4 ms·

Dick Smith’s Wizzard-ry 8 (Bit)

109 points by zdw 3y ago

hcfman 3y ago
They were nice shops. Before that in Auckland we had John Gilberts electronics. Dick Smith's increased the availability of what you could get by quite a lot.
- lmpdev 3y ago
  How did that compare to the current Jaycar/Altronics/etc offerings? I imagine a sleeping zombie
  - glaucon 3y ago
    Up until, say, 2005 they were pretty similar to current Jaycar but, I think perhaps after an acquisition, they started selling branded audio/computers etc and the geeky stuff gradually became less prominent. At some point they got bought by Australian Woolworths. The shops began to look more like mainstream "electronics" shops than Jaycar does now. Then the whole lot came tumbling down. The DS name and domain got sold off to a third party but the bricks and mortar just disappeared. When they went down the gurgler all the outstanding gift cards went with them (at least in NZ, Ozzie might have had better legislation), worth remembering that a branded gift card is an unsecured loan.
    - aragilar 3y ago
      No, was bad in AU too, see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-voluntary-administration/7067798 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-vol... and https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-receivers-vouchers-deposits-non-refundable/7068268 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-receivers-....
      - glaucon 3y ago
        Thanks for the references. I had forgotten the sale from Woolworths to a Private Equity group. I'm sorry this is bit off topic but I do think the description, within https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-voluntary-administration/7067798 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-vol... , of what took place in the brief period between when the Private Equity group bought Dick Smith and when they floated it is well worth reading. FWIW my experience of seeing this stuff happens is it only works where you have a company that non-institutional investors think they know and understand. In the case of Dick Smith it was a well liked and very visible brand within Australia. If the same financial engineering had been done to some obscure industrial group the Private Equity group would have had to rely on selling the shares to institutions and they would have been much more aware of what they were buying. Here's the segment from the ABC piece ... Private equity group Anchorage Capital bought Dick Smith from Woolworths in 2012 for an initial payment of just $20m. Anchorage then "dressed the company up to look good for just one thing - to persuade people to buy shares," according to analysts from Forager Funds Management. Anchorage "wrote down the value of the inventory, took provisions for future onerous lease payments, wrote down the value of the plant and equipment and liquidated a lot of the inventory as quickly as they possibly could to throw off cash," according to Forager's Steve Johnson. The cash was then used by Anchorage to effectively make Dick Smith 'buy itself'. The writedowns inflated profits, a key factor in enticing investors into the company. For example: a stock item that may have been bought for $100 may have been in the books at $60 after the writedowns, which meant an extra $40 profit on every sale. The writedown of plant and equipment lowered depreciation charges, also boosting the bottom line. "But when they liquidated all that inventory to pay for the purchase price, they didn't replace it," according to Forager's Steve Johnson. "And the new owners of the business, since it's been listed on the stock market, have had to put in a lot more money to fund the increase in inventory."
    - ssss11 3y ago
      In Aus the Kogan acquisition was their tombstone. Dick Smith who started the company was a legend, it’s a shame. Jaycar is the best electronics retailer we have now.
      - lastyearmodel 3y ago
        I'd probably only correct that Jaycar is the best brick and mortar electronics retailer we have now.
  - bentpins 3y ago
    I have fond memories of Dick Smith. My dad bought my first soldering iron, along with some soldering projects (I remember the FM Wireless Microphone from here https://ia801002.us.archive.org/3/items/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2/Dick%20Smith%27s%20Funway%20into%20Electronics%20Volume%202_text.pdf https://ia801002.us.archive.org/3/items/dicksmithsfunwayinto... ). You could tell the people creating the kits were really keen to share their love of electronics. You could buy loose components out of trays, and it seemed like they had a bunch more unusual adapters and gadgets that wouldn't interest a typical consumer. But they gradually became just a retailer for big brand items.
    - cjak 3y ago
      The Dick Smith Funway books were a gateway drug for this primary school nerd. They were so simple even a parent could participate. https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2/Dick%20Smith%27s%20Funway%20into%20Electronics%20Volume%201/ https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsv...
- boffinAudio 3y ago
  Australian 80's hacker here .. Between Computer Age, TANDY Electronics, and Dick Smith Electronics shops, a budding early-80's hacker could get access to a lot of technology to sharpen their teeth. I had many great times getting kicked out of TANDY only to cross the street to DSE and continue my hacking .. ;)
  - pkaye 3y ago
    I think we had a few Dick Smith Electronics shops in the US in the 80s. I seem to recall I went to one in the SF bay area when I was young. https://www.retroist.com/p/1982-commercial-for-dick-smiths-electronics-with-the-whiz-kids https://www.retroist.com/p/1982-commercial-for-dick-smiths-e...
    - boffinAudio 3y ago
      Nice, I didn't know that. In Australia they were a very welcome hang out for the neighborhood computer kids. A lot friendlier than the Computer Age folks, although I did get a lot more coding done in those shops ..
lmpdev 3y ago
Off topic: I'm a developer who got burnt out after a few years I currently work at one of Dick Smith’s former competitors, Jaycar It’s utterly bizarre working in such a company. The sheer range of backgrounds of the people you work with is immense I’ve met genuinely top of their field “between grant” astro-physicists and kids who wouldn’t pass Year 12 It’s what I imagine working at RadioShack was like in the States, pre-mobile-phone-shoved-down-the-throat shenanigans The amount of proper engineering still done sourced with a 50-200% mark up in Australia is insane to me, but must make sense to someone? Also: the amount of life threatening work some customers are willing to undertake themselves confounds me. Even though I can show countless examples of people within 200km causing their, and their family’s demise
