160 In One Project Kit: Why they were so cool. {and a challenge}

Oldbitcollector (Jeff)

Somewhere in the archives of this forum there is a thread where someone mentioned the Radio Shack 160 in One Electronics Kits. {The is likely more than one.}

Go ahead... Click on the attached picture and breathe in the nostalgia. You know it was cool.

Heck I'll bet I get at least a dozen posts on this thread that say something like, "Hey! I had one of those as a kid!". I actually had two, fried the first one. yeah, fried it.

Got to thinking about this today. Do you know why these were so cool? I do.

It was the book that came with them! There was 160+ projects you could create by simply connecting one wire at a time, following the little instruction. You could build something really cool, then go off and show the project to relatives, and friends and get some bragging rights. You didn't even have to understand how the circuit worked to play. Schematics and a solid description of the project was provided, but it didn't get in the way simple connect and play.

Someone made the comment that those "other micro" guys were lazy because all they do is connect wires. Kinda sounds like what attracted a bunch of us to electronics years ago...

Here's the challenge: To those of you who are creating awesome software objects and hardware... Take the extra time to plug in easy-to-replicate, simple instructions/projects which are easy wins for anyone just getting started.

Think: 160in1 Project Kit.

OBC

Microcontrolled

I have the modern version of this I got when I was 9. It looks very similar in terms of color, layout, and concept. I didn't understand how most of it worked, but was most intrigued by it. The newer version has 2 logic chips to play with and a row of LEDs.

garylake

Oh yea. Had one when I was a kid. Too young to understand it but it was fun.

I like your challenge and when I finish my project I will have a complete tutorial on how I did it including schematics.
But alas, I am so lost. I think the oop-pic had better docs and tutorials.
The programming isn't hard, it's getting the analog world into the digital world of the Prop.
We do live in an analog world that is more than a yes or no, true or false, 1 or 0.

And if the Prop is so great, where are all the videos showing us what it can do?

Gary

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

OBC,

Where does the vacuum tube plug in? And where are the connections for the "A" battery and the "B" battery?

-Phil

Edit: 'Just found a picture of the electronics project set I had as a kid:



The SW receiver project was regenerative, with a small coil in the plate circuit that stuffed down inside the main tuning coil. It was fussy as the dickens to adjust: not far enough in (i.e. too little feedback) and there was no sensitivity; too far in, and the tiny earpiece would screech. Once adjusted just right, it was great being able to pick up BBC, Radio Moscow, and Quito, Ecuador with it.

erco

I had a nice set called "Funtronics" that used my favorite Fahnestock clips to build & connect things. Made buzzers, a radio, amplifier, a record player and an AM transmitter! Never saw that set before or after, but I'm sure I found it in the Sears or Wards Christmas catalog.

Spiral_72

Oh man... I had the crystal radio kit, a ~160 in one and another one. I had an terrible time keeping transistors in them The COOLEST thing I ever built on one, it used a special diode and some other stuff with a special ear phone. I think it was foil ear bud or?? I don't remember, but it was a radio that did not use batteries. I had to listen REAL close in a completely silent room, but I could tune in radio frequencies with the thing. It was fascinating! I'll have to look that up. I don't remember the explanation, obviously enough energy come in over the antenna and the components were low power enough that it worked..... barely.

Good for you OBC. What an excellent idea.

potatohead

Yeah, seconded.

I used my kit LONG after I had done all the circuits. It was a great "test / work bench" for a little kid. The wires into the springs bit isn't practical for a lot of what we do today, but man! It sure was accessible to a 10 year old. The notebook was worth it too. I built those things, then measured, changed, rebuilt, fried, replaced, and learned a lot in that basic intuitive way one can when things are just accessible like that.

My mind comes back to the PPDB, where it's possible to just hook stuff up. That's kind of like the closest thing. Wouldn't it be absolutely great to have a enclosure with more sensors, or perhaps sensors with standard hookups, including resistors and such? Plug and play, move a few wires, upload code, run, watch 'n learn?

Anyway, as usual, great post with some fun observations.

potatohead

Re: The radio was a crystal one. A tuned circuit with a diode can detect AM. I built that one many times.

