Ramsey Electronics out of the kit business

I suspect that there's also a certain amount of fracturing of the market

-- you can't (IMHO) do much that's useful without using surface mount or modules, but the "traditional" kit manufacturers never seemed to be able to get traction with those.

SparkFun seems to be thriving, with a paradigm that's more "modules for makers" rather than "kits for kids". Perhaps that's where the world has gone.

--

Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
http://www.wescottdesign.com

r h t

Exactly! The industry is heading towards a more modular one, where you need to choose your platform (Arduino, Microchip, Raspberry Pi, Propeller, etc. ) and then start adding modules to the platform. Seems to fit what's popula r right now, such as CNC machines, 3D printers, radio controlled devices li ke quadcopters, among other things. And, kids seem to prefer this direction , as they like to keep adding on and adding on, rather than built a kit, bu ild another kit, build another kit... It is a shame because adding on modul es don't really teach you much. But then, there seems to be more attention to software programming microcontrollers as well.

My Ramsey story, Several years ago I setup a few tables at the Orlando Hamfest, hoping to sell some of my electronic equipment, parts, and pieces. Two guys were looking over my stuff, when we somehow got into a conversation about FM transmitters. I said I had a Chinese made CZH-05B I got from Amazon. One of the guys said, that has harmonics in the band, I said, "I have never noticed it, but it is a whole lot better than the stupid FM25 Ramsey sells". They both paused a second and one of the guys said, "do know who this is"? I said, no. This Mr. Ramsey, from the Ramsey company. Mikek.

PS. I never have found harmonics in the pass band with a radio. I've had it over 4 years, works everyday. I run my internet radio to it and listen to Imus in the morning, in the morning, and usually Science 360 any other time. The hamfest was not very good for me, I had an outdoor table and it rained off and on during the weekend.

Hey Michael I recall when I was about 12 building a portable VHF radio Heathkit had as well as their AA-14 amplifier and AA-14 FM receiver.

Those were quite satisfying and well laid out products and designs for the day.

Radio Shack back then had a few amazing P-Box kits such as their three transistor shortwave radio for eight bucks.

Here I sit today with a few computers I cobbled together and a couple of Raspberry Pis' just for grins and giggles running Linux.

Just received from China two thermostat modules for the rather hefty price of all of $1.74 ea. ;-) They work.

That's temperature probe, set high, set low, hysteresis 12 volt and relay.

Like mentioned later in this thread what's been lacking is any kits introducing SMD as I myself have no experience there but soon be getting my feet just a little wet there with home brew.

Yeah I miss Heathkit and Popular Electronics.

Back then you had to work for it, kids today don't know how easy they've got it.

So yeah I find going to China the easy route myself these days as you can get the kits there as well as finished modules for cheap and to date 100 percent everything has been delivered and worked. Some 70 -80 orders and all free of postage from mainland China.

I'll even put in a plug for them as they've been solid for me.

Of course buyer beware and use some critical thinking in evaluating what to expect and what to get and review their feedback, length of time store open ect. but they've been 100 percent by me thus far these two years in.

Happen to know a source where I can get a good used core2-quad 775 processor source to upgrade these couple three core2-duos to 2.83 - 3.0 GHz?

If I can't get a referral to a source U.S. I guess I'll go there for that as well :-( Geeks.com sold retail for a while and damn they were outstanding but wholesale only now :-(

Popular Electronics was AWESOME! And I had that 3 xistor was P-box. First thing I heard was" DING DING DING This is radio Quito" I was blown away! Voices in the air! From South America!

Yes I was living in Massachusetts N.E. and got that very same station in Ecuador. I've not idea if it was the first but likely the first day. recall the dinky little variable cap hanging off the side on a steel mount and a regeneration potentiometer you had to adjust to just below oscillation for best sensitivity.

The selectivity sucked tho when two stations were located side by side the stronger would just take over.

The remarkable thing for me was my grandparents had bought me a Zenith all band shortwave radio at something like 125.00 and that eight dollar toy virtually matched it.

On popular electronics that was my introduction to digital electronics in the form of the COSMAC Elf as CDP1802 microprocessor based computer available to somkeone with limited capital at the time only by building it myself from parts obtained via Jameco. Spent a 24 hour straight binge with a wire wrapping pencil and got it dead bang right on the first power up.

Then the heartbreak of learning just buying assembler software software cost something like 2 grand :-( Anyway that was the processor for the first soft lander on MARS and I'd hacked one together at home for $90 U.S. F8 add immediate to the D register IIRC. Forest Mims, Don Lancaster these were some of my teachers.

Everything I built from their articles worked right off the bat and much of even worked when I personally made my own custom modifications. Miss that old rag.

I rmemeber about the year before seeing a Godbout ad where they offered the 8080, the clock IC that went with it, some ROM and some RAM for something like fifty dollars, something within reach. I was scheming how to get that money together when someone at school pointed out that you couldn't do anything with it without a monitor, and you needed to have the computer working before you could create a monitor. ANd I didn't have a terminal.

The 1802 had the advantage that one pin could be set a certain way so it could be stepped so you could put data directly into RAM. So you didn't need a monitor, or that complicated front panel cicuitry of something like the ALtair 8800. Other than the RAM, that COSMAC ELF didn't need any special parts, so it was easy to put together, and not really expensive.

What's interesting is there were articles about doing the same thing with the 8085, and later the 68000, jam a NOP into the data bus and the CPU would advance the address bus so you could put data into the ram at the next address. When DOn Lancaster wrote about his "cheap tv typewriter", which required a CPU, he was doing basically the same thing, so he'd jam a NOP onto the data bus so the CPU would keep advancing the address bus, which cycled through RAM to put the video onto the video screen.

I never used the 1802, so maybe it was harder, but I never used an assembler on the 6502. I hand assembled, after a bit you got used to it. It's not like a computer with that little RAM was going to run massive programs.

In the late seventies, someone from AMSAT (the amateur radio satellite group) came to the local amateur radio club to talk about the next amateur radio satellite. And he said it was going to use the 1802, for two reasons. One was that it was safe to use in space with all that radiation flying around, and since the RAM could be loaded without needing a monitor, it was easy to upload programs to the CPU, and it made it all so safe since you could fix any bad code that showed up.

Michael