- glaucon 3y ago
  > Even though I can show countless examples of people within 200km causing their, and their family’s demise Can you expand on this ? Do you mean their deaths, or some sort of economic suffering?
  - lmpdev 3y ago
    Dozens of people in Australia die every year from their own 12 or 230V wiring I actually find 12V worse. People then try to run mains equipment off it with high amperage and correspondingly high heat, causing fire and…
    - ddeck 3y ago
      >Dozens of people in Australia die every year from their own 12 or 230V wiring Do they? Your claim surprised me, so I did some digging: Not from electrocution certainly, because as of a few years ago [1], there were only about 5-6 unintentional electrocutions in the home each year nationally, and that's all cause, not DIY electrical. WRT fire, there are 4-5 deaths from preventable house fires annually caused by electrical faults (the leading causes being smoking and cooking) [2]. There is also a further ~1 death per year categorized as "misuse of electrical equipment". It's not clear into which category DIY electrical would fall, but it's not mentioned at all in the report. [1] https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/2c37bd48-ee08-43d5-be11-f6929f671b83/aihw-injcat-197.pdf.aspx?inline=true https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/2c37bd48-ee08-43d5-be11-f69... [2] https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/publications/biblio/bnh-5807 https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/publications/biblio/bnh-5807
boffinAudio 3y ago
>I asked Cheshire if he had something to test with, and he just smiled and sent me a Sonic Invaders cartridge. I’m pretty sure that’s how the song goes. LOL. Good one, mate. As someone who grew up with the Dick Smith Electronics Fun Way 1 & 2 books, which were dog-eared and well-loved way into the 90's, it tickles me to no end that HN occasionally gets articles about this utter genius. And, as a retro-computing enthusiast it is very fun to see someone making the effort to produce a Wizzard clone. These were very much a 'crossover' type of device, where you could just use it to game, or learn to program - and it was definitely one of those 'make or break' situations - you either gamed, or you learned to program. A friend of mine had one - but he never programmed, because he hated the keyboard... whereas me, with my Oric-1 out there in the bush, had no access to any software - so I had to learn to program, whatever my issues with the chiclet keyboard. As a curator for a retro-computing museum, of course I'm biased but I think there is definitely a market for re-imagined 8-bit computers. Kids really benefit from digging into these systems and learning how the CPU really works, and 8-bit computers provide a really useful interface to this technology that isn't too overwhelming. We've built systems in the modern era that are so complex and overwhelming - returning to the simplicity of 8-bit computing really makes it a lot more accessible. I for one welcome re-imagined 8-bit computers being released to a new and eager market. I am constantly being asked where to get one of the machines in the museum collection - systems like the Fenix256 (another re-imagined 8-bit machine) and the MEGA 65 are very welcome new additions to this market, but we need to scale up. I could sell 4 of these machines a week, without even trying - categorically, kids go through my museum exhibit, playing with the old machines (we emphasize having access to the old machines, which still work, for people to have direct contact with the experience) .. and end up asking me where they can get their own. I'd love to have the MEGA 65, ZX Spectrum Next, Fenix256 .. and maybe a reinvented Wizzard? .. to offer them on their way out ..
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  Project described is very cool! Kudoz to Mike, the author. Personally I'd never do a clone of an obscure system like that. Why? Clone a (once) popular system, and when it works, you've got a wealth of software to run on it day 0. Including software useful during development like test ROMs, debuggers, assemblers, stuff that doesn't need keyboard input to show something (as mentioned in article), etc. And if that software comes as a known-good cartridge (or ROM), then if it doesn't work you know the problem is in the hardware. When clone works, project could be interesting to many others. Much value of any system is the library of software for it. Obscure system limits your options a great deal here. Custom design means doing everything from scratch. Exception would be a tweaked version of popular system. Where eg. you could 'correct historical mistakes', simplify design, aid programming in some way, add modern type video output, etc. Then existing software would either work, or be easy to port. Like between systems with same CPU and same video chip. Either that, or use a similar concept as historic system, but then go all-in with modern features (much faster cpu, many MB's of RAM, high-res graphics, flash storage, modern OS, etc). If done right, such a system can still have that nostalgic, tinker-friendly feel to it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
defrost 3y ago
Dick Smith wasn't just about the electronics, he had a few other interests. https://www.wildernessshop.com.au/products/balls-pyramid-by-dick-smith https://www.wildernessshop.com.au/products/balls-pyramid-by-... https://dicksmithadventure.com.au/assault-on-balls-pyramid/ https://dicksmithadventure.com.au/assault-on-balls-pyramid/ These days its is essentially fly-by only unless you can get research related landing | climbing permission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQrWWpcT0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQrWWpcT0I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJWq58_5QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJWq58_5QQ
olliej 3y ago
I started electronics as a youngster with the Dick Smith's "Fun Way into Electronics" sets which were really great. They came with a board you could screw into to link components, etc and general introduction to everything involved. Internet archive has the books themselves archived: https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2/Dick%20Smith%27s%20Funway%20into%20Electronics%20Volume%201/page/n53/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsv...

