Is Electronics Addictive?

It seems to me that once someone attains a certain level of proficiency in electronics, it becomes a lifelong obsession .. more so than you would expect from many other (legal) hobbies.

Why is this? It is complicated, expensive, and often frustrating.

I speculate it has something to do with the similarity between the electrons in the circuit and our own nervous system.

This could explain our relentless desire to evolve into tech-carrying androids.

Any insights?

Do you know of anyone who has ever GIVEN UP electronics??

Please help.

Bill Sutton

Reply to
Bill Sutton
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Yes it is addictive, I was assimilated at an early age. Attracted I think by the colorful components and glowing valves of the time. it all looked so enticing.

It has been at the core of my working life for the last 35 years and despite the intense frustration caused by various employers I still cannot bring myself to leave the trade.

Yes it is very expensive but just like any drug you just cant beat the kick of success ;-)

No I dont know anyone who has given up.

Chris Porter

Reply to
Christopher Porter

Ditto, since I was 15 building valve amplifiers for record players for a local company.. that was 45 years ago..... then I became an electronics apprentice at the RAE Farnborough,eventually getting involved in the changeover from an analogue computer to a digital computer for one of the high speed wind tunnels. Digital became my passion and has never changed. If I can't to it digital, I don't bother :)

Reply to
TTman

I did buy all the electronic parts from one fellow when he quit electronics as a hobby. I had concerns he might be getting ready to end things, but then he showed my all his new fly fishing lure tying equipment.

My last electronics job was 8 years ago, but I have a bench setup with scope, sig gen, freq counter, well all the usual stuff. Still waiting for the John to send the Mantis to me :-) Mikek

Reply to
amdx

I don't find it expensive at all. In fact, the money flows, in rather large quantities, the other direction. ;-) OTOH, woodworking...

Retirees?

Reply to
krw

Perhaps addictive, but not in the typical way in which an addiction messes up the lives of all the people around them. Hopefully others want you around if you are good at electronics. Maybe not to party with you, but so you can fix their stuff :-)

I know some engineers who have given up electronics, but they are mostly the ones who went into engineering to get into management or for money reasons. The engineers I have met who went into it for the passion of understanding electronics do not seem to give it up.

Reply to
brent

Well, it is an awful lot of fun.

If you do the same unhealthy thing over and over, that's addiction. Electronics keeps changing, and the applications you can work on are all over the place, which lets you get involved in all sorts of interesting and diverse processes, and make them better.

Electronics is, ultimately, the ability to control information and energy. That's sort of universal.

I've known several people who gave up electronics. The trend is to do something humanitarian. One guy went to India to help out. One guy became a nurse. Some take the Dark Side and become managers or real estate agents.

Lots of people have a single career: dentist, truck driver, chef, auto mechanic, teacher, scientist. That's not addiction.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Fat chance. The older I get, the more valuable it is to me.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Have quite an interest in the history of electronics, (MIT Radiation Lab series etc) and recently bought a 1950's book on analog computers that has a brief description of the TRIDAC computer at RAE. Apparently, it was so large that it needed it's own office block building to house it, consumed around 1/2 megawatt running and had separate rooms for the hydraulic systems, cooling system, amplifier rooms etc. Hundreds of amplifiers and similar number of mechanical ball and disk integrators, coordinate transformation etc. Have searched on the web, but can find out very little about this computer. Perhaps you have more info and what happened to it, when it was decommissioned etc ?.

The reason early analog and digital computer techniques are interesting is that they were designed to maximise compute and algorithm efficiency with very limited resources and some this can be very relevant to modern applications using low power micros...

Regards,

Chris

Reply to
ChrisQ

Bwhuahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Tell us more, Einstein.

Reply to
Chieftain of the Carpet Crawle

After retirement, one of my professors went to law school, of all things.

Reply to
krw

Is being AlwaysWrong an addiction? I think so.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I was a - good - chemist before I was an electonic engineer. Chemistry and electronics both pose complicated and interesting problems, but the tools you've got to solve the electronic problems are easier to get your head around, and easier to put together. Admttedly, when I started out, most of the electronic problem-solving involved stringing transistors together, and the advances of "physical methods" in chemistry (mostly involving electronics-based measuring instruments) has changed that field a great deal.

I can't say that I know anybody who has given up electronics. I'm not doing much of it at the moment, but I remain decidely interested.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Reply to
Bill Sloman

No, not retirees! More time, more projects more things to learn to do!

It just gets worse with age...

Until I saw the post below, I would have said "i am interested in all things electronic"

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Now I have to say that I am interested in ALMOST all things electronic!

Electronics is a life style to a lot of us!

John Ferrell W8CCW

Reply to
John Ferrell

No doubt John, I once heard an eye doctor say "tell me your prescription and I'll tell you how old you are." Mikek

Reply to
amdx

Yeah, lots of things unrelated to electronics.

Maybe its because I do it all week but I have no interest in electronics as a hobby anymore. Its fun job but enough is enough. We'll see what happens when I retire for good (tried it once already ;-).

;-). What, afraid to try something new? ;-)

Maybe, but there are so many more interesting things out there. Though I have to admit, many of which get me to thinking about electronic toys to add to the experience. ;-)

Reply to
krw

No, you have to be born that stupid.

Reply to
krw
[snip]

Doesn't always work. I have 20/20, but need reading glasses for really fine print/work. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

It wasn't that big.... at least not the one I worked on.I was in a small room abot 15'x15', hung on teh back of the tunnel. I guess it was scrapped/given to the apprentices to use... same as all the TSR2 electronics.

Reply to
TTman

It's less expensive than a lot of other hobbies.

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Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

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