In 1970 we got together every week to make amateur radios. The old men I learned from made their transmitters. They thought amateur electronics was over because people were paying money for their radios.
When Keith Kit closed I thought kit building was done and over. I can't get a resistor in town. (Radio Shack has 10)
The kids are making software not hardware.
how many times have I (you) heard,: why fix/make one, just buy one?
It is just the result of modern manufacturing techniques. The same thing has happened in the car industry. While it is still possible to have a hobbyist interest in these fields it is very difficult to do it on the same level that existed 20 yrs ago. Just check out under the hood of a 1970s car to a current day one. You can't even get your hand in there now.
Hi,
I am reading some very good points already here. Things have changed since the 1970's when the first integrated CPU's from Intel were coming out. Back then we had to design CPU's that took up a whole PC board the size of what most mother boards are these days. So things have changed enormously. The digital age was just starting to come in too, with the TTL logic chips. People liked to experiment with these things because they were cheap and you could do a lot with them for that era. Then integration took off, and chips got more and more complicated. Way back when anyone could get a transistor or two or even a vacuum tube and throw together a little circuit like an amplifier or transmitter or receiver, but once you find out that is old hat because of the new chips out there, you tend to loose interest because part of the fun is the novelty of it all. Now novelty pretty much equates to complexity, and not everyone wants to get involved with the complexities of even a small pin count low end micro controller because it involves so much more than the old one or two transistor circuit did. Too bad, it's a loss for us all that have an interest in this field.
And yes, a big factor is that now we have computers. When a kid wakes up that morning what does he do, he gets on the computer and figures out how to program. It takes all his time and it is pretty interesting in it's own right so he sticks with that and doesnt get too much into the hardware because when he looks at the CPU and associated circuitry these days he sees a virtual MOUNTAIN of information that he has to climb in order to gain even the smallest comprehension of how to get that CPU into a circuit. In the old days the most complex CPU was like the 8080 or the more complex Z80. You could learn every instruction in much less than a week. Now the instruction set is huge and it is constantly getting more complex. It takes a dedication in a beginner like never seen before to be willing to weed through all the information just to build a circuit that might be somewhat interesting.
So i believe there are a lot of factors involved. The times change and that's all there is to it. I dont even know if there are any Ham's out there anymore, maybe a small group left?
Things certainly have changed. Local electronic parts stores are almost gone now (unless you count Radio Shack). When I was in High School, I worked for the local TV parts guy. He had two stores. One store catered to parts for TV repair (which is where I worked), and the other was more for industrial orders and mail order. This was a perfect job for me as an electronic hobbyist. I had access to parts at cost, and access to advice from the people I waited on. I could look up schematics (remember Sam's?) for any product I wanted to fix and didn't need to pay, since the boss let me borrow the manual for the night. Just about all the money I earned went into buying parts for projects. I found this so enjoyable and considered it like an adventure for the mind.
This age is gone, but the good thing is that those interested in electronics have an even better resource, - obviously the internet. Parts and advice are available even more readily.
I think the bottom line is that only a small fraction of the population are the type inclined to pursue electronics as a hobby in a serious way. Perhaps, some of those who would have done it in the old days, don't do it now because of some distraction (software programming, computer game playing etc.), but from what I see on these forums, there are still people that "catch the bug".
So, I think that those that should do it, for the most part, still do it. That's the way it should be. There are a million things that a person can take up as a hobby. If they all chose electronics, the world would be a very dull place.
Here is a picture of me with one of my first computers in 1967. They occupied an entire floor of an office building. I used to install these monsters and fix them when they broke down. Now I build much more powerful machines on a 4" x 3" board.
Kids today play with skateboards not circuit boards.
The kids do graffiti not circuit layouts.
Before I learned electronics electronic products were expensive so I made many inexpensive kits. Now manufactured electronic products are inexpensive.
Interesting question, Wizard.
As someone who started out with discrete, analog components (tubes, resistors, caps, coils) my hobby "seemed" to provide a more personal encounter with electronics: you could follow a schematic, part by part, wire by wire and gain a sense of what was actually going on with a signal (or voltage or ground, etc.).
Then transistors came along and while using voltages that seemed, by comparison to tubes, way to low to accomplish anything useful, they didn't fundamentally change the construction/creation process.
That level of creation and construction, however, is essentially gone as an option for today's young people.
It has been replaced by "board" or "block" configurations that are cascaded to accomplish vastly more complex "systems". How the "blocks" actually function is utterly unimportant when considered against what they accomplish. Take, for instance, a TV tuner USB dongle, attach an antenna, plug it into an available USB port, fire up Windows Media Center and, wahlah, you've "built" a TV!!
Is this any less an accomplishment than building a 40 meter CW Ham radio transmitter with a single 6L6 oscillator/amp circuit (from a schematic out of the Handbook)? Well, I would argue yes, it IS a lesser deed, but I am demonstrably old school.
I am quite sure that some young person out there will soon enough gather what he (or she) would consider discrete components together (a laser system here, a plasma control system there, a magnetic flux container from over yonder) and create a working fusion reactor. At least I sure hope so.
But they will still need a basic concept of electronics, at whatever compexity the pieces/parts are at the moment.
And, thus, they will eventually end up here at ETO...
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