alt Hacker NewsNostalgic Kits Central (2024)
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Ah, nostalgia. I'd drool over the Heathkit catalogs as a kid. I still have a Van Alstine-modified Dynaco PAT 5 preamp with walnut case that's been the heart of my audio system for almost 40 years. Absolutely trouble free all these years and still sounds great.
Are there similar kits still being made and sold today? It seems like it'd be easier and cheaper than ever to make kits that can do some very cool things, but I never see them where toys are sold. These things should be in every toy isle and museum gift shop.
I LOVED these kits. I could only afford a handful but I would order manuals and build many in my mind.
Later on, I built countless S-100 computer cards when I had a paying job, and that led to other jobs. I never took a course in electronics and computers.
A far cry from Arduino and RaspberryPI, but interfaces get you (often) into that "old" world of discrete analog parts and sensors.
Dad and I built a variety of Heathkit and EICO stuff way back when, from oscilloscopes to signal generators to whatever.
Elenco is still around. I just bought a XP-720K linear power supply kit last week.
Another related nostalgic site
For Electronic project Kits - like X in 1 Electronic Projecy kits, where X is some number from about 10 to a few 100 .....
https://web.archive.org/web/20260221183623/http://www.zpag.n...
OR the direct link -( Im not sure if Hacker news would smash the site .... ) http://www.zpag.net/Electroniques/Kit/Electronic_Kit.htm
As a young kid (pre teen probably) I had one of these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectron#/media/File:Egger-Lect...
(Mine was branded Braun, not Raytheon. not sure if that because the Braun branded versions got sold in Australia, or if dad got it in Germany or Europe - he travelled there for work quite a bit during his career.)
It had a great 10-year-old friendly manual, which I can't seem to fond anywhere, except for this pic:
https://www.radiofundgrube.de/bilder/expkasten/zoom/braun_le...