-in wire stripper. There may have been a couple of other bits I think there might have been a buzzer or bell. All presented in a cardboard box as a Christmas present. I couldn't have been so old at the time as I remember sitting on the floor behind my Grandma's settee to play with the bits. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| circuit Senior Member  Joined: 10/01/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 287 |
My journey started with Meccano Electrikit and then I graduated to HeathKit before getting all the various electronics magazines that were available from WH Smith on the high street and starting with the soldering iron and Veroboard. All the magazines gone now -including WH Smith! As to the price of Silicon Chip Magazine, it is very much in line with the cost of production of other magazines today; just looking at my mags here in the sitting room. New Scientist, weekly, £6.95. Country Life, weekly, £5.50. October copy of BRM (railway modelling) £9.99. Silicon Chip at AUS$14 = £7.00? Gosh, if that was on the magazine shelves in the shops here I would certainly pick it up. I think that this is all a question of perception of cost; as one ages, one's appreciation of inflation is somewhat distorted by memories of what we used to pay. I would regard AUS$14 for a somewhat niche hobby magazine as excellent value when compared with contemporary print costs for other mags on the racks. |
||||
| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10453 |
This was my introduction. 3 germanium transistors and you could make a working radio amongst other things |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8156 |
Ah, yes! I remember those. :) I thought they were really cool at the time but I never got one. I did have a crystal earpiece just like that though. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9660 |
Yes, good point. That is how I try to think - things are just more expensive now.....C'est La Vie.... Still, your financial brain keeps questioning it!  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
||||
TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6318 |
Yes, I was given one for Christmas one year. Prior to that, my brother built a crystal set compete with a lump of rock and a cats whisker for the detector diode. We had "Radio and Hobbies" which eventually morphed into "Electronics Australia" Our neighbour was a second hand furniture dealer and we often were given old radios to fry our fingers on. Lucky to survive those early years! I think my parents thought the Electronic Engineer kit was safer. Jim VK7JH MMedit |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8156 |
I built quite a lot of crystal sets as a kid. All sorts of variations. We had a reasonable garden at the time and could get a half decent aerial up.My dad had buried an old cold water tank in the garden and a wire bolted to that gave quite a good Earth. No chance where we are now! Only germanium diodes though, no cat's whiskers. We had a bit of a deal with a local TV shop. Every now and again he'd pop round with the van and drop a few dead TVs off (often 405 line or dual-standard, we had moved to 625 line by then). I spent many happy hours stripping them down for components, sorting them and filing them away in the correct boxes. :) We couldn't afford new components - it's surprising what you can get to work sometimes. The two halves of an ECC82 in parallel makes an acceptable output valve if you don't need much power, for example. EF80 on the other hand is more or less useless for anything - and we had a lot of those. :) I even drilled the rivets out of the valve holders. Philips TV's were more or less scrap. The components were all sealed into nasty black gunk, with just their part number on them. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| circuit Senior Member Joined: 10/01/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 287 |
Very very similar to the Heathkit Junior Electronic Workshop JK-47 that took me from the electrical engineering of Meccano Electrikit to my first encounter with semiconductors. Three transistors and a range of circuits to build including radios, oscillators, amplifiers, light and buzzer circuits and so forth. Happy days... Sitting on a rug on the tiled floor of the conservatory next to the Christmas Tree and connecting up the jumper wires between the spring connectors that terminated each component on the board. An activity only interrupted to dash to the recently installed 26 inch (absolute monster at the time) colour television to watch the latest episode of Thunderbirds! I recall the colour television being installed; an engineer from John Lewis walked around the room with a large (about a metre diameter) degaussing coil, wafting it around in circles to demagnetise the room before setting about "convergence" settings on the television itself. After removing the back cover of the television, a control board popped up with many pots, each with corresponding graphics to show just which of the three beams it controlled and in which direction. The installer was a most patient fellow who gave me great detail in explanations as he set the device up. Edited 2025-10-03 19:22 by circuit |
||||
| pwillard Guru Joined: 07/06/2022 Location: United StatesPosts: 317 |
I like magazines, but here is what I expect from an electronics magazine; * Interesting articles, not fluff * Something I can learn a new concept from * Contains useful things, not gimmicks Many magazines now (such as Make, Raspberry Pi Magazine, and similar) cram the pages with quarter-page articles that link to a web page, which often have wildly inconsistent quality (many are even incomplete). For things like that, we can all use Google instead of relying on semi-curated lists of sites to visit. What grinds my gears: FPGAs that have an upfront development cost being used in articles that probably didn't even need an FPGA. I canceled my EPE Magazine and Circuit Cellar Magazine subscriptions when they fell below my Price/Expectations margin. When I read a magazine and end up feeling "well, that was a waste of time", I'm calling it "done". Sad, but reality. |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8156 |
... and the assumption that I can 3D print a particular bracket / support / case / knob etc. That kills most projects that I see stone dead now. :( Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| pwillard Guru Joined: 07/06/2022 Location: United StatesPosts: 317 |
Well, there is a 3D printing service available from JLCPCB and PCBWAY, which might be a viable option for that project, offering an excellent alternative for those without a printer. |
||||
PeteCotton Guru Joined: 13/08/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 567 |
Then you might enjoy this archive of Byte magazine. But the really cool part is the very novel navigation method. Scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in. https://byte.tsundoku.io/ Edited 2025-10-04 09:43 by PeteCotton |
||||
bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2966 |
G’day blokes (and Sheila’s), I used to be an avid magazine reader, I had semi permanent subscriptions to Electronics Australia, Electronics Today International (ETI) Byte Circuit Cellar Inc (or was it Ink?) Silicon Chip Australian Personal Computer With occasional purchases of other similar mags. But I gave up when my eyes started to fail and I needed glasses. But even before then I was eternally “P. Off” by the constant rehash of speaker dethump circuits and audio stuff plus capacitor discharge ignition circuits or Transistor assisted ignition circuits (this nearly killed me with the worst electrical shock I have experienced in my life (about 400v pulsating DV). Then the Ads, OMG, these often turned the magazines into compendiums of advertisements. Also I think the advances with the internet and Google search engines probably killed the viability of publishing a magazine. I feel sad but also think we live in a more enlightened world than the one I grew up in. Regards, Mick (The big one) . Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
||||
| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3426 |
Thanks, Pete. I'm always mindful of Jerry Pournelle’s scorn for hardware and software developers whose actual products were always going to be available RSN ("Real Soon Now"). Kind of like AI's promises. (But I do find AI at present to be very valuable.) PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
||||
karlelch Senior Member Joined: 30/10/2014 Location: GermanyPosts: 254 |
I like it - thanks for the hint! |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8156 |
The Internet Archive has a huge number of electronics mags here. Warning, it's a bit slow loading because of the huge number of graphics! Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| Page 2 of 2 |
|||||
 Print this page |
 |
The Back Shed's forum code is written, and hosted, in Australia. | © JAQ Software 2025 |
