Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 бер 2019
- In this video, we take a brief look at two Electronics Project/Experimenters kits - one from 1976, and one modern kit available today. The 150-in-1 kit was sold at Radio Shack / Tandy in the mid 1970s, and is very similar to the kit I had as a teenager. The modern kit is from Elegoo and features a MEGA2560 micro-controller (Arduino compatible / programmable) and a generous collection of parts, sensors, modules and accessories. It is really amazing what is available today. Here is a link to the MEGA2560 kit I showed in the video:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01... - Наука та технологія
My dad designed and wrote the 150-in-One project for Tandy. I developed the black and white photos that he took with his Canon camera out in the sun (um, that may have been for his books). My brother drafted the schematics. It was a family event! :) Glad to see so many young people enjoyed it so much! My dad was always a teacher.
Wow - thank you for sharing this! I hope you know that your Dad and your family's work inspired many, many people - myself included - in the field of electronics.
Wow, I had the 65 in one and then your 150 in one kit and used it for years as a kid in the mid 1970s. I eventually became a Ph.D. biochemist and biomedical product developer. But on the side, I had a little electronics business that helped pad my retirement thanks to getting immersed in electronics with your kit. The kit is long gone, but I still have the wooden tray in my garage and use it to hold tools 50 years later lol. How cool to touch base with one of it's developers!
Thanks for sharing!
I was fortunate enough to have possessed ALL the Radio Shack / Tandy kits, getting them for birthday & Christmas presents throughout the years. I had only three friends that understood the hobby at all.
During long cold North American, (and later rainy UK) winters nights, I had much to keep my young bored mind occupied with these kits.
I still have the wooden tray for this, and it just holds various nick nacks in my 'electronics trunk'. Which a friend of mine calls a 'time machine'.
I think I would have creamed my pants if I had access to a PC, or one of those new kits today.
I ended up at Uni for Applied Electronics, and am now in the Submarine Cable industry building today's internet paths. In my spare time (when I have it), I am a full radio amateur. Again, all based on the back of electronics I had learned when I was young.
By the time I got to college, they could teach me very little about digital electronics, until we started the level whereby we met transition tables.
I tip my cap to you and your father.
What brings me here? An aversion to reading terrible manuals, when we have UA-cam at our disposal.
Thanks w2aew.
Double wow! I had a 150-in-one project kit. I think I got it in 1978. I learned so much from that kit. Thank you for all that your father and your family have done for so many of us. I have a thousand questions I could ask you. Would you mind connecting with me on LinkedIn?
Awesome! This kit taught me a tremendous amount about electronics. My brother (in his teens) and I (in my early 30's) had so much fun with this kit! Thank you to your Dad, you and your family!
Great memories! My brother and I each had this exact 'Radio Shack 150-in-1' kit in the early 90's. We had both just got our HAM license so we were anxious to learn more. These kits were a blast! Our Dad was a 2-way Radio and TV electronics tech and showed us many add-ons to further the circuits in the guide book. I am pretty sure my brother still has his! Anyone wanting to get their feet wet in electronics should purchase a kit like this. Easy and fun learning projects. Thanks for the video!
I'm an engineer now thanks to the 150-in-1 project kit! I remember begging my Mom to by it for me until she finally relented! I enjoyed bugging my brother's room with it and a spare speaker I had salvaged from something else.
Good times!
Cynthia Cantrell Same story here. I had the 150 project kit, their crystal radio kit and when I was older I started buying bulk components and breadboarding to build my own small circuits and gizmos. I’m an engineer as well now at 45. I wonder sometimes if I didn’t get to tinker and enjoy these kits when I was younger if my career path would have been different.
@@Fireship1 Having worked with this kit since I was about 10 put me ahead of the curve when it came to the labs in college. I still had all the hassles with all the physics and math, but all the practice building and debugging circuits with this kit and my own projects meant many of the labs were pretty straight-forward for me.
I knew I wanted to be an engineer from a very young age. I couldn't imagine being anything else back then. I don't know where that impulse came from. But just before I graduated college my mother informed me that her father was an electrical engineer. I didn't know him growing up as he died when I was a toddler, but I still can't figure out why she didn't bother to mention that fact to me sometime before!
