Though I don't suspect many of the present of future generations are going
to be building DIY CRT TV receivers, I do think there's a growing passion
for homebrew engineering - a backlash against the vacuum of homebrew culture
that's persisted most of my lifetime (I'm 29).
MCUs are becoming cheaper, more powerful and more accessible to enterprising
tinkerers, Internet sites like hackaday, makezine, and sparkfun are helping
to bring ideas to the mainstream, and remarkably sophisticated components
can be salvaged from modern electronic "junk".
Google will show you clever young engineers attaching graphic LCD modules
and SD memory cards to their Linksys wireless routers, making DIY digital
photo frames out of old PlayStation parts, and streaming their RSS feeds to
vintage teletype machines.
Homebrew engineering is out there, it's just changed shape a bit.
-Andrew
On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 6:49 PM, lists <Stuartlists@...>wrote:
>
>
> In article <hujq31+aq69@... <hujq31%2Baq69%40eGroups.com>>,
>
> James <jamesrsweet@... <jamesrsweet%40gmail.com>> wrote:
> > I do wonder if future generations will have the same interest in
> > engineering as I do, when so much can be purchased so cheaply but there
> > are still some of us out there who build things more because we can than
> > any rational reason.
>
> I find myself inclined to agree with you. I became interested in
> electronics as a hobby in about 1965/6. It was fun in those days and my
> first project was an audio amplifier, 10W out of a pair of EL84s. Took a
> while to complete because things like output transformers, in particular,
> were expensive. First attempt was a failure because I used a lot of
> components I salvaged out of old TVs and I had no test equipment of any
> kind to fault find. Scrap it, save up some more pocket money till I could
> buy all new components and - success!
>
> I have recently been involved in a project to scan some early copies of
> "Wireless World". The oldest dated from 1944 and I've just completed 1957.
>
> I think they were, perhaps, the golden years. Kits to build TVs, radios,
> tape recorders, vast amounts of government surplus stuff you could buy and
> hack about. PCBs seem to have come on the scene about the mid-50s, along
> with transistors, and prior to that everything was built wire and
> tag-strip - very labour intensive in the factories, so you could save
> yourself a fair bit by DIY.
>
> Many TVs seem to have been constructed round old radar (often no more than
> 5" diam) CRTs and in the "Wireless world" TV receiver you wound all your
> own coils, including the deflection coils.
>
>
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