Way OT-- Electronics back in the day :-)

[Mike Nichting]

I was looking through a Popular electronics mag from 1966 and after reading and looking at the cartoons etc. it seems like that was a great time to be into electronics. New things were sprouting up all the time. It seems nowadays theres not much left to discover(i'm sure there is but not like it was) correct me if I'm wrong and I'm sure you will.
I often wish I wasn't born in '67 but in the midst of this in '67.

 

Thanks for looking I had to get that off of my chest :-)

Mike nichting

[Arn C.]

I was 10yrs old in '67, and I don't know much about the electronics then, but life was sure a hell of a lot simpler......

Arn C.

[Mark Hammer]

Personally, I'd put the "golden era" a few years later, but that's a bias.  The reason why that period seemed to be so great comes from many factors:

a) everything interesting was analog
b) programming and software/firmware a non-issue (so more hardware focussed)
c) lots of emerging choice in hardware and components/manufacturers
d) minimal miniaturization (well, not exactly true but for us a TO-92 package WAS miniaturization) didn't require tiny Indonesian hands or computer-controlled devices to solder anything (no SMT)
e) first REALLY big wave of boomer EE graduates hitting the streets and making stuff happen
f) period of intense competition between hobby-related mags as hobby/leisure mags really start to take off as an industry
g) Knight/Allied/Heath/Radio Shack

Those things, and more, made it a really exciting period to be involved in electronics.  It still IS exciting, but for a very different group of people, and for a very different set of reasons, and with a different set of expectations.

[BillyJ]

Seems to me back then these feild was a bit more easily ventured into by the common person.
Consumer stuff was practical and there plenty of user serviable parts inside.
I think the world had a different veiw then.
Things probably weren't designed to fail as they are today.
You could test your tubes at the local drug store :O)
Plus at the time as you say there were new discoveries all the time.
I guess the todays version of that has a lot to do with computers and DSP and digital chips that need some programing.
Probably a whole world of that around somewhere.
Me I think I like living a little in the past. I really really am glad that guitar players in particular are pretty hung up on tube technology and such.
I really would like to someday be a involved with tube amps on a day to day basis. (I say that now). I am glad to know I can learn this simple (by comparison) world of electronics and it will change very little if at all until the day I pass away :O)
I always bend the ear of the local amp guru. I was asking him about education in electronics and taking a college course.
He said it would be good but that I could pretty much forget ever seeing or learning about a tube in those classes.......
He suggested I read this series of old books made for the Navy in the forties.
Whoa! The cofee is brewing hot today...I don't even remeber the subject....
Oh yeah!... I to think it would be cool as heck to be learning this stuff back in the day!!! Course I wasn't even round just yet back then....LOL!

[Mike Nichting]

yeah, Mark you get my drift. I saw a cartoon that showed a guy sitting in front of a desk with a touch-to-talk micophone and a couple other boxes with dials etc. and his wife was standing behind him saying" he must be on the YL net again". Not sure what that is but it drew a direct comparison to someone being on the computer these days :-)  

Maybe you can shed some light for me??

Mike Nichting

[Ansil]

i was nine years in the hole in 67, ie i didn't exist yet.  my old man was only twelve. my mom was eight.  guess i didn't qualify for this topic.  whoops

[Mike Nichting]

We still love ya' Ansil :-)

[Ansil]

thankis we appreciate it.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Mike, I think "YL" is hamspeak for "young lady"
I'm not a ham but I search their literature for "kinks & wrinkles".
And, they call their wives "XYLs"... no wonder they are going extinct!

[Peter Snowberg]

I have the May 1972 issue of Popular Electronics with the new RCA1802 on the cover.  :shock:

In some ways I long for the past. Tubes give me a warm glow. I got into the game in the late 70s when you could trace the entire logic path without having mystery ASICs in there. Now everything is just a mystery chip and kids can't see how they work without learning VHDL.  :x    It's a mixed bag.

My car is a 1958 VW Bus.    

no wonder they are going extinct!

Not too extinct!  

I have a friend who is a ham and I've played with his rig quite a bit. You would be surprised how hard it is to find a clear frequency sometimes. It's close to impossible.

Nets are a big thing in ham. Lots of disaster relief (http://www.3952khz.net/ for example) and discussion groups. There is one in the California/Nevada/Arizona area called the "Trivia net". It runs 1-2 hours a day and sounds like a guessing game crossed with the TV game show Jeopardy.

They're also hooking ham up with the internet. Check out http://www.echolink.org/. It's amazing how well this system works with AOL dial-up lines (shudder). You need a valid FCC license to get on that net.

Another cool thing with ham is that they send each other "QSL cards" in the mail which are pretty much personalized postcards, after making a successful contact.

-Peter

73 & clear  (standard respectful ham signoff)

[Mike Nichting]

Peter,
it's funny you should mention QSL cards because the cartoon right beloew the one I described shows a dad telling his daughter to get out of the way so that he can take a pic of what looks like a miniature radio tower for his QSL card :-)

When I saw this mag I thought of Mark Hammer right off. Not because your old or anything but because you have been around the block quite a few times ;-) No offense Mark~!!!

Mike N.
Mark, I would love to read a book about your life and what you have done. You are a great guy and your knowledge is incredible.

[petemoore]

I was in Peshawar Pakistan, Christmas day listening to the new hip record a parents friend had given me: 'Daddy let your hair hang down', had just turned 8 yrs old, and my listening to that record exemplifies my knowledge of current events in the states at that time.
 I didnt' have a clue at that time civil rights and such was going on, even though now I feel like I have a pretty good picture of what the 60's were like...it's been portrayed and documented in so many forms..movies, Life Mag etc....all of this I think leads to an objective view than I would have of it than if I actually been a subject in some of the actvities that are viewed as fundamentally changing 'things'.
 THings were good and 'bad' then...probably much like they are percieved to be now, or were in say 1880 of 1642...
 I'ts just that now...I theorize [probably quite wrongly,] that we're reaching the 'boundaries of expansion'. But still they just keep pushin'!
  There'll not be another breakthrough?...Not...double nott

[gtrmac]

Since I've been around since the sixties (born in 1949) it seems to me that the wonders will never cease. My home studio now has the capabilties of a multimillion dollar recording studio (minus the big room) and it all is inside a computer that cost me less than $2,000 to assemble myself.

I'm also grateful for hangouts like this one where you can get the knowledge and components to make great vintage style effects. Last year my obsession was tube amps and I built a Tweed Fender Deluxe and a Marshall 18 watter.

Which brings me to one point: There was no internet in 1967 and you had to dig a lot harder to get knowledge.

But the music was sure great and the girls.....sorry!

[Jered]

I was 4 yrs old in 67, but I like it now. Everything is readily available and so affordable because of surplus. I would hate to have to spend a lot on "the new" TLO82 chip back then.
 With the net, everything is a click ot two away.
 Jered

[Gilles C]

...except for computers :-)

I would miss computers.

But as someone mentioned above about Ham Radio, I was also into Ham Radio in my "old times". (VE2AOJ)

That was fun. I could call someone on the phone with a 2 meter rig in my car. That's a long time before cell phones.

I also built a tube amp with "readily" available used or brand new parts.

But... the only effects I ever used in those time was the distortion or fuzz. And I was dreaming of buying an Echolette or an Echoplex.

Gilles