[sdiy] The future of synth DIY

[Scott Gravenhorst]

As decadent as it might seem from a social standpoint,
I would say this is a matter of simple economics.  It's
about money.  I understand toolup is expensive all by 
itself.  When there is only a small, esoteric demand
for a part, as opposed to orders for tens of thousands
of some other device, the mfr makes a simple budget
decision: He can make alot more money using that fab
setup for some high run CDROM drive part.  

Sure, we could put together a group for a single run, but
I'm afraid it may be very expensive, even when spread out
some.  And the cost is there each time you try this with
yet another endagered species part.  (I'd love to see
an AD654 run...)

What do I do?  Heh, I'm an old man with eyes to match.  I
cannot solder SMD.  So I hoard to a small degree.  Generally,
if I need a part like an OTA, I will usually buy 10 or 20
knowing that the part is useful and I could quite likely
need it again later (when it may be truly extinct).  I have
piles of Rs and Cs as well.  I order bags of 100 transistors
when I may need 5 right now, so I have them.  I realize
that this may be impractical for those of you who try to 
make a living doing this.

I think that unless there is a real serious resurgence of 
a market demand for analog devices, we may be more and more
out of luck and out of parts as time goes by.  The digital
fakery age has made analog more expensive and rare.  The general
population out there, complete with their "tin ears", helped
us greatly by exclaiming "Dang, it sounds *just* like a Moog!"
when farting about with a virtual analog...  

Apparently, "good enough" is good enough to market.

But here, in the USA, I remember that people bought rocks
for $5.00 each when they were marketed as pets.

Go figure.

Terry Michaels <104065.2340 at compuserve.com> wrote:
>Message text written by Scott Bernardi
>>I'd settle for a readily available, cheap source of good npn and pnp
>matched transistor arrays! Why is it that these always seem to go
>obsolete? AD821, uA726, THAT co.... even the LM394 is hard to get
>nowadays.<
>
>Even the 3046 would be very useful if someone would make it with better
>specs.  Hfe = 40 might have been Ok back in the '70s, but not today.  IC
>fabrication has advanced a lot in 30 years, why can't someone put 4 or 5
>transistors in a 14 pin dip with Hfe around 400 - 500, low Rbe, etc.  
>
>Maybe we can get together as a group, and have a semiconductor fab house
>make some for us, with the specs we need. 
>
>Terry Michaels

-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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