109 points by zdw 3y ago

They were nice shops. Before that in Auckland we had John Gilberts electronics. Dick Smith's increased the availability of what you could get by quite a lot.

lmpdev 3y ago
How did that compare to the current Jaycar/Altronics/etc offerings? I imagine a sleeping zombie
- glaucon 3y ago
  Up until, say, 2005 they were pretty similar to current Jaycar but, I think perhaps after an acquisition, they started selling branded audio/computers etc and the geeky stuff gradually became less prominent. At some point they got bought by Australian Woolworths. The shops began to look more like mainstream "electronics" shops than Jaycar does now. Then the whole lot came tumbling down. The DS name and domain got sold off to a third party but the bricks and mortar just disappeared. When they went down the gurgler all the outstanding gift cards went with them (at least in NZ, Ozzie might have had better legislation), worth remembering that a branded gift card is an unsecured loan.
  - aragilar 3y ago
    No, was bad in AU too, see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-voluntary-administration/7067798 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-vol... and https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-receivers-vouchers-deposits-non-refundable/7068268 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-receivers-....
    - glaucon 3y ago
      Thanks for the references. I had forgotten the sale from Woolworths to a Private Equity group. I'm sorry this is bit off topic but I do think the description, within https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-voluntary-administration/7067798 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-05/dick-smith-enters-vol... , of what took place in the brief period between when the Private Equity group bought Dick Smith and when they floated it is well worth reading. FWIW my experience of seeing this stuff happens is it only works where you have a company that non-institutional investors think they know and understand. In the case of Dick Smith it was a well liked and very visible brand within Australia. If the same financial engineering had been done to some obscure industrial group the Private Equity group would have had to rely on selling the shares to institutions and they would have been much more aware of what they were buying. Here's the segment from the ABC piece ... Private equity group Anchorage Capital bought Dick Smith from Woolworths in 2012 for an initial payment of just $20m. Anchorage then "dressed the company up to look good for just one thing - to persuade people to buy shares," according to analysts from Forager Funds Management. Anchorage "wrote down the value of the inventory, took provisions for future onerous lease payments, wrote down the value of the plant and equipment and liquidated a lot of the inventory as quickly as they possibly could to throw off cash," according to Forager's Steve Johnson. The cash was then used by Anchorage to effectively make Dick Smith 'buy itself'. The writedowns inflated profits, a key factor in enticing investors into the company. For example: a stock item that may have been bought for $100 may have been in the books at $60 after the writedowns, which meant an extra $40 profit on every sale. The writedown of plant and equipment lowered depreciation charges, also boosting the bottom line. "But when they liquidated all that inventory to pay for the purchase price, they didn't replace it," according to Forager's Steve Johnson. "And the new owners of the business, since it's been listed on the stock market, have had to put in a lot more money to fund the increase in inventory."
  - ssss11 3y ago
    In Aus the Kogan acquisition was their tombstone. Dick Smith who started the company was a legend, it’s a shame. Jaycar is the best electronics retailer we have now.
    - lastyearmodel 3y ago
      I'd probably only correct that Jaycar is the best brick and mortar electronics retailer we have now.
- bentpins 3y ago
