Ambient said:I have not seen the older heatkits, I am still a newbie of 7 years.
Heathkit was truely amazing!.
They were designed for complete beginners, with exact step by step instructions, with pictures, and 'tick boxes' to mark when you had completed each stage. They even came with a small PCB and a few extra components so you could practice soldering before starting the kit.
I only ever made one, they were VERY expensive - it was for a customer at work, he ordered a Stereo FM receiver kit, and then bottled out of building it. So he bought it in to work and paid me to build it for him. It was an entirely discrete design (pre-dated IC's), including the multiplex decoder. The clever design, and excellent instructions, meant you could align it with almost no test equipment.
I'd love to find an un-built Heathkit to make!.