Kit electronics aren't dead, they're just ... resting. Elecraft (http://www.elecraft.com/ http://www.elecraft.com/) is the spiritual successor of Heathkit, at

Kit electronics aren't dead, they're just ... resting. Elecraft (http://www.elecraft.com/ http://www.elecraft.com/) is the spiritual successor of Heathkit, at least in terms of some of the Ham radio kits. They're not cheap and contain a lot of ASICs, so you're not really putting them together from bare components, but it's still a fair bit of work with the 'ol soldering iron. Qkits also has some neat stuff, including a software-defined oscilloscope (http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/PCSGU250 http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/PCSGU250). There are sometimes similar things for other test equipment. The key indicators of whether you can find something in kit form are: 1) is it expensive to buy assembled? 2) is it expensive less because of the underlying technology than because of manufacturer markup? 3) is it something that a lot of hobbyists would want to own? Hence a lot of oscilloscope and function-generator and counter kits, some radio kits, but not so many digital camera kits. I have seen an increasing number of MP3 player kits though, which is interesting; it suggests that the underlying parts aren't the main cost drivers anymore.