7 ms·

Couple of points. When I was a lad, making electronics meant you could listen to shortwave radio or talk to people around the world, when there was little othe

Couple of points. When I was a lad, making electronics meant you could listen to shortwave radio or talk to people around the world, when there was little other opportunity. Plus, things like cars were still hackable with a few transistors and passive components, you could make a customised indicator timer, or turbo timer or what ever, and it was probably way cheaper if you knew what you were doing. Fast forward, very little you can now make is cheaper, or creates a functionality not otherwise available retail/off the shelf. Now for me, it was great - my dad was a radio amateur, I grew up with the those things, he lectured at uni and I had access to PDP-8 and 11 when no one had a computer at home and most people interacted with punch cards. I spent literally years of my younger life tinkering and discovered/learned by direct exploration and experimentation all sorts of things eg the rectification of copper oxide, Q factor and how to get it and use it, all the things you can use as earthing and antennas in radio systems (some pretty strange things in there), I wrote and sold Atari 400 games when I was 13 on, learning things like how to write a floating point library in a 6502 in minimal space, create physics engines for games, just to name a few, the list goes on. Now I have worked as an electrical engineer designing and building large and small industrial power and control systems for over 30 years. Most days I draw down on some former hobby or tinkering experience in some way in my work. Not sure the maker movement we have seen recently will create the same trajectory for too may others, maybe I am wrong, but a lot of what I did was because there were no equivalent consumer goods and the best info available was at the local library or maybe the odd magazine if you were lucky.

