[sdiy] History of SDIY?

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

If DIY is only doing/building something yourself which you could buy, then it seems like a waste of time.

I prefer DIY when you build something that you *cannot* buy anywhere - usually because it’s too weird to be commercially viable. There’re also opportunities for tweaking circuits and changing them in ways that aren’t possible just shopping at a store and buying whats available.

Brian

Anecdote: My grandfather was trained in electronics in the Navy, and then ran a television sales and service shop. When I started DIY audio electronics, he was convinced that everything would cost more than simply buying finished products. HIs perspective was Zenith televisions, where replacing the CRT cost more than the whole television. Obviously, a DIY television would cost more than a consumer retail television because of that one part. Thankfully, my $20 guitar pedals and synth modules didn’t have any parts that cost hundreds of dollars, so he turned out to be wrong.


On May 29, 2018, at 8:35 AM, Florian Anwander <fanwander at mnet-online.de> wrote:
> Am 29.05.2018 um 17:23 schrieb Scott Gravenhorst:
>>  It is
>> simply "Synthesizer Do It Yourself", a definition in 4 words that I personally find sufficient.
>> The last 3 words are pretty easy to nail down, but the first is, well, any darn thing we want.
> Something "DIY" is very different from "R&D" or even inventing. "DIY" means doing/building somthing yourself which you could buy too.
> 
> So Synth-DIY can't start befor the existence of synths produced and sold under industrial or at least economical conditions.
> 
> Florian