And the Lite-Brite!
An electronic project kit absolutely set the direction of my life. As a kid in about 1960 my dad gave me an electronic project kit that had vacuum tubes! I ate it up and couldn't get enough electronics. I made a career out of it, have been part of the exciting change from vacuum tubes to arduinos and have never lost my child like fascination, sparked by that kit my dad gave me decades ago.
I grew up with the spring connector kits, they are awesome and still the best way to learn IMO. The springs are so easy to use. I had that exact 150 kit.
You bet. The basics! But now its all about small ICs and boards. Like Arduino and others. THX 😃
I got one of those 150-in-1 kits when I was 12 and I still have it!
WOW!!!
I loved these kits, I remember the one I got at Christmas in the 80s... still makes me happy to see them these days too :)
I had the previous Radio Shack version of this and I used to build the AM radio and listen the Mystery Radio Theater at night in bed. I would hide the set under my bed and run the earpiece up between the mattress and headboard. So when my parents thought I was asleep I was really listening to all those cool stories and sounds. Heh Heh Heh. Thanks for sharing it brought back a lot of good memories. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya
The older kit looks more intuitive. I'd be more inclined to use the older ones than an Arduino if I was 10.
The kits have different goal IMHO, so aren't really compareable in "intuitiveness". The Arduino kit definitely isn't an electronics beginners kit. Most Arduino kits I've seen are programming focused (often just copy and paste unfortunately) and the electronics are something you need to make your program work.
@@superdau The Arduino stuff is all about downloading someone else's code if you are a beginner. Or write your own if you have knowledge in the field; in which case you likely wouldn't buy the kit because there are more efficient and cheaper methods.
I got into the hobby around 2002, so right at the tail end of the older kits (although mine only had the spring contacts for larger components like the transformer/switches/relays & a large breadboard), but w/ an excellent Forrest Mims manual. However, that was late enough that what kept me in the hobby was the basic stamp microcontroller kits from parallax. While those were less complicated than the arduino kit shown, I likely would have quit electronics had it not been for all the cool behavior the microcontroller enabled. Building a crappy radio just wasn't very impressive to me, so while I learned a lot none of the projects in the radioshack kit got me excited enough to keep going, while it still remember how cool I thought the crappy weather station that logged data to my PC was. For kids that are growing up with smartphones, I just don't think the older kit will really do much to get them excited.
My main problem w/ the arduino kits I've seen is that they encourage copy/paste programming, and don't explain the circuits, so I don't know that there is much electronics or programming knowledge being learned.
I actually learned on one of these old kits when I was 10. The only problem was I eventually blew all the transistors and couldn't find replacements. In terms of educating myself, this kit was far more effective and interesting than any of the new ones I've seen. The new ones sort of dilute the essence of electronics and dumb down most of the concepts. Maybe there are some better ones out there that I don't know of, but these Arduino kits are mostly modular electronics with copy-paste code where they only explain the obvious. Back in probably 2009 I had an Arduino kit and it looked cool at first but it bored me to tears before long. I became way more interested in building analog circuits that could do the same thing the Arduino could. Making radio and Hi-Fi circuits has always been way more worthwhile to me than computer science.
There's a picture of me in my pajamas on Christmas day 1978 having just gotten that kit. I loved it and used it for years and the nostalgia when you showed those spring terminals and the components up close was almost overwhelming.
My grandmother bought me one for christmas and I will never forget that. One of my most cherished gift I ever received. It's nice to see that a lot of people had one when they were young. *Cheers* *_73_*
I wanted something like that when I was a kid but we couldn’t afford it. I got Silly Putty instead. Guess that’s why I ended up in software. Lol.
I had THAT kit. Oh the excitement I felt. I'm smiling just remembering the feeling. I think it was 1979 Christmas morning.
I loved those Radio Shack Science Fair kits. I think I had both the 150-in-1, and later a 300-in-1. My mom & dad bought me them in the 70's when I showed an interest in electronics.
