Old Timers Corner: Do You Remember These?

My first book on electronics, 1st grade, I learned to read on this book...
Morgan wrote a series of these and they are very interesting.



I was constantly saving money, scrounging pop bottles to afford something from these guys in the late 60s- all through the 70s.
I always got cloths for Christmas, but my entire 'Wish' list came out of the Heathkit catalog!



From the 80s forward this was the "Gaze In Wide Wonder" every time it came in.
If it conducted electrons, it was in this catalog at some point!
This took DIY to a whole new level.

I spent many an hour furtling about at the Heathkit / Zenith store which was just 10 minutes down the road.... so many projects for creative minds...

I used a regulated power supply design for my first charge controller, and then found a schematic in Nuts & Volts for an adjustable charge controller I still use.

The old Archer- Radio Shack project books that had schematics for everything under the sun, dirt simple timers were a big help, power supplies/converters, ect all came in handy for $2 and up.
I still use a lot of that stuff, just not as often since the Chinese are making that stuff dirt cheap.
It's good to know how when so many companies are here today, gone tomorrow...



I still hang LEDs on relays and controllers, just let's me know when individual component fails so I don't have to test the entire system.

First TV at my house was from a Heathkit kit

I didn't have any books, BUT a family friend who was drafted in the military gave me an electronics kit. You could build things like radios, morse code, etc. with diagrams and wires.

I had a couple of these board kits, one from a yard sale, one from the trash!
(I was too young to know you weren't supposed to 'Trash Pick')



Those spring terminals were a GENIUS idea!
I had a GREAT time with these, the biggest issue I had was figuring out how to make the projects work in the real world.

JeepHammer said:

I had a couple of these board kits, one from a yard sale, one from the trash!
(I was too young to know you weren't supposed to 'Trash Pick')

I had a GREAT time with these, the biggest issue I had was figuring out how to make the projects work in the real world.

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I'm a certified trash picker! Most of my furniture came from the neighbors! So I'm not the only one who did these? Did you ever make a radio? Do you still have them?

Not sure why but I loved those spring wire holder things on those old kits it was so easy. Everything since has been a wire twisting, solder dripping, butt crimping mess. at least shrink wrap still blows my mind.

Santa said:

I'm a certified trash picker! Most of my furniture came from the neighbors! So I'm not the only one who did these? Did you ever make a radio? Do you still have them?

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No, sometime in the 16 years I was in the Marines they were lost...

'Used' doesn't mean 'Junk'.
I'm using 100 year old can seamer, 50 year old canners and electro-magnetic induction for a heat source to home can/jar food.
I build nearly all my own solar power stuff, and while everyone wants an 'All In One' unit, that also means you do without everything while the unit gets repaired or replaced.

They are still available from $30-$100 so it's not like basic circuit learning tools aren't out there.
I have a couple laying around we used for the younger kids, lots of noise, spinning stuff, flashing lights, etc.
When they master basic circuits and learn the schematic symbols for things, then I move them up into bread board project kits...
Still just hundreds if hours of experiments for a few bucks and a great way to learn.

It sure beats kids playing 'Candy Crush' or 'Angry Birds' for hundreds of hours...

I've heard several times it takes 10,000 hours of education & practice to become truly proficient in anything you will do.
That's 1,250 straight 8 hour days/ 3.5 years of 8 hour days without loosing focus.
You had better be REALLY interested in what you are doing!

When I was young, I'd skip meals if I wasn't reminded when I was messing with electronics or mechanical stuff.
The Marines was a 16 year detour and when I got out I went right back to it.
I did quite a bit of mechanical & electrical while I was in the military, mostly automotive related,
Ignition systems, fuel injection systems, radios, what ever I got my hands on.

JeepHammer said:

I had a couple of these board kits, one from a yard sale, one from the trash!
(I was too young to know you weren't supposed to 'Trash Pick')

Those spring terminals were a GENIUS idea!
I had a GREAT time with these, the biggest issue I had was figuring out how to make the projects work in the real world.

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Ha. What a flashback! I had the Radio Shack version. To this day I tell people it was the best Christmas present I ever got.

Bob142 said:

Ha. What a flashback! I had the Radio Shack version. To this day I tell people it was the best Christmas present I ever got.

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It sure beats socks!

JeepHammer said:

It sure beats socks!

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So many socks...

There was a Tandy/RadioShack shop here but for most things I'd go to the local Dick Smith Electronics franchise instead. The DSE catalogue had a technical section at the back that always had all sort of useful info. I did have one of those xxx-in-1 things as a kid and I learned a few things from it. DSE had a more advanced line call the Fun Way into Electronics which revolved around increasingly complex PCB based kits.

Around '82 I bought and built a DSE/Electronics Australia kit computer. I did quite a bit with it, and modified it significantly. I was early mid teens at that stage and was making money fixing the schools computers so I had some cash to play with, but for all that it could do it was limited so I eventually moved onto a TRS-80MIII that I got 2nd hand.

Bob142 said:

Ha. What a flashback! I had the Radio Shack version. To this day I tell people it was the best Christmas present I ever got.

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Huh. All I had to do to get a Like from Santa was talk about a great Christmas present? I shoulda thought of that sooner!

JeepHammer said:

I had a couple of these board kits, one from a yard sale, one from the trash!
(I was too young to know you weren't supposed to 'Trash Pick')

Those spring terminals were a GENIUS idea!
I had a GREAT time with these, the biggest issue I had was figuring out how to make the projects work in the real world.

Click to expand...

I still have mine. My kids play around with it now. I have a Black Belt in dumpster diving ;-) It's amazing what shows up in the recycle bins at work.

I didn't grow up with those but I've seen them once in a while, they look pretty good. I don't seem to have a natural knack for electronics but I can do simple things. My very first foray into electricity was when I was about 3 or 4 and stuck a hairpin I found on the floor into one side of a a 120vac mains socket because my parents kept telling me "there's a dragon in there, don't mess with him." So naturally I wanted to see him come out. And I'll NEVER do that again! lol.

The older 1970s chemistry sets were more fun too. By the 1980s they had become really lame.

bulrush said:

The older 1970s chemistry sets were more fun too. By the 1980s they had become really lame.

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That's why in the 80s our "chemistry set" was whatever was stored under the kitchen and bathroom sinks and the "recipes" that usually started with a kid uttering the phrase "I heard that if you mix..."

My sister got a chemistry kit in about '67 and didn't like it.
I managed to start a fire with the mirror on the microscope...
My first hard lesson in solar tracking, just because the mirror isn't in the sun RIGHT NOW doesn't mean the sun isn't going to move!
Glad it only scorched things and didn't burn the place down...

My sister got hit on by firemen

JeepHammer said:

My sister got a chemistry kit in about '67 and didn't like it.
I managed to start a fire with the mirror on the microscope...
My first hard lesson in solar tracking, just because the mirror isn't in the sun RIGHT NOW doesn't mean the sun isn't going to move!
Glad it only scorched things and didn't burn the place down...

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I'm starting to realize that a lot of your experience involves fires. Or at least a bunch of smoke...

bulrush said:

I didn't grow up with those but I've seen them once in a while, they look pretty good. I don't seem to have a natural knack for electronics but I can do simple things. My very first foray into electricity was when I was about 3 or 4 and stuck a hairpin I found on the floor into one side of a a 120vac mains socket because my parents kept telling me "there's a dragon in there, don't mess with him." So naturally I wanted to see him come out. And I'll NEVER do that again! lol.

The older 1970s chemistry sets were more fun too. By the 1980s they had become really lame.

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My dad still has one of his chemistry sets from the 50's. Lots of fun stuff in that....