Radio-Electronics Magazine

RDL2004

Anybody who has been involved in electronics for 10 years or more will probably remember Radio-Electronics Magazine. I think the mid 80s to early 90s were the best years. I recently found out from a post on another forum that many issues are available, in multiple formats, from the Internet Archive library. I stupidly threw out my collection when I moved in 1997, so I've been downloading pdf copies for the last few days.


In case anyone else is interested, here is a direct link:

Radio-Electronics at the Internet Archive

Tim-M

I subscribed for many years and loved it... was very disappointed to see it disappear. Radio-Electronics seemed to be about the only magazine of its type for a long time. Thanks very much for this post and link!

Tim

blittled

Thanks for the link. I see that archive.org has plenty of other good stuff. I found the old Spin Studio files for the ucontroller site on the WayBack machine. I still have a couple of unsoldered modules from that site so that info will be useful.

Publison

Good stuff. I like looking at the parts that were available at the time. You see All Electronics, Jameco, Digikey. Glad to see they are still around. Maybe my purchases kept them in business.

My first magazine subscriptions where Popular Electronics and Popular Mechanics.

The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics got me and my Dad to order the Altair 8800 computer. Unfortunately, I had to sell it a few years ago on ebay, but it fetched $3500. Luckily we can reproduce it somewhat on the Prop 1, and I will say it is "impossible" on the Prop 2.

There..someone will do it.

Whit

What a flashback! I downloaded a 1980 copy! Brings back memoies...It's hard to believe how much has changed! Thanks.

Genetix

I see references to old magazine articles all the time and either they are not available or you need to pay for them. I'm amazed at what people were able to do with much cruder technology and it's nice to see how to do things that today are proprietary or protected by patent.

erco

Fantastic link: bookmarked and thanks for sharing. Every bit as fun to peruse as the old Heathkit catalogs. And my old Sears Christmas wishbook catalogs, for that matter!

pedward

Here's a script to download them.

#!/bin/bash

monofy[1]="January";
monofy[2]="February";
monofy[3]="March";
monofy[4]="April";
monofy[5]="May";
monofy[6]="June";
monofy[7]="July";
monofy[8]="August";
monofy[9]="September";
monofy[10]="October";
monofy[11]="November";
monofy[12]="December";

for (( year=1980 ; $(( $year < 1993 )) ; $(( year++ )) ))
do
for (( mon=1 ; $(( $mon < 13 )) ; $(( mon++ )) ))
do
file=$(printf "http://archive.org/download/radio_electronics_%4d-%02d/Radio_Electronics_${monofy[$mon]}_%4d.pdf" $year $mon $year)
echo $file
wget $file
done
done

john_s

pedward wrote: »

Here's a script to download them.

I have zero experience in using download scripts and I am not sure how to implement it in XP environment,
Can you explain it please?

localroger

john_s, you need a bash shell. This is standard in Linux but there are ports for Windows; here's one that looks good:

http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/

With your bash shell set up, there are bash docs all over the place that will show you how to run a script. It's very similar to DOS / Windows .BAT files but much more powerful.

john_s

Thanks localroger - on my way

Tor

If you wish to download it all: Note that it's more than 5 gigabytes of files. 5.4GB is what I got, but I included the .epub files as well (they're small though).

-Tor

LoopyByteloose

I think that Radio-Electronics should be revived under a new title, say "Internet-Digital Age Electronics".

Nuts & Volts and Servo are just too small in their niche appeal. Circuit Cellar is way to geeky for the general public.

But there is a readership that is being neglected.

tritonium

Loopy Byteloose wrote: »

I think that Radio-Electronics should be revived under a new title, say "Internet-Digital Age Electronics".

.

Or even "Internet Digital Electronic Adventures" I.D.E.A's


Dave

Genetix

Loopy Byteloose wrote: »

I think that Radio-Electronics should be revived under a new title, say "Internet-Digital Age Electronics".]

Do you remember New Coke from the 1980's? Sometimes it's better just to leave things the way they have been for years. (I wish Microsoft would remember that lesson......Argh!)

GordonMcComb

There ought to be a number of my pieces in there. I think my first was in 1981. I remember getting a check signed by Harvey Gernsback (Hugo's son). I didn't cash it for a whole week!

The older timers will also remember Popular Electronics. For a time Pop Electronics and R-E competed with one another, and it was great having two good magazines to leaf through every month. The two magazines were eventually merged during a couple of buy-outs and consolidations. I was writing a column for the "new" Poptronics magazine when they folded in the early 00s. My column is probably why they folded...

-- Gordon

pedward

The problem is that Blogs move at the speed of thought (and fingers), but print has a 4 month lead time.

This problem is rearing it's head for many of the large publishers. I subscribe to Off Road magazine and see some of the content in their YouTube channel several months before it's covered (with a little different viewpoint) in the print edition (cheap truck challenge).

Hot Rod has started a new feature that isn't a digital edition of their print magazine, so the competition isn't there, it's called Road Kill and focuses on the misadventures of David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan.

The DIY electronics movement is happening again, but you have to come up with a formula that competes with the online blogs.

A couple of the things I remember from the print mags were: They had photocopiable board artwork, but the articles typically were drawn out over several mags. The latter was a drag!

Perhaps the solution is to write perhaps 1 main article per magazine and actually include the PCB for that project with the magazine! Then you have several other projects that are written to leverage the internet, with QR codes to order kits or PCBs direct from the article, or send you to the design files directly. This way you try and make the magazine unique (free PCB) and try not to fight against the Internet, but rather you leverage it.

This would require that contributors place a blackout on their own work until the print magazine comes out, then they can discuss it in the open. The worst thing that can happen is the contributors spill the beans on the digital edition and take the wind out of the magazine's sails.

Depending on the publishing model, you may be able to include multiple PCBs per edition and publish less times per year. I think the bi-monthly model would be the most aggressive you could expect with this model, but perhaps quarterly with much more content.

Bager2700

In December of 1991 R-E published and article "Build the Battery Tool", I am trying to locate the program files "Battool.exe" that could be download from the R-E BBS site. Does anyone have these files or know of source for them? I have had not luck trying to find them online.

kwinn

Tim-M wrote: »

I subscribed for many years and loved it... was very disappointed to see it disappear. Radio-Electronics seemed to be about the only magazine of its type for a long time. Thanks very much for this post and link!

Tim

+1

Thanks again RDL2004.

GordonMcComb

Since this has been bumped, for robotics fans be sure to check out December '86 onward for the famous R-E Robot, one of the most popular scratch-built bots of all time. You wouldn't need the PC-based SBC for it, but the mechanics are pretty interesting. I always wanted to build one like it.

erco

Wow, Gordon, that's a FORTH-based blast from the past. Rick, Martin_H and the ForthFans should be on that like stink on a monkey.

Too_Many_Tools

Thanks for posting this!