Once, just for fun, I connected a diode across a long wire antenna. It brought in most of the AM band at the same time!! Connecting a coil and cap to that to tune it was amazing. The raw RF power from a 160 meter HALF WAVE antenna was enough to drive a small speaker.

The little ear phone that came with that kit was very sensitive. Used to use it to fix simple transistor radios. One could literally hear the audio in many places on the radio, by probing with that ear phone. Such simple stuff, but powerful. I still have one similar to it, and it's the first thing I reach for when I have a device that won't output sound. It's nearly always the amplifier, and it's nearly always possible to just go take a listen prior to that stage.

Heater.

Meanwhile, over in England circa 1966, aged 10, I had the Philips Electronic Engineer kit. Probably did not understand 90% of it but managed to get all the projects working.

Discovered that the simple organ sounded much more interesting (annoying to parents) when powered from my, un-smoothed, model railway transformer rather than batteries.

Shortly afterwards Moog borrowed the idea for his transistorized analog synthesizers, although I'm not sure how he found out:)

Hmmm...think I've posted all this here before...

Cluso99

heater: Brings back fond memories of my childhood too. There were two Philips Kits. There was a bigger and better one that I had too. When I saw above, I realised Phil is older than me, and I am older than OBC. And now I discover I am older than you!. (FYI +4)

I had forgotten about the organ. My parents bought me both Philips Kits after I had built all the crystal sets areound the place. From tiny matchbox to shoe case sized. The best was with a 100ft long aerial from the house to the end of the backyard high up in a tall tree. I used thin enamel wire from an old radio coil. My parents used to chek I wasn't listening to my crystal set when I went to bed. Haha - my ex-army headphones (one headphone) worked great through the pillow!!!

If only there were micros back then. And the prices are so cheap now. In 1969 reject 7400, 7404, 7408 and a handful of other chips were available from a UK company for about 1-2 UK Pounds. Then you had to work out which gates didn't work. I build a logic probe with one, and recall thinking what if it failed - I would never be able to buy a chip with the same failure that I took advantage of. Anyway, 1-2 pounds = about 50+ pounds in todays terms and they were faulty chips!!

Martin_H

@Oldbitcollector, thanks for the memories. I had one and loved it. I also don't know what happened to it. The crystal radios were fun and a cool project. I was always amazed they worked without batteries.

Speaking of crystal radios. My wife found a crystal radio kit at a garage sale and brought it home. As is typical of garage sale items, it is missing the most important part. The diode! Now I have a mixed bag of diodes, but I haven't had time to see if one of them would work.

Beau Schwabe

OBC - I had that exact kit ... I dare say I wouldn't be posting to this forum now if it hadn't been for that early kit. I exhausted all of the experiments and came up with countless variations of my own. One in particular that I liked was and external radio tuner, basically a down converter for an AM radio. The 3-transistor amplifier IC was also especially useful, I built that circuit several times using discrete transistors. I wish I had the part number of that 7-pin SIP... there are a couple of things that I would probably even use it in today.

Bean

OBC,
I've had many different versions of that kit throughout my childhood. For awhile I got one every Christmas (it was my "big" gift).
Very fond memories of my neighbor and I playing with it (he had one too).
I agree with the others, that if it wasn't for these kits, I doubt I would be in the electronics field at all.

I remember the great satisfaction of knowing about something that adults didn't understand. Same thing when I learned about computers. I remember my friend and I talking about copying the ROM to RAM to modify it. Our parents thought we were making it up... Clueless parents...Ha Ha Ha.

It would be interesting to try to make a software version of these kits. Hmmm. I'll have to ponder how that would work...

Bean

Peter KG6LSE

Radio shack had a ton of those X in One kits wen I was growing up 1990 to 99. I believe I have done most of them( the kits ) .

I remember the light orgen . I swapped the R for tone with the CDS cell. fast times .

Bean thats a good idea !!!

Computer Geek 101

My dad had one of those. When I was about 10 I took it over. I’d have to say that kit and my erector set are what got me into computers/electronics. Kids need more toys like those.