  I have fond memories of Dick Smith. My dad bought my first soldering iron, along with some soldering projects (I remember the FM Wireless Microphone from here https://ia801002.us.archive.org/3/items/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2/Dick%20Smith%27s%20Funway%20into%20Electronics%20Volume%202_text.pdf https://ia801002.us.archive.org/3/items/dicksmithsfunwayinto... ). You could tell the people creating the kits were really keen to share their love of electronics. You could buy loose components out of trays, and it seemed like they had a bunch more unusual adapters and gadgets that wouldn't interest a typical consumer. But they gradually became just a retailer for big brand items.
  - cjak 3y ago
    The Dick Smith Funway books were a gateway drug for this primary school nerd. They were so simple even a parent could participate. https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2/Dick%20Smith%27s%20Funway%20into%20Electronics%20Volume%201/ https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsv...
boffinAudio 3y ago
Australian 80's hacker here .. Between Computer Age, TANDY Electronics, and Dick Smith Electronics shops, a budding early-80's hacker could get access to a lot of technology to sharpen their teeth. I had many great times getting kicked out of TANDY only to cross the street to DSE and continue my hacking .. ;)
- pkaye 3y ago
  I think we had a few Dick Smith Electronics shops in the US in the 80s. I seem to recall I went to one in the SF bay area when I was young. https://www.retroist.com/p/1982-commercial-for-dick-smiths-electronics-with-the-whiz-kids https://www.retroist.com/p/1982-commercial-for-dick-smiths-e...
  - boffinAudio 3y ago
    Nice, I didn't know that. In Australia they were a very welcome hang out for the neighborhood computer kids. A lot friendlier than the Computer Age folks, although I did get a lot more coding done in those shops ..

lmpdev 3y ago

Off topic: I'm a developer who got burnt out after a few years I currently work at one of Dick Smith’s former competitors, Jaycar It’s utterly bizarre working in such a company. The sheer range of backgrounds of the people you work with is immense I’ve met genuinely top of their field “between grant” astro-physicists and kids who wouldn’t pass Year 12 It’s what I imagine working at RadioShack was like in the States, pre-mobile-phone-shoved-down-the-throat shenanigans The amount of proper engineering still done sourced with a 50-200% mark up in Australia is insane to me, but must make sense to someone? Also: the amount of life threatening work some customers are willing to undertake themselves confounds me. Even though I can show countless examples of people within 200km causing their, and their family’s demise

glaucon 3y ago
> Even though I can show countless examples of people within 200km causing their, and their family’s demise Can you expand on this ? Do you mean their deaths, or some sort of economic suffering?
- lmpdev 3y ago
  Dozens of people in Australia die every year from their own 12 or 230V wiring I actually find 12V worse. People then try to run mains equipment off it with high amperage and correspondingly high heat, causing fire and…
  - ddeck 3y ago
    >Dozens of people in Australia die every year from their own 12 or 230V wiring Do they? Your claim surprised me, so I did some digging: Not from electrocution certainly, because as of a few years ago [1], there were only about 5-6 unintentional electrocutions in the home each year nationally, and that's all cause, not DIY electrical. WRT fire, there are 4-5 deaths from preventable house fires annually caused by electrical faults (the leading causes being smoking and cooking) [2]. There is also a further ~1 death per year categorized as "misuse of electrical equipment". It's not clear into which category DIY electrical would fall, but it's not mentioned at all in the report. [1] https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/2c37bd48-ee08-43d5-be11-f6929f671b83/aihw-injcat-197.pdf.aspx?inline=true https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/2c37bd48-ee08-43d5-be11-f69... [2] https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/publications/biblio/bnh-5807 https://www.bnhcrc.com.au/publications/biblio/bnh-5807