Had that Tandy 150-in-1 kit! Granted I, like I suspect many of us, used to wire up the circuits without *really* understanding everything about how they worked, but the exposure to the function and application of the various components still provided those tid-bits of knowledge that still linger on 40 years later. Thanks for this! (p.s. That kit is in excellent condition... a real gem!)
The one I had growing up had one vacuum tube. It was made by Allied Electronics. Where were even some dangerous voltages to be found if not careful. The fancy connection terminals were fan-stock clips. Can't remember how many projects there were, but I was a lot of fun playing around with. Just remembered it came with those weird and terribly uncomfortable head phones that had round thin metal plates for the drivers.
Wow I had one similar my Granddad got me from Australia....we live in New Zealand....think it was from Tandy also,
my springs corroded....my three transistor radio project was quite loud....
I miss all my grand parents.....
thanks heaps
Brett
I had the 65-in-1 version in the mid-70's - one of the best Christmas gifts I ever got. I learned early enough how to replace some of the parts in the kit due to a few oopsies (like hooking the battery straight across things, etc).
I had two of these! One in the '70's and another (nostalgia is a hella drug) 20 years later. It is amazing how project kits such as these can lead to creative minds. Stuff like this and chemistry sets led me to some fun jobs! THANKS MOM !
I had that exact kit as a kid.
I too was a teenager and had the 70's kit. It was almost identical except didn't have the IC of segment display. I loved it and it provided endless fun projects and education.
I absolutely loved that kit in the 70s! We sure have come a long way.
Ironically I just found my old radio shack project kit in the basement tonight when I was looking for something else. Mine was much newer than yours and made of plastic instead of wood. I don't remember all the components but it was very similar to your kit. The speaker, lights and terminals were all built into the front of the case instead of the top. I had a lot of fun with it back in the day and learned a lot about electronics. I plan to go through all the projects again when I'm done working and have more time.
I made a simple shortwave radio with the Science Fair kit as a kid, and boy did it really work! Of course, my dad being a ham as well, pulled out a long line of similar gauge wire from his junk box and we made a longer receiving antenna and we dropped in a simple little speaker in to the circuit, and that really helped. Lost my hearing in both ears when I was about six years old, so that little ear piece that came with the kit was useless for me. But, building simple little circuits was a lot of fun, even for a seven or eight year old.
In the 50's, I 'helped' my dad in his radio/TV repair shop in our basement. My job was to strip the non-repairable chassis of the caps, resistors, sockets, ....
In my teens, he and I built various electronic projects - crystal radio to Dynaco stereo equipment. Good times, I also took 2nd place in my 8th grade science fair with a short way radio. :>)
Lucky you to have learned and worked with your dad.
That brings back memories, I had the Radio Shack version when I was a kid.
I had a 120-in-1 kit like your older one that my dad bought me from radio shack when I was a kid in the 90s. I loved messing with that thing. I could never get the crystal radio or the powered AM receiver projects working as a kid though. When I found it in my attic in my early 20s, I pulled that sucker out and built both of those projects in working condition. Really neat kits. I bought my son one of the snap circuits kits from Elenco. He really enjoyed building the little projects it has as well.
I remember the kits, later sold them, never had one. At about 13, I jumped into building an amplifier from the schematics in the back of the RCA receiving tube manual. I still remember whooping with excitement when it worked. Still have it. Then, of course, I talked myself out of an electronics career. Got disillusioned when the magazines could only talk about Altair computers. Now I have to do it for fun. I need the Atmega kit!
I didn't have one of these a kits growing up :( The first thing that I ever built was a kit ZX81 computer. Getting it working is still one of the best experiences I had as a kid.
That's the exact kit I had! I can't say I learned much other than reading schematics, but it sparked my interest in electronics. Digital is where I excelled since I never fully understood the fundamentals of analog (Ohm's law, etc. ) until recently. $30 in 1976 is about $133 today, so the Elegoo kit is half the price and *vastly* more sophisticated.
If I'd only saved all that stuff from back in the day! Thanks for the memories Alan!
I just picked one of these up a few days ago. It's a 160 in 1 but still old enough that it's in the wooden chasis. Love it!
