Ah, yes I remember that the DSE kits were at first all mail order, which was an essential element to learning such things way out back in the bush, where I lived at the time .. had a HAM-radio afflicted uncle who delighted in giving me old electronics junk to disassemble and turn into working piles of components for our experiments, and his reward was to get on the ham and get some kits ordered for delivering at the local water hole. Wouldn't have had such a big leg up on life if I hadn't burned my fingers that way as a ripe 10 year old electronics engineering wannabe.

The 100 in 1 kits were fun, they could be wired up to basically anything, and for a few years my uncle had one semi-permanently wired in as a power rectifier for one of his experiments .. crazy times.