Computers for children (soldering)

Doug Yowza wrote: Well, in grades 6-8 I was playing with exolosives. My friend and I were interested in rockets, but we couldn't afford the Estes kits. So we built from scratch, starting with first principles. But of course the starting point in rockets is also the starting point in explosives -- good old black powder. So we branched off in both directions. Recipes were still available in the public libraries in those days, chemistry textbooks and government publications. I got a couple of burns, so did my partner, we were lucky because we didn't always follow the rules that well -- making rocket fuel out of sugar and potassium nitrate in a saucepan on the stove can turn the stove to shrapnel if it gets too hot, ours didn't. (We should have been using a double boiler, but Bob's mother wouldn't let us use hers and my mother didn't own one). Nowadays, of course, it's difficult to get many of the books or raw materials we used back in the Sixties. (But I nowadays know enough first principals to get or make many of the raw materials we used to buy at the drugstore, potassium nitrate and several of its chemical cousins being among the main things our maternal government doesn't want us to have). Nowadays I also know a bit more safety procedure as well. -- Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/> WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.