RS Wall Wart

I don't know about the States, but over here, 'Pound shops' (the equivalent of your Dollar stores, I guess) sell standard batteries. The quality is not great, but a couple of packs of C cells from there would probably do for testing an electronic game. I certainly agree. The 3 insturemnts that get used _a lot_ on my bench are (in no particular order) : 1) A Multimeter. Actually a Fluke 85. I'd prefer an 87, but I found a second-hand 85 at a good price becasue some display segements were out. Cleaning the Zebra strips fixed that. I have to clean them again from time to time, but it's very obvious when it needs doing, and it gives accurate readings. The only thinkg I don't like about it is the fucntion swithc (including power on/off) partly formed by a wiping contact on PCB traces. 2) An HP LogicDart. Need I say more? 3) A bench PSU. I built a Velleman kit one -- 30V 8A continuous, 10A peak. The advantage of the kit is, even if I say so myself, I know it's been built properly, that safety earths are in place, and so on. Which is more than I can say about some commercial Far-eastern supplies at a place I was working. Another very useful thing that I bought (from Maplin) was a set of all hose little 2-pin plug to power-connector adapters (the Adaptaplugs you mentioned, I think) and a cable with a socket to take those moulded on one end and, IIRC, spade lugs on the other. I cut the latter off and fitted 4mm plugs to go on the bench supply, fitting them so that if I put the red plug in the +ve socket of the supply, the polarity of the final power plug would be as indicated on it. That set-up has been very useful for powering up all sorts of things fitted which were supposed to use wall-warts. Another useful cable is a car cigar lighter socket to 4mm plugs. To run in-car adapters, etc, off the bench supply. -tony