m463 7y ago
> Fast forward, very little you can now make is cheaper, or creates a functionality not otherwise available retail/off the shelf. I think this is a matter of perspective. The components you string together are now scaled up, as are the experiences of younger folks. I think of some friends who were saying "people just can't become a private pilot nowadays", but later I wondered if maybe there are new opportunities they don't recognize (like powered paragliding).
JVIDEL 7y ago
Not the same generation (waaay later) but I too had a PC at home back in the DOS days when computers were not that common. I learned to use the command line before I learned to read and write in my native language. Anyway, I went through a similar thinkering scene but it was in software, the FOSS scene of the late nineties up to early this decade was very active and there were tons of tools and programs that surpassed retail software of the time. As for electronics right now, there's some crazy things in the FOSH scene and if I had the money I would get more into that, but when it comes to retail electronic and IoT stuff I'm skeptic: too many corners cut, too many security holes, too much data going into opaque servers, etc. And that's just security and privacy, don't get me started on planed obsolescence and repairability. And there's still a lot of stuff you can make that have no retail equivalent, from console clones with FPGAs for perfect emulation to car automation with comma.ai
camillomiller 7y ago
I think that the gap today between what you can do with an electronics kit and the convenience of something you can get cheaper off the shelves to build something more complex is way wider than it's ever been. Also, you can build way more cool and complex stuff learning software and coding, and using it to put together complex hardware models (such in robotics). The "roots" of electronics are a good way to entertain kids, but electronics amateurs, except for some niches such as electric instruments enthusiasts, are really too small of a niche for an operation like Make Media to be sustainable. Also, the Makers Revolution was probably a fad (not in general, but in the way it was self-depicting in the media).
- Theodores 7y ago
  > Also, the Makers Revolution was probably a fad (not in general, but in the way it was self-depicting in the media). Fads are useful though. The original way of doing electronics with a breadboard and some 74 series ICs was a fad. CB radio was a fad. The hobby computer market was a fad. The home games console business was a fad. The 8 bit home computer revolution was more of a craze than a fad, but still arguably a fad. Fads are often driven by the genius of one or two individuals, the author R A Penfold wrote most of the 74 series breadboarding books, Tandy/Radio Shack did their bit in providing bits to people keen to get in on the hobby. Maybe the maker movement was a bit like that. Take away the Raspberry Pi and the 3-D printer and there isn't so much making going on. So the question becomes what happens next, what is the next fad? Someone has probably worked it out in a garage somewhere and the media will cotton on to it in a couple of years time. A key part of these fads is that it is somehow educational. Not sure anything useful came from people tinkering with any of the stuff involved in these 'fads' but then we wouldn't be where we are without them. This in part depends on when people get on board. If you are the only kid in town in at the start then you learn useful stuff, when it becomes a fad the other kids get pushed into something they can't be that bothered with, the cool stuff has already been done and it becomes commoditised ready made 'meh'. There was a time when the fad was marquetry. The maker scene of the time had people making beautiful sideboards out of wood with beautifully inlaid veneer. All kinds of wonderful things made of wood. The enabling tools were lathes and there were magazines pushing people to make new and exciting things, nobody needed a beautiful case to show off their Airfix plane collection but people would make such a thing if prodded along. In a way the maker scene is like that with updated materials.
WalterBright 7y ago
When I was a boy I'd stop by the local TV repair shop and they'd give me old TVs. I had a lot of fun with them, like randomly swapping the tubes around and seeing what would happen. My mom was sure I was going to electrocute myself. You're lucky your dad could mentor you with that stuff. I didn't know anybody who knew anything about electronics, so I just floundered around with it. That all changed when I got to college, where there was electronics expertise everywhere and I was finally able to build things that worked. For example, someone finally showed me how to solder properly. What a difference a couple minutes of help makes!
- airbreather 7y ago
  Strangely enough I got almost no mentoring, he was like, the stuff is all there if you want to use it, I got taken to the uni labs on weekends and the family went to the library once a week religiously. He was both a lecturer of maths and computing, but also taught teachers how to teach. His attitude was that if you were really interested you needed to do it yourself and learn through successes and failures and build up all the concepts in your own mind - it was the concepts, not the facts that made all the difference going forwards. Now this is so much more true than ever, because facts and calculations are available as a "service" effectively on the internet. Abstracting the concepts and synthesizing new ones through extension, application of lightly related techniques/ materials/methods, cross pollination, etc in your mind is the truly irreplaceable skill that leads to disruption and innovation.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    I did better with cars, for the simple reason that when I took them apart, I could see how everything worked. With electronics, you need an oscilloscope to see the magic. All I had was a VOM. Ironically, there were lots of kids taking cars apart in high school, so I could help and get help. But in college, nobody, and I mean nobody, was interested in cars. It's still hard to find anyone who is, hardly anyone has a modified car. My (medium modified) dodge wouldn't merit a glance in my high school daze, but today people go ape when I drive by in it.
gumby 7y ago
> Plus, things like cars were still hackable with a few transistors and passive components, you could make a customised indicator timer, or turbo timer or what ever, and it was probably way cheaper if you knew what you were doing. I nodded when I read this, thinking, "Yeah, and what's the modern equivalent?" Everything seems so high level and complex, like CANBUS in the case of car, USB for PCs and of course so much is locked down. Then I realised that kids could get a start sticking an LED on a GPIO pin from an Arduino. I believe a PI is basically a PC, but perhaps it could have a few such pins as well, if it doesn't already. PCs used to have parallel ports which served a similar function. Then from blinking a LED they could incrementally add a few more circuits: 7 segment display, some counters, who knows. Even some analog stuff (to hell with harmonics) are possible -- and controllable from your laptop or phone over network. Perhaps Evel Mad Scientists or Adafruit has a few things in this direction?
- xigency 7y ago
  By the way, there are multiple Arduino CAN-BUS shields out there, ranging from $15-$25. https://robotdyn.com/can-bus-shield-for-arduino.html https://robotdyn.com/can-bus-shield-for-arduino.html https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13262 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13262
- wrs 7y ago
  No worries. PIs do have GPIO pins, and lots of peripherals to plug into them. Nearly Adafruit’s whole product line is about hooking up random peripherals to I/O pins. And speaking of custom household devices, I’m about to spend $30 or so at Adafruit to build a thing that texts my wife when her outdoor herb pots need watering. :)
  - cmpb 7y ago
    That sounds fun! I've been rebuilding my wife's gardens and adding drip lines / irrigation. I ended up getting an OpenSprinkerPi[1] board to control the irrigation valves I'm installing. There's also a software project[2] that gives it a little more configurability/utility, including tying it into automatic watering based on the weather and such. I'm just having a lot of fun with it, and it seems like you are too! [1]https://rayshobby.net/wordpress/ospi/ https://rayshobby.net/wordpress/ospi/ [2]https://github.com/rszimm/sprinklers_pi https://github.com/rszimm/sprinklers_pi
tmaly 7y ago
I started out a bit later taking apart the Atari and getting circuit kits from Radio Shack. It was a lot of fun. I did a good number of electrical engineering courses as part of my computer engineering degree. Now with kids, I plan on doing small projects to pique their curiosity
- Tempest1981 7y ago
  I also remember Heathkit -- although I can't remember which came first, Radio Shack or them. Edit: wow, both were founded in the 1920s
  - tmaly 7y ago
    I was really bummed out when Radio Shack went bankrupt. I kept my intro to electronics book I had as a kid. Pages are all yellow, but the activities are still amazing. I will start some of these with my daughter this summer.
minikites 7y ago
A lot of current "maker culture" is repackaged consumerism: buying costly kits containing pennies worth of electronics based on brand names and fashion. It's not about reducing waste, it's about creating more (unlike the examples you mentioned).
HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
Me too. I started with my first crystal radio at age 11 with a germanium rectifier purchased from an electronics store and a phone headset donated from the landlord who worked at the telephone company and wanted to support my hobby. Moved on to Shortwave Listening, QSL cards and at age 15 got my Technician license at the FCC office on Varick St in lower Manhattan because I didn't know any other hams who could administer the Novice license. I think Adafruit is now around the corner from where that office used to be? I built tons of stuff from salvaged components, did lots of experiments that didn't pan out, accidentally discovered that the inductive spike from a big solenoid powered by a 9V battery is enough to shock! I went on to get degrees in EE and SE. I firmly believe that right now it's easier than it ever was to get into the hobby. All those old parts are still available and tons of exciting ones are now easy to purchase, with tons of documentation. No more desoldering unknown transistors and playing around with resistors to get the bias right. I think we all have our motivations for getting started and continuing. There won't be any shortage of curious kids getting involved and building weird stuff. Just take a look at the Arduino forums online, electronics as a hobby is exploding, it's just that people are getting started in a different way.
jaabe 7y ago
I think there is a lot of tinkering available still. Raspberry pis and IOT are areas where you can really go nuts. I do hope we’ll see hardware open up again, and maybe we will with the increasing focus on sustainability.
jwr 7y ago
You can still build interesting devices that are not available off-the-shelf. It's just that these days most of the value (and complexity) lies in the software, not the hardware, and people are both not capable of writing complex software and do not enjoy doing it. As an example, take a Nordic nRF52832 in a module, connect some sensors or LEDs to it, and you have a pretty neat device that you could access with your phone. But programming it to do something is an entirely different story.
vr46 7y ago
Certainly locally (in London), the people at our MakerLab are heavily focused on repair, reuse and repurpose which is a reaction to the modern world in much the same way that things were when you were a lad.