Thanks for the nostalgia. I still have a similar Tandy kit I bought in England in the spring of 1982 .
The older kit looks very familiar, even down to the transisters provided as 2 cans and one black plastic variety. This and the obligatory chemistry set made childhood quite memorable!
This is cool! I had the Tandy 150 kit as a kid and may get an Elegoo. It was also cool to see videodistro's comments and sharing history. Thank you for sharing this with us!
So cool, this is exactly the kit I had as an early teen. Take good care of yours, mine is long gone! This was my direct entry to my career in electronics. Thanks for bringing back the memories!
Interestingly, you can still find the 500-in-1 kits; they have a nice, clam-shell case and three manuals. The first covers basic DC and AC electronics, the second one covers digital electronics, and the third covers programming a microcontroller. They have some components with the spring terminals, and a solderless breadboard and other “loose” components in ziplock baggies, plus the hook-up wire in various lengths.
70' kid too, and I feel like everybody got one of these. Memories. Thx.
I certainly had and loved the Electronic Project. Thank you to you and your Dad.
You're a good salesman -- I just ordered the Elegoo kit. In grade school, in the mid-60s, I had a Knight (Allied Radio brand) 10-in-1 transistorized kit. I still have it, and I just checked the date on the instruction manual -- 1957. My father (an electrical engineer) had bought it for my older brothers.
Still an effective and relevant kit 40 years later. I loved mine.
Had that exact kit - thanks for the memories!
I also had a 150-in-1 kit. Of all the things from my childhood, it was probably my favorite. I used it until I wore it out and moved on to bread boarding circuits from the Forrest M. Mims Engineer's Notebook II which is still sitting on the shelf above my desk to this day. Good times!
I followed the exact same path.
Had a few of the kits over the years, thanks for the video, 73
I remember those kits from the 70s. Built many of their perf box kits like shortwave radio and many others. Thanks for the look back. Pete AA6ZE
Oh the memory’s! Being a child of the 70’s with a father as an electrician I had many of these kits. From TANDY.
As a kid, I had a somewhat earlier version of that Radio Shack kit (no 7-segment display yet, more primitive IC) and got a great deal of use and enjoyment from it.
I love the fact that the old kit, with its limited assortment of parts, came with 150 experiments, while the developer with all those fancy parts only bothered to come up with 30!
That 150 in 1 is exactly what I had as a kid. It was great!
Loved my first kit, also in the 70's, remember getting very frustrated, every time you sneezed with a complex wiring project, something would ping out of the spring terminals... 😀 happy days!
75-in-1 and the 150-in-1 were my project boards for a while as a child. I think I ended up stripping them for parts though. Could not afford the cost of components back then.
Cheers,
- Eddy
I had that while growing up and kept it for a few decades. I loved how simple it was and the springs in it for the wiring PLUS it used wood.
I had the 200-in-1 and later at a garage sale, picked up a 30-in-1 which I seem to recall specialized in radio projects. The book is really the best part of the kit, it starts with the basics and steps up the difficulty incrementally, while making more interesting and rewarding projects.
Halfway through, the book "resets", eschewing the pictures of the completed wiring on the board, showing only schematics, and saying that you have to figure out how to go from the schematic to a completed circuit now. All the previous circuits had both a picture AND a schematic, so you can backtrack and check your understanding.
That's what got me into reading schematics, and I've never looked back!
The contents for the price is mindboggling. Great video!
What a great idea for a video. Sure brought back memories, Radio Shack was a huge part of my young life. And I remember those kits well..Thank You !
I had that very same science fair kit and remember being completely absorbed by it for hours.... The radio projects really grabbed me. Building a basic crystal set then adding a simple transistor amplifier was amazing! I still think it was a better introduction to electronics than any Arduino kit I've seen to date.
Thanks for bringing back some fond memories. My dad's friend ran the local shack I got the store returns of those kits and other treasures.
I had one of these! Thanks for the memories! I had a lot of fun experimenting with this kit =)
I also got one of these from Santa in the 80's (mine was a bit smaller with less components) and made a crystal radio out of it/ water level alarm and a few other circuits i can't remember. It was my first step into electronics. I was so happy to get it.
