Ha! I beat you to the punch! Posted on Powell's on page three... It's the best bookstore in the world! It must be something with the letter P: Powell's, Parallax, Pandora...
There was a technical bookstore in (suburban DC) a few years back, but it closed. I think the main store was on the west coast someplace. Unfortunate, as I liked the place.
I grew up fixing tube stuff. My dad would come home with tube amps and preamps he bought used. He tried to find amps/preamps that were slightly broken (hum, etc). He'd buy them cheap, then go back & tell a different guy that the amp he just bought needed a new filter capacitor. He'd get it for nothing because it was easier for the store than taking back. Very entertaining. We (mostly me) could make educated guesses on which tube(s) in the TV were broken by the symptoms we saw.
There's very little electronics left that is fixable at that level by the end user. How do you teach a kid about electronics in such an environment?
P.S. Recently, I did manage to fix a famous-brand alarm clock that worked on battery but not on wall power. I took it apart and replaced a couple of capacitors and a diode that had blown in the power supply. Works great now. The board looked hand soldered. It was the worst piece of commercially-done assembly I'd ever seen. On the other hand, no surface mount components at all.
honestly, I doubt much has changed in terms of how great a percentage of society can be toe-tagged as a kind of living dead. The moronic masses of humanity provide a kind of stabilizing factor to what would otherwise be a buzzing swarm of flitting intellects, starbound ambitions, flights of fancy. Innovators are, almost by definition, a tiny group, tiny enough that they won't get things moving unless it's necessary, fun, or at least vaguely profitable to the superorganism that society is. So don't feel too frustrated if you perceive yourself as beating your head against the butts of an unmoving herd. You are. As have many pioneers who have gone before you. It's why you're here - to rake your way through the dingleberries for a vision of a brighter future. Which you will. Maybe. Sooner or later.
The greatest thing is that we now have technology that allows us to link up - across time (thanks to the invention of writing) and space (thanks mostly to global communications). Through this, we can reach out and encourage other minds, fish from the dull inertial hogwash of the herd any younger minds who might crave the need to escape the bounds of normality and mediocrity. That's why I'm not as worried about bookstores evaporating as I used to be. To me, the internet is several quantum leaps above anything that books can provide, especially when it comes to technology. Mind you, I love books in paper form. My livingroom is walled like a library. But I've given up on shopping malls and main street stores as a source of information or inspiration of practically any kind. It's become mental McDonalds' out there. Blechk.
Case in point about things not changing much: When I was in high school, about 30 years ago, I might as well have been from Mars insofar as my classmates and general community were concerned. My high school Guidance Counselor called me to his office one day and in so many words delivered to me a lecture on "Just who do you think you are, applying to places like MIT, Princeton, CalTech...?" etc. His theory was that because my father was "merely" a firefighter and my mother merely a secretary, I was wasting my time - and, I suppose, his as well, since my application process forced him to fill out paperwork and earn his living. Needless to say, I had to bite my tongue and it was all I could do to maintain my composure as I departed his office. Long story short, I had the pick of my colleges when I graduated, but the sheer number of cow-ardly butts I had to boot out of my way back then just to utilize the innate abilities I discovered for myself still boggles my mind to this day. Now, though, thirty years later, after realizing the fear factors hardwired in most primate species, I'm alot more understanding and patient with idiots than I was in those days. But for anyone who feels the drive to be more human, to innovate, explore, create, or simply peel back some newly exposed onion-skin of ignorance, you just have to bite the bullet and realize you ain't gonna do it under a continuous parade of tickertape and champagne.
Face it, O Pioneers, out there it's moo-mooo land.
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It might be the Information Age but the Eon of Ignorance has yet to end.
A fascinating thread, and not much in it that I disagree with. I was also interested in electricity at an early age (~4-5). I saw my grandfather checking a receptacle using a pigtail light and did the same with a piece of coat hangar wire. The result scared me off for a few years, but by 10 I was trying to fix all things mechanical and electrical. I took electronics in high school and added computer science to it in university. After graduation I serviced and programmed mini's and the peripherals until I started a job servicing medical instruments. Shortly after I started going to a computer show that started in Atlantic City and moved to Philly after a couple of years. That show is where I bought the parts to assemble my first computer. It consisted of a 100 pin motherboard (S100), an 8080 cpu board, a Vector Graphics "preset and go" board, and a 64x16 video board (text only). In summary a 2mhz cpu, 2k of eprom, 256bytes of ram, and a 16 line by 64 character video board. Later I upraded to 16K ram, 2 88k floppies and CPM. What fun (and I really mean fun) I had writing. hand assembling, and entering the hex (or was it octal? Don't recall) bootstrap loader into a borrowed (from work) eprom programmer. I am looking forward to the arrival of my Prop so I canlearn assembly and spin to the same level as I did 8080/Z80 assembler, and when I have finished the two projects I bought it for I may run the 8080 emulator and CPM I read about in another thread.
