[sdiy] Radfio Shack

[Richard Wentk]

At 01:04 08/10/2004 -0700, Glen wrote:
>At 04:36 PM 10/7/04 , The Old Crow wrote:
>
> >  Of course, electronics hobbyists are all set to be left out in the cold
> >when through-hole parts are no longer made.  The intermediate/advanced
> >(and more determined beginner) hobbyists can of course adapt to
> >surface-mount, but for the beginner, the new and much steeper learning
> >curve it is going to suck.  They'll probably end up going to Radio Shack
> >and buying a cell phone.
>
>At that point, I think the sort of people who used to become electronics
>enthusiasts will quite possibly become computer programming enthusiasts
>instead.

I think this happened ten years ago. There's a *huge* s/ware DIY market out 
there, some of it free, some of it not. Some people did very well out of 
it, like the guy who started Syntrillium with Cool Edit and was then made a 
tidy sum when Adobe turned Cool Edit Pro into Audition. Others produced 
endless crappy $10 shareware doodads. Meanwhile over at SourceForge, there 
are some huge collaborative s/ware projects.

Amateur electronics has been becoming more of a crafts market like amateur 
furniture design or cabinet making than a mass market hobby. It seems 
likely this will continue.

I do think analogue DIY has an uncertain future. It's bad enough losing the 
CEMs, which made DIY almost trivially easy. But when you can't get staples 
like the 3080 any more, you know you're in trouble.

>At least it's still possible to write your own software, and it probably 
>will be for awhile longer. Even DIY software development *could*
>eventually dry up.

It probably depends what you mean by 'write.' :-)

Richard