boffinAudio 3y ago

>I asked Cheshire if he had something to test with, and he just smiled and sent me a Sonic Invaders cartridge. I’m pretty sure that’s how the song goes. LOL. Good one, mate. As someone who grew up with the Dick Smith Electronics Fun Way 1 & 2 books, which were dog-eared and well-loved way into the 90's, it tickles me to no end that HN occasionally gets articles about this utter genius. And, as a retro-computing enthusiast it is very fun to see someone making the effort to produce a Wizzard clone. These were very much a 'crossover' type of device, where you could just use it to game, or learn to program - and it was definitely one of those 'make or break' situations - you either gamed, or you learned to program. A friend of mine had one - but he never programmed, because he hated the keyboard... whereas me, with my Oric-1 out there in the bush, had no access to any software - so I had to learn to program, whatever my issues with the chiclet keyboard. As a curator for a retro-computing museum, of course I'm biased but I think there is definitely a market for re-imagined 8-bit computers. Kids really benefit from digging into these systems and learning how the CPU really works, and 8-bit computers provide a really useful interface to this technology that isn't too overwhelming. We've built systems in the modern era that are so complex and overwhelming - returning to the simplicity of 8-bit computing really makes it a lot more accessible. I for one welcome re-imagined 8-bit computers being released to a new and eager market. I am constantly being asked where to get one of the machines in the museum collection - systems like the Fenix256 (another re-imagined 8-bit machine) and the MEGA 65 are very welcome new additions to this market, but we need to scale up. I could sell 4 of these machines a week, without even trying - categorically, kids go through my museum exhibit, playing with the old machines (we emphasize having access to the old machines, which still work, for people to have direct contact with the experience) .. and end up asking me where they can get their own. I'd love to have the MEGA 65, ZX Spectrum Next, Fenix256 .. and maybe a reinvented Wizzard? .. to offer them on their way out ..

RetroTechie 3y ago
Project described is very cool! Kudoz to Mike, the author. Personally I'd never do a clone of an obscure system like that. Why? Clone a (once) popular system, and when it works, you've got a wealth of software to run on it day 0. Including software useful during development like test ROMs, debuggers, assemblers, stuff that doesn't need keyboard input to show something (as mentioned in article), etc. And if that software comes as a known-good cartridge (or ROM), then if it doesn't work you know the problem is in the hardware. When clone works, project could be interesting to many others. Much value of any system is the library of software for it. Obscure system limits your options a great deal here. Custom design means doing everything from scratch. Exception would be a tweaked version of popular system. Where eg. you could 'correct historical mistakes', simplify design, aid programming in some way, add modern type video output, etc. Then existing software would either work, or be easy to port. Like between systems with same CPU and same video chip. Either that, or use a similar concept as historic system, but then go all-in with modern features (much faster cpu, many MB's of RAM, high-res graphics, flash storage, modern OS, etc). If done right, such a system can still have that nostalgic, tinker-friendly feel to it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

defrost 3y ago

Dick Smith wasn't just about the electronics, he had a few other interests. https://www.wildernessshop.com.au/products/balls-pyramid-by-dick-smith https://www.wildernessshop.com.au/products/balls-pyramid-by-... https://dicksmithadventure.com.au/assault-on-balls-pyramid/ https://dicksmithadventure.com.au/assault-on-balls-pyramid/ These days its is essentially fly-by only unless you can get research related landing | climbing permission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQrWWpcT0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQrWWpcT0I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball%27s_Pyramid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJWq58_5QQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJWq58_5QQ

olliej 3y ago

I started electronics as a youngster with the Dick Smith's "Fun Way into Electronics" sets which were really great. They came with a board you could screw into to link components, etc and general introduction to everything involved. Internet archive has the books themselves archived: https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsvolume2/Dick%20Smith%27s%20Funway%20into%20Electronics%20Volume%201/page/n53/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/dicksmithsfunwayintoelectronicsv...