I think
I've mentioend before that these days my parents would probably
be guilty of child cruelty or something. My 8th (I think) birthday
prsennt consisted of things like a woodworking tenon saw, a junior
hacksaw, a set of twist drills, a wheelbrace (hand drill) to use them in,
a small vice, and so on. Yes, I ahve cut myslef with them over the years.
But no, I have had no serious injuries from tools ever... And I do thank
my parents for encouraging my hackish tendencies.
Children are become more and more stupid everyday! Things like lego,
mecano, educational kits and good junior tools are almost nonexistent as
gifts. Children prefer a brand new PS3 :oP
Ah, but to they? Or is it that kids today are only offered totally
mindless toys (like most electronic games) and don't realise there are
other things they could be doing. I wonder how many kids would like
boulding things, etc, if they were given the chance.
FWIW, my favourite constructional toy was FischerTechnik. I never had
enough to do everything I wanted (it was very expensive in the UK),
espcially the electronics modules. I made my own versions of some of
them, and I sometimes wired up circuits on stripboard and connected them
to the FischerTechnick motors, etc. Yes, I still ahve all the FT I ever
owned. Still use it sometimes, along with the commerical BBC micro
interface I bought on E-bay and the homebrew HP48 interface.
I did once ask for an get an electronic game. It was the Milton-Bradely
'Microvison' (nothing to do with the Sinclair pocket TV). Stece Ciarcia
has mentioned it in his article on LCD displays, and I wanted to
investigate the display in this game. It's a 16*16 dot matrix device, at
a time when such things wrre not ocmmon. The main unit contains a custom
driver chip only, the cartrige contains a TMS1000 microcontroller. It
didn't take me long (even at that age) to work ou the basic connectoions
between them (given the TMS1000 data sheet), and from said data sheet I
discovered the TMS1000 could be clocked as slowly as you liked. So I
added a larger capacitor to the clock circuit to slow it down, and hung
LEDs and series resistors off the TMS1000 pins that went to the display
driver. I think I got it to change state at <1Hz. I then wrote down the
patterns and eventially made sense of them (it's soemthing like : Send 8
nybbles t odefine the state of the 32 lines going to the display, the
first nybble has a sync line set also. Then sent the complement (to drive
the display with AC), and repeat.)
Doing that was much more fun that playing the 'breakout' game that came
with it :-)
Did I mention that I rarely used (or use) my toys as expected...
And there were
many more electronic kits (as in solder a device together)
around back then than there are now. It's dubious how mucyh electronics
you learnt by assembling a Heathkit, say, but you did certianly get
practice with tools, and you might be inpsired to find out more about
what you were doing and why.
At least you're having some "hands-on" with REAL electronics, and
don't
think there is a bunch of chineses painting the screen on the television
(they must be real thin in newer flat-panel televisions). So you get
interested into subject and learn about it.
That'as basically my point. You won't learn muc electroncis just
soldering up a Heathkit or somilar, but you will get to see and handle
the components, you'll use the tools, and you may get interested in
finding out more. And then you start reading books on electronics, and so
on.
I certainly feel you're more likely to want to find out about electronics
if you've assembled a few kits than if you haven't.
So bad we live in the age of information, and children lives in the age
of stupidity :(
At the start of this year's HPCC conference I quoted a paragraph from
'The Voice of the Crystal'. Basically it said that people (as a whole)
have never been better educated, and that there's never been more
information available, but we don't know how to _think_ any more.
Unfortuantely I feel that is exactly right.
-tony
