Chizz points out this installment of the EEVblog wherein David L. Jones presents, in his usual awesomely exuberant style, the story of how he got started with electronics when he was a youngin’. After covering his beloved 200-in-1 lab and more, he goes on to compare his experience what it’s like for kids nowadays who have no need for massive physical datasheet libraries and the like. All in all, it’s a positive and thoroughly enjoyable tale that sheds some much-needed light on the state of hands-on electronics in our culture.
6 thoughts on “EEVblog’s “When I was a boy …””
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I love this guy. He’s just as excited today as he was the day he discovered electronics! I hope to pass the same enthusiasm about SOMETHING to my son.
These kits are still available. This is the company that Radio Shack used to buy from:
http://www.elenco.com/
I was simply amazed at how parallel my own experience is with David’s–the taking apart of everything, the Radio Shack experimenter kits, and then finally the solderless breadboard. (Still doing breadboarding!!) I never had three shelves of data books, but I had quite a few. Radio Shack at one time even sold a semiconductor substitution guide. I had several years worth of those, and a number of CMOS/TTL data books. I had the crystal radio kit, the 160-in-one, and finally the 300-in-one. (Still have it.) David, you scored it right on–universities don’t produce engineers, people who are passionate and inquisitive about engineering (“makers”) are the ones who become engineers.