I had the older 100 in 1 kit. Great fun and gained lots of basic knowledge using it.
Thanks Alan! Pretty cool. I still have my Maxitronix 500-in-1 electronics kit.
I really enjoy your Basics Series.
Thank you for making them.
Kind regards
man had that same 150 in 1 kit in the mid 80's.Loved that thing! RIP Radio Shack :(
Thanks for share this particular piece of time. Great video.
That’s the one I had in the late 70s. Wow. I learnt so much from that thing.
I remember this kit well when I was in grade school, just before I went into high school mid-late 1970s. Along with it and the Tandy Color Computer, I credit them with my career path... electrical engineering (my college degree 1980s), computer science & programming (my second college degree 1980s) then on to network & data center engineering (1990-present, mainframes to the first network operating systems, Linux and high-end networking - Cisco, Juniper, etc.). I've mostly retired from that now and only consult when I feel like it. ;)
Currently, I've diving back into electronics after 35 years away... and have been enjoying the current Arduino/ESP32/RaspberryPi builds I'm now exploring.
wow, this takes me back a bit. I had an a metal case Heathkit Jr one, I still miss it.
Wow does this bring back memories. I’m pretty sure this 150 in One is the kit I had. I’d build circuits from the book, tweak a bit, take the bicycle to the local Radio Shack or the once a month Ham fest at the local national guard station to get parts to make an actual project. The kits that are available today are so much more complex and complete. If I had the kits we can get today back when I was younger, I’d never had a girlfriend... 73,s W1ND
Very cool video !!!!! I still have my electronics kit just like this one and it still look like brand new. I got it in the 80's. I just loved that kit.It's too bad , that at that time, testing equipments was way too much expensive to buy.It would have been fun if we could have taken some measurements on the projects we made. Great memories!!!!!!
I grew up on the Radio Shack Project Kits. I think I started on a 75-in-1, then a 150, then a 200. Fun to do but it took the help of a mentor to really understand what was happening.
My first perf board projects were circuits I'd built on the kits and wanted to save.
Yes I remember I had a spring kit in a black plastic suite case. It came from japan and had a german manual. My father got it for 99 DM around 30 USD in tbe seventies. The integrated circuit was a thick film one on a ceramic substrate and included one transistor. There was some discrete one as well. And I had some spring kits from Philips. They had spring kits in different levels and one with a crt but it was way to expensive for my dad. What a crazy time the seventies. Today I use the breadboards or a pcb service
I had the 200 in 1. Had a lot of fun with it.
My first electronics kit! Unfortunately when my Radio Shack battery club 9 volt went dead, I plugged it into the wall outlet. It exploded in my face. My first bad experience with mains voltage at age 7.
I carried that battery club card in my wallet well into the 2000s, only realizing it when I switched to a new wallet. Can't recall how many times I went to RS for a free battery and left with a $50 box of diskettes. Those free batteries cost me thousands of dollars. LOL
@Thomas Jefferson The flash left an unforgettable moment in my life. Amazing at 52 years old I still remember it clearly. Maybe this is the key to never getting alzheimers.
@@jasoneyes01 were you able to salvage at least part of the kit?
@@arthurmead5341 It was salvagable. The cardboard and wood panels didn't catch on fire. I remember my parents had to approve what I was to build after that and get their permission. I remember my dad made me build the AM radio which required no battery amazingly, just hooked it to a ground rod in the backyard. I learned hooking a DC circuit to AC is a dead short with an explosion.
wow, thanks!
got a philips kit in the 80s, remarkably similar to the one you just showed here.
73
Nice video, very informative. I too had one of the Tandy project kits (300 in 1), back in the grand old '70s. For learning 'basic' electronics/circuits they were great. IMHO The Elegoo incorporates a much broader range of (higher level?) tech, teaching programming, robotics, data acquisition (SCADA), etc.. Just what the young experimenter of today needs!
Oops! Guess that was only a 100 in 1 kit... Seemed like 300 to me at the time!
The first one is good for learning good old, analog electronics at component level. The new Arduino thing is more a programming thing. They are complementary kits.