m463 7y ago

> Fast forward, very little you can now make is cheaper, or creates a functionality not otherwise available retail/off the shelf. I think this is a matter of perspective. The components you string together are now scaled up, as are the experiences of younger folks. I think of some friends who were saying "people just can't become a private pilot nowadays", but later I wondered if maybe there are new opportunities they don't recognize (like powered paragliding).

JVIDEL 7y ago

Not the same generation (waaay later) but I too had a PC at home back in the DOS days when computers were not that common. I learned to use the command line before I learned to read and write in my native language. Anyway, I went through a similar thinkering scene but it was in software, the FOSS scene of the late nineties up to early this decade was very active and there were tons of tools and programs that surpassed retail software of the time. As for electronics right now, there's some crazy things in the FOSH scene and if I had the money I would get more into that, but when it comes to retail electronic and IoT stuff I'm skeptic: too many corners cut, too many security holes, too much data going into opaque servers, etc. And that's just security and privacy, don't get me started on planed obsolescence and repairability. And there's still a lot of stuff you can make that have no retail equivalent, from console clones with FPGAs for perfect emulation to car automation with comma.ai

camillomiller 7y ago

I think that the gap today between what you can do with an electronics kit and the convenience of something you can get cheaper off the shelves to build something more complex is way wider than it's ever been. Also, you can build way more cool and complex stuff learning software and coding, and using it to put together complex hardware models (such in robotics). The "roots" of electronics are a good way to entertain kids, but electronics amateurs, except for some niches such as electric instruments enthusiasts, are really too small of a niche for an operation like Make Media to be sustainable. Also, the Makers Revolution was probably a fad (not in general, but in the way it was self-depicting in the media).

