using new technology on old machines

[Sean Caron]

I suppose it depends on what you're working on ... I have a BSEE but only
practice as a hobby ... and I am still mostly in the DIP, through-hole era
... by choice, I suppose ... I wanted to move beyond the level of depending
on pre-manufactured development or demonstrator boards and understand how
to rough-in all the support components from a clean slate ... I use
solderless breadboards for convenience and DIP parts work best there ...
Most things in retrocomputing ... and in building little
single-board-computers and small scale embedded projects typical of most
electronics hobbyists ... can be done still using through-hole/DIP and I
think it will remain with us for a while yet.

Now, yes, I am working in CMOS if I can; or LSTTL if circumstances require
i.e. building a SBC with TTL CPU and support chips ... it's true ...
finding the original 7400 or 74S or 74F is getting a bit challenging & more
expensive but they're still out there ... Jameco's got a decent stock, yet.

Sure, the pre-manufactured boards can allow you to prototype quickly... but
I think Tony is kind of bemoaning the loss of the "old way" and I respect
that ... I kind of miss it myself, even though I wasn't there to experience
it first-hand ...

How are everyone's parts bins so empty? My dad is a practicing EE of over
40 years and he tends to take a pretty dim view of hobby work ... he's all
business .. but even he's got boxes full of random old components and parts
that made their way home from the office scrap and were accumulated over
the course of his career ... as he goes thru and tosses them out, I'm happy
to ensure they get a good home long-term :O

Best,

Sean


On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:

>
> > On Jun 15, 2015, at 14:19 , Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
> wrote:
> > I think Tony's point was that someone who's into vintage computers ought
> to
> > have a stock of suitable parts for them.
>
> Yes, that'll likely be true once they have been in the hobby for a while.
> But for somebody who has gotten into it recently, and otherwise hasn't had
> reason to touch a DIP packaged part since the early 1990s (even while being
> a full-time electrical engineer and full-time electronics/etc. hobbyist),
> it can't be taken for granted that they have a parts drawer full of misc.
> 74LS parts. I have a vast junkbox, and I regularly order electronic
> components both professionally and for my hobby... and I still don't have a
> lot of TTL parts on hand.
>
> --
> Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
> http://www.nf6x.net/
>
>