2 Feb
2006
2 Feb
'06
2:33 p.m.
At 04:52 PM 2/2/2006 -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
There is still some market for such skills, but it is certainly dwindling.
A friend of mine opened a repair shop after he retired and after experimenting
with various different markets, he found his niche with industrial repairs.
There are still quite a number of DEC terminals (and the like) in use in
industry and they require service. As far as consumer product repair, it
is often cheaper to just buy a new one and throw the old one away. Failure
just gives the consumer a reason to upgrade to the latest/greatest gizmo.
The local electronics store (we still have one amazingly, and it isn't
a Radio Shack) still caries some kits. I've even been tempted to buy one
a couple of times, but haven't. I keep going through the cost comparison
equation in my head and have a hard time justifying paying much more for
a kit than a finished product.
--tom
On Thursday 02 February 2006 04:12 pm, Marvin Johnston
wrote:
After 40, my eyes experienced a similar degradation. Fortunately modern
circuit board assembly with surface mount is aided by a good microscope
anyway, so the eye failure is not that big of a detriment.
I believe that the reason why people don't seem to have as much interest
in electronics today as in the past is because we a inundated with electronic
devices of every conceivable kind, everywhere we look. Back in the day, I
(and I believe others) used to have the desire to build a micro computer
simply because the only computer access was available from some large machine
at a university or similar. Also, as micro computers did slowly become
available, they were very expensive and building your own was the only
financial path to owning one for many people. I think that electronic
kits are similar in that for most, while they may have the ability to build
their own gear, the desire is at least partially driven by the cost of
ownership of whatever gizmo the kit turns into. As most any gizmo is
now readily available at some ridiculously cheap cost, at least as compared
to an equivalent kit, the kits are not in demand.
One thing I've been concerned about for a
while is what seems to be the
lack of electronics building skills. *My* feeling is the desire to work
on this stuff is going away and I'm not sure why. I DO NOT BUY the
argument that components are so small now that nobody can build or hack
equipment anymore as I view that more of an excuse for not building.
I sure as heck know that *my* eyes aren't what they used to be...
Back around the time I closed up my shop (spring of 1992) I found that I was
increasingly using a lighted magnifier for more routine tasks. These days if
I want to read the numbers on a transistor or a chip I reach for a magnifying
glass. It sucks. It also seems
that most (not all) of the people I know that collect
computers now (and used them in the 70's and early 80's) are fairly
competent at working on electronics.
Made my living at it, for a while. When there was a market for such skills,
which there doesn't seem to be any more. :-( Are kits at
all desireable to build by newer entries into electronics
and computers? Or existing builders?
What kits I remember seeing any more are either way too simple, designed
more
as learning environments than kits, or come with major portions of it
preassembled. The last one I put together was in 1978, and that was a
Heathkit H11 computer -- which came with the CPU board preassembled.
These days I have this massive collection of parts and I keep on salvaging
more, yet the simplest circuit board seems to be so _tedious_ compared with
the way I used to feel about it.