Theodores 7y ago
> Also, the Makers Revolution was probably a fad (not in general, but in the way it was self-depicting in the media). Fads are useful though. The original way of doing electronics with a breadboard and some 74 series ICs was a fad. CB radio was a fad. The hobby computer market was a fad. The home games console business was a fad. The 8 bit home computer revolution was more of a craze than a fad, but still arguably a fad. Fads are often driven by the genius of one or two individuals, the author R A Penfold wrote most of the 74 series breadboarding books, Tandy/Radio Shack did their bit in providing bits to people keen to get in on the hobby. Maybe the maker movement was a bit like that. Take away the Raspberry Pi and the 3-D printer and there isn't so much making going on. So the question becomes what happens next, what is the next fad? Someone has probably worked it out in a garage somewhere and the media will cotton on to it in a couple of years time. A key part of these fads is that it is somehow educational. Not sure anything useful came from people tinkering with any of the stuff involved in these 'fads' but then we wouldn't be where we are without them. This in part depends on when people get on board. If you are the only kid in town in at the start then you learn useful stuff, when it becomes a fad the other kids get pushed into something they can't be that bothered with, the cool stuff has already been done and it becomes commoditised ready made 'meh'. There was a time when the fad was marquetry. The maker scene of the time had people making beautiful sideboards out of wood with beautifully inlaid veneer. All kinds of wonderful things made of wood. The enabling tools were lathes and there were magazines pushing people to make new and exciting things, nobody needed a beautiful case to show off their Airfix plane collection but people would make such a thing if prodded along. In a way the maker scene is like that with updated materials.

WalterBright 7y ago

When I was a boy I'd stop by the local TV repair shop and they'd give me old TVs. I had a lot of fun with them, like randomly swapping the tubes around and seeing what would happen. My mom was sure I was going to electrocute myself. You're lucky your dad could mentor you with that stuff. I didn't know anybody who knew anything about electronics, so I just floundered around with it. That all changed when I got to college, where there was electronics expertise everywhere and I was finally able to build things that worked. For example, someone finally showed me how to solder properly. What a difference a couple minutes of help makes!

airbreather 7y ago
Strangely enough I got almost no mentoring, he was like, the stuff is all there if you want to use it, I got taken to the uni labs on weekends and the family went to the library once a week religiously. He was both a lecturer of maths and computing, but also taught teachers how to teach. His attitude was that if you were really interested you needed to do it yourself and learn through successes and failures and build up all the concepts in your own mind - it was the concepts, not the facts that made all the difference going forwards. Now this is so much more true than ever, because facts and calculations are available as a "service" effectively on the internet. Abstracting the concepts and synthesizing new ones through extension, application of lightly related techniques/ materials/methods, cross pollination, etc in your mind is the truly irreplaceable skill that leads to disruption and innovation.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  I did better with cars, for the simple reason that when I took them apart, I could see how everything worked. With electronics, you need an oscilloscope to see the magic. All I had was a VOM. Ironically, there were lots of kids taking cars apart in high school, so I could help and get help. But in college, nobody, and I mean nobody, was interested in cars. It's still hard to find anyone who is, hardly anyone has a modified car. My (medium modified) dodge wouldn't merit a glance in my high school daze, but today people go ape when I drive by in it.

gumby 7y ago

> Plus, things like cars were still hackable with a few transistors and passive components, you could make a customised indicator timer, or turbo timer or what ever, and it was probably way cheaper if you knew what you were doing. I nodded when I read this, thinking, "Yeah, and what's the modern equivalent?" Everything seems so high level and complex, like CANBUS in the case of car, USB for PCs and of course so much is locked down. Then I realised that kids could get a start sticking an LED on a GPIO pin from an Arduino. I believe a PI is basically a PC, but perhaps it could have a few such pins as well, if it doesn't already. PCs used to have parallel ports which served a similar function. Then from blinking a LED they could incrementally add a few more circuits: 7 segment display, some counters, who knows. Even some analog stuff (to hell with harmonics) are possible -- and controllable from your laptop or phone over network. Perhaps Evel Mad Scientists or Adafruit has a few things in this direction?

