Re: Way OT: How Wal-mart is costing you!

On Dec 2, 6:21 pm, "GPE" <GPEnos...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
<allentown2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:77f4290a-5aa7-4448-b9ef->
Yeah and I remember Delta Electronics too in Amherst MA, they
advertised same time and venue. We used to make trips there, came home
with boxes of stuff. I really miss the old days in electronics. My
first microprocessor was a 4004, then I bought the MITS Altair kit.
Still have it.

Damn! To have been able to afford ones, you must be older tha me!!!
4004? I had one too but sold it a couple months ago on ebay. Altair? I
remember dreaming about them things! OK, as a teenager at that time - that
wasn't really what I dreamt about...
My first computer was a home made Elf (RCA1802). Little metal box with 16
toggle switches for address lines, 8 toggle switches for data lines, load
button, reset button, and 8-LED's...nothing else. Then bought a Quest
Cosmac Elf. Took several months of mowing lawns and begging to save up the
$89 it cost for that one. Again, sold on ebay last year.

-- Ed

I was 15 at the time... the 4004 was a gift! A promo sample that made
it into my hands from math department head at the local (largest in
the state) high school.

Built a "knock off" of a PDP-8 with a VERY limited instruction set,
from RTL logic donated by Fairchild (still have boxes of 'em, they
have gold plated leads). Then when the ALtair came out I signed up for
the kit-a-month plan. That was exiciting! Still have the invoice. Ahhh
the good old days. Concurrently I built an 8085 CPU, all wire wrap,
for the robot I was working on. Bastardized Bill Gates tiny basic into
my own for controlling the robot. Except for Nuts & Volts, seems the
all the hobbyist stuff has dropped off the map. I have a HUGE
inventory of TTL chips, among many others. Just the other day I
counted 9 SC-01 speech chips in my dusty inventory, all in original
packing. I'd love to get back to electronics more, but surface mount
just sucks. Got turned onto the Chipcorder, looking at building a
replacement sound system for my Peppy the Clown.
.