I had a radio shack kit around 1972. It was 50 in one as I recall. Had a photo cell, and I built a few things without much understanding sadly. id did later become an engineer and got BS and MS degrees These types of kits were so good in the winter time when indoors. Thanks Dad for getting me a microscope, a small telescope, a gilbert chemistry set, even a planetarium. They were cheap and did not work very well, and were used, but they gave me some insights. Wish he had known enough to get me some technical books for algebra, even calculus and physics for sure. I had so much curiosity and these things helped.
Your 150-in-1 manual is in far, far, better condition than mine as mine is so worn the pages were beginning to fall out. I received mine around 1980/81 (age 9/10) and my cousin and I spent countless hours experimenting with it during summer breaks for quite a few years. I would dare say we built all 150 experiments plus countless others not in the book as well as many variations that combined parts of multiple experiments. It was almost a wonder that we managed to avoid ever damaging any of the components, aside from wearing out the original bulb, though by now the electrolytic capacitors are probably well past their prime. I still have it around here somewhere! Before Radio Shack went out of business I bought one of their newer 200-in-1 kits for my nephew (currently age 6) as a future Christmas or birthday gift a few years from now!
Wow, that thumbnail brought back memories!
I got the 150-in-1 for my 8th birthday in 1980!! Memories!
Dad bought the 50 in 1 for me when I was 12 in 1969. A whopping $21!!! Shortly after that, my mom starting bringing home more of them from yard sales. 50 in 1, 100 in 1, and all the other variants. No more than fifty cents each! She was a cheap skate. I mean bargain hunter! :) Not all kids took to them. My luck! Anyone remember Radio Shack P-Box kits? I built almost all of them.
Very similar variants of the 150 in 1, 200 in 1, etc. are still on sale via amazon. I bought myself one of these kits when I was in my twenties - for a beginner of any age they are excellent, even if you 'outgrow' it very quickly. The spring connector design and physical layout still work in both a tactile and visual learning sense, the printed instruction manuals are generally very good also.
$30 in 1970s is more than double the cost of the new kit today. I remember constructing circuits with one of the old sets in the 1990s (handme down from my mother). It's great to see how much these kits have progressed.
Geez Alan, I'd think the "old school" one would be more fun and you'd learn more. I'd think if someone made a kit that featured raspberry pi projects, it would be a big seller. 73's KC2RDU
Oh man, I loved those! I had more than one...
What a trip down memory lane for me. I think I made every project in the book.
One of these kits got me fascinated by electronics in the 70s. I was about 9 years old.
Very good, thaks!
I had one of those! great fun :-)
Wow, I remember having a couple versions of these when I was a kid, I spent HOURS playing with that thing and now build/repair pretty much anything I want. Shame Radio Shack is no more.
I got 2 of that radioshack ones at a thrift store (a few years apart). I love them
Wow! Does this take me back....I had one of those Radio Shack kits too
The springs in kit made my kid fingers bleed -- I played with it so much :)
Real good price for all the stuff that comes with it, the newer one. It also looks like real fun for all ages and entry levels.
Brilliant kits these were, very similar kits in the UK. Looking at the newer modules all ready made and thinking...yeah..don't really learn much in the way things work and the electronic side of things. I remember building pir detectors, with the metal can sensor from tandy. Making my own stepper drivers from components purchased from maplin electronics and building stacked boards with logic gates, drivers and decoder for 7-segment displays..and learning about denounce circuitry along the way when my switch triggers didn't work quite as planned :) many hours fun.
I wore out a 30 in 1 radio shack kit as a kid. Got me hooked on electronics though. I dabble in arduino now.
when I was 13 years old I walked 27 miles to the next town where there was a Tandy store to buy that 150 in one kit........I thought I was king of the kids having that !!
Great! Thanks!!
I bought a newer version of the first kit you showed from RadioShack, that's what got me into Arduinos and what not, I've still got it kickin' around here somewhere! Radio shack part number: 28-280 unfortunately don't think they're made anymore but it was a great kit!
Maybe we should get Adafruit to bring back some kits like these, seeing as they own RadioShack now!! :D
Very nice
Actually still got mine. Fun projects