xigency 7y ago
By the way, there are multiple Arduino CAN-BUS shields out there, ranging from $15-$25. https://robotdyn.com/can-bus-shield-for-arduino.html https://robotdyn.com/can-bus-shield-for-arduino.html https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13262 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13262
wrs 7y ago
No worries. PIs do have GPIO pins, and lots of peripherals to plug into them. Nearly Adafruit’s whole product line is about hooking up random peripherals to I/O pins. And speaking of custom household devices, I’m about to spend $30 or so at Adafruit to build a thing that texts my wife when her outdoor herb pots need watering. :)
- cmpb 7y ago
  That sounds fun! I've been rebuilding my wife's gardens and adding drip lines / irrigation. I ended up getting an OpenSprinkerPi[1] board to control the irrigation valves I'm installing. There's also a software project[2] that gives it a little more configurability/utility, including tying it into automatic watering based on the weather and such. I'm just having a lot of fun with it, and it seems like you are too! [1]https://rayshobby.net/wordpress/ospi/ https://rayshobby.net/wordpress/ospi/ [2]https://github.com/rszimm/sprinklers_pi https://github.com/rszimm/sprinklers_pi

tmaly 7y ago

I started out a bit later taking apart the Atari and getting circuit kits from Radio Shack. It was a lot of fun. I did a good number of electrical engineering courses as part of my computer engineering degree. Now with kids, I plan on doing small projects to pique their curiosity

Tempest1981 7y ago
I also remember Heathkit -- although I can't remember which came first, Radio Shack or them. Edit: wow, both were founded in the 1920s
- tmaly 7y ago
  I was really bummed out when Radio Shack went bankrupt. I kept my intro to electronics book I had as a kid. Pages are all yellow, but the activities are still amazing. I will start some of these with my daughter this summer.

minikites 7y ago

A lot of current "maker culture" is repackaged consumerism: buying costly kits containing pennies worth of electronics based on brand names and fashion. It's not about reducing waste, it's about creating more (unlike the examples you mentioned).

HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago

Me too. I started with my first crystal radio at age 11 with a germanium rectifier purchased from an electronics store and a phone headset donated from the landlord who worked at the telephone company and wanted to support my hobby. Moved on to Shortwave Listening, QSL cards and at age 15 got my Technician license at the FCC office on Varick St in lower Manhattan because I didn't know any other hams who could administer the Novice license. I think Adafruit is now around the corner from where that office used to be? I built tons of stuff from salvaged components, did lots of experiments that didn't pan out, accidentally discovered that the inductive spike from a big solenoid powered by a 9V battery is enough to shock! I went on to get degrees in EE and SE. I firmly believe that right now it's easier than it ever was to get into the hobby. All those old parts are still available and tons of exciting ones are now easy to purchase, with tons of documentation. No more desoldering unknown transistors and playing around with resistors to get the bias right. I think we all have our motivations for getting started and continuing. There won't be any shortage of curious kids getting involved and building weird stuff. Just take a look at the Arduino forums online, electronics as a hobby is exploding, it's just that people are getting started in a different way.

jaabe 7y ago

I think there is a lot of tinkering available still. Raspberry pis and IOT are areas where you can really go nuts. I do hope we’ll see hardware open up again, and maybe we will with the increasing focus on sustainability.

jwr 7y ago

You can still build interesting devices that are not available off-the-shelf. It's just that these days most of the value (and complexity) lies in the software, not the hardware, and people are both not capable of writing complex software and do not enjoy doing it. As an example, take a Nordic nRF52832 in a module, connect some sensors or LEDs to it, and you have a pretty neat device that you could access with your phone. But programming it to do something is an entirely different story.

vr46 7y ago

Certainly locally (in London), the people at our MakerLab are heavily focused on repair, reuse and repurpose which is a reaction to the modern world in much the same way that things were when you were a lad.