[sdiy] Real cause of DIY death

[KA4HJH]

>Simply put: lack of what people now consider 'amazing'.

Yes, that child-like sense of wonder.

>Lot's of people on this list experienced the 'burst' of electronics from
>say the
>mid-1970s to the present. I remember:
>
>a) getting the Digi-Key catalog when it was 1 sheet, folded and mailed

That's a bit too far back for me. I remember staring at that TTL databook
at Radio Shack and wondering what it all meant and who used such
information besides the guys at NASA.

>b) "No time to test these!" (obscure reference)

Would that have been from a PolyPaks catalog or something?

>c) sitting in the high school library, staring with my mouth open
>transfixed for
>like 3 hours when Popular Electronics had a Nixie-tube digital clock project.
>They actually *explained* in great detail how they worked. They made it seem
>like *I* could make it work! I remember clearly thinking "You mean to tell me
>they can count the 60Hz AC signals with CHIPS??!?"

I got my first issue of PE in May or June of '75 (I was thirteen at the
time). I remember looking at the ads for computer kits, dumbfounded. You
can build and own an actual COMPUTER?? (I had just missed the famous Altair
I issue). Of course the price was more money than I'd ever seen in my life
but I knew older guys with cars and jobs who could afford it if they'd been
so inclined (no one I knew was).

Not that I knew anything about computers, either, except that they were
magical devices that only large governments and corporations could afford.

>d) Xeroxing (back when the paper was sort of slimy) all the Don Lancaster,
>Forrest Mims and PAiA construction articles. I bet I read the "Psych-Tone"
>article 500 times. I suppose in modern times it was like a *real* Harry Potter
>spell book.

I got to this point in college. Fortunately it was plain paper.

>e) wire-wrapping the Tandy Model 1 prototype, and etching the pc boards and
>getting ferric chloride over everything. I still have mine, serial #00068 :)

The week the floppy disk drives for the Apple ][ showed up, that was
something. No more cassette tapes.

>f) staring (afraid to even *touch it*) when Seagate brought in a *9
>platter* 1GB
>hard drive. We had to sign an 'evaluation' PO (you break it, you buy it) for
>$8000. It took over 16 hours just to format it. When we did the DOS Dir
>and saw
>over 1GB of storage, there were about 22 people in the lab, just *staring*. No
>one said anything, we just *stared* like it had dropped out of a space ship.

Seeing a personal computer with a GUI and a mouse for sale for only $2500.

>Today, there is a Dell ad in the paper for a 2GHz PC with 120GB drive and
>a flat
>screen for like $399. Yawn....ZZzzzzz......Oh look a 5GB 'no-name' MP3
>player at
>Fry's for $79......Burp..........pass the donuts.

I paid $785 for a 20MB hard drive for my Mac Plus. It took months to save
that up.

>Personally, synth-DIY for me was fuel by *amazement*. What does a 15yr old boy
>find 'amazing' today? Getting to Level 33 on Zelda? Maybe big-ass plasma
>TVs are
>pretty cool, bet they are a bitch to DIY :)

My point, exactly.

>I'm gonna go solder me some MOTM-380 LFOs, dammit

Then, at the age of 37, they told me I was ADD.

-- 

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"

"You'd PAY to know what you REALLY think"--Dobbs