On another note, you may want to take a look at "Circuit Cellar" magazine. Lots of info in there, and if you can't find it locally there is an electronic version available. It comes as a PDF. I am changing all my subscriptions to electronic versions wherever possible since I do a lot of traveling. I have to lug my laptop with me and the extra bits for my reading material add very little weight.
I also buy electronic books and am surprised that there are so few publishers of books and magazines available electronically. You would think that without the cost of paper, printing, and distribution they could sell them for less and still have higher profit margins.
I would love to see some of the electronics magazines written and laid out for a computer.
kwinn said...(trimmed)
You would think that without the cost of paper, printing, and distribution they could sell them for less and still have higher profit margins.
Many printing places give better pricing for higher volume.· As more people start going electronic they will need to print less copies, possibly costing more per magazine.· With setup fees, etc. I could see the price staying steady even in light of more digital versions, especially if they print in the USA.
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Comments
Anyone upgrade to the 250 in one?
Musical Instrument: Voice & (some) piano I also really enjoy watching and participating in theatre.
Forrest Mims... The very first time I opened one of his books, I must have been 10 or close to it. My first few thoughts were:
this guy knows his stuff, loves it, and it's valuable or they wouldn't have just let him write in the pages!
I'm glad to see all the links for obtaining those. I could use them today big time.
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
Post Edited (potatohead) : 12/8/2008 3:06:55 AM GMT
Ha! I beat you to the punch! Posted on Powell's on page three... It's the best bookstore in the world! It must be something with the letter P: Powell's, Parallax, Pandora...
I grew up fixing tube stuff. My dad would come home with tube amps and preamps he bought used. He tried to find amps/preamps that were slightly broken (hum, etc). He'd buy them cheap, then go back & tell a different guy that the amp he just bought needed a new filter capacitor. He'd get it for nothing because it was easier for the store than taking back. Very entertaining. We (mostly me) could make educated guesses on which tube(s) in the TV were broken by the symptoms we saw.
There's very little electronics left that is fixable at that level by the end user. How do you teach a kid about electronics in such an environment?
P.S. Recently, I did manage to fix a famous-brand alarm clock that worked on battery but not on wall power. I took it apart and replaced a couple of capacitors and a diode that had blown in the power supply. Works great now. The board looked hand soldered. It was the worst piece of commercially-done assembly I'd ever seen. On the other hand, no surface mount components at all.
Wonderful place. Glad I do live here.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
honestly, I doubt much has changed in terms of how great a percentage of society can be toe-tagged as a kind of living dead. The moronic masses of humanity provide a kind of stabilizing factor to what would otherwise be a buzzing swarm of flitting intellects, starbound ambitions, flights of fancy. Innovators are, almost by definition, a tiny group, tiny enough that they won't get things moving unless it's necessary, fun, or at least vaguely profitable to the superorganism that society is. So don't feel too frustrated if you perceive yourself as beating your head against the butts of an unmoving herd. You are. As have many pioneers who have gone before you. It's why you're here - to rake your way through the dingleberries for a vision of a brighter future. Which you will. Maybe. Sooner or later.
The greatest thing is that we now have technology that allows us to link up - across time (thanks to the invention of writing) and space (thanks mostly to global communications). Through this, we can reach out and encourage other minds, fish from the dull inertial hogwash of the herd any younger minds who might crave the need to escape the bounds of normality and mediocrity. That's why I'm not as worried about bookstores evaporating as I used to be. To me, the internet is several quantum leaps above anything that books can provide, especially when it comes to technology. Mind you, I love books in paper form. My livingroom is walled like a library. But I've given up on shopping malls and main street stores as a source of information or inspiration of practically any kind. It's become mental McDonalds' out there. Blechk.
Case in point about things not changing much: When I was in high school, about 30 years ago, I might as well have been from Mars insofar as my classmates and general community were concerned. My high school Guidance Counselor called me to his office one day and in so many words delivered to me a lecture on "Just who do you think you are, applying to places like MIT, Princeton, CalTech...?" etc. His theory was that because my father was "merely" a firefighter and my mother merely a secretary, I was wasting my time - and, I suppose, his as well, since my application process forced him to fill out paperwork and earn his living. Needless to say, I had to bite my tongue and it was all I could do to maintain my composure as I departed his office. Long story short, I had the pick of my colleges when I graduated, but the sheer number of cow-ardly butts I had to boot out of my way back then just to utilize the innate abilities I discovered for myself still boggles my mind to this day. Now, though, thirty years later, after realizing the fear factors hardwired in most primate species, I'm alot more understanding and patient with idiots than I was in those days. But for anyone who feels the drive to be more human, to innovate, explore, create, or simply peel back some newly exposed onion-skin of ignorance, you just have to bite the bullet and realize you ain't gonna do it under a continuous parade of tickertape and champagne.
Face it, O Pioneers, out there it's moo-mooo land.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
It might be the Information Age but the Eon of Ignorance has yet to end.
I also buy electronic books and am surprised that there are so few publishers of books and magazines available electronically. You would think that without the cost of paper, printing, and distribution they could sell them for less and still have higher profit margins.
I would love to see some of the electronics magazines written and laid out for a computer.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering