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The question is basically, "If there were a DRM system that didn't do the things that DRM does, would you be opposed to it?"

My answer is still yes, for at least the following reasons:

1. It adds to the non-recurring engineering costs of digital media devices. When you design a device that handles media, you have to pay your engineers deal with the DRM aspect of it.
2. It adds to the unit costs of digital media devices. You have to add extra/more powerful hardware to every device in order to do the encryption or whatnot.
3. It stifles innovation. Right now, you can pick up the parts for a new device from your favourite electronics distributor (e.g. Digi-Key, Jameco, etc), and build a digital media device. With DRM, the parts you need will necessarily not be available to you. Even if the parts were available (which they wouldn't be), there would likely be legal barriers to entry into the market. All of this spells doom for small-budget inventors.

Bottom line: DRM is bad for consumers.

Everybody orders parts on the Internet now. Try DigiKey and Mouser. They ship really, really fast (order late in the day and it's here tomorrow morning) and they're seldom out of stock. Digi-Key even has the data sheets for almost everything they sell on line.

When I was in middle school, I subscribed to the Digi-Key catalog by mail just because there was a lot of fascinating stuff to see...everything from connectors and cables to semiconductor devices to embedded computers to prototyping tools and software.

You can get their catalog in PDF format here.

er, that's Digi-Key

We can safely assume that Apple can bring some pressure to bear for better pricing on all of the above parts. Given this analysis, I'd guess that the entry price for the mini-iPod will be $149 and Apple knows something we don't about how to keep costs down (or they're willing to take a much lower profit maragin to build market share: not a bad plan if you expect mini-iPod buyers to graduate to higher maragin products in a year or so).

...expensive. By the time you finish, you'll probably find that you've spent more than $200. But if you ever get it to work, it'll be worth it. There was a time when I really enjoyed projects like this, but after years hunched over schematics it feels too much like work.

First thing you need is a breadboard, for prototyping. You can get it, plus everything else you need at Digi-Key. Also, look for a couple of hobby mags at your local bookstore, Poptronics, and Nuts and Volts. You may find ideas and cheap parts sources there.

Oh, and do a little searching on smoke theory. All electronics work on smoke.

Microchip They offer low speed processors that can easily control that kind of thing from a serial port. Though, you will need to write your own code for it (sometimes the price you pay for doing it yourself.) You should be able to pick-up most of the parts you need for under $30 from Digi-key though the only part that might cost you a bit is the programmer for the processor. (I think you can actually build those too!)

In general, I think there is way too much emphasis on high performance and low cost these days, with nowhere near enough emphasis on stability and quality. This capacitor issue is just one symptom of quality generally going down the toilet.

Over the past year, I've personally had three motherboards become unstable or fail outright due to "exploding capacitor syndrome". The three boards were all different brands (MSI, Abit, and FIC). On the MSI, several of the capacitors literally exploded, and the board wouldn't boot any more. The Abit and FIC just went slowly downhill in terms of stability, as the capacitors became bloated and started to leak. I also scavenged a fourth dead board (another MSI with exploded capacitors) from one of my clients, who was throwing it out.

If you've got a little experience with soldering, it's not too difficult to replace the caps; this will generally restore the board to working order, provided none of the capacitors shorted out and took other components with them when they died. All you need are replacement low ESR capacitors (Panasonic FC series are good, you can mail-order them from places like Digi-Key); a soldering iron and desoldering tool (from your friendly neighborhood Radio Shack); some wire cutters (for trimming the capacitor leads after you've soldered them in place); and a steady hand.

If you get particularly unlucky, you may also have a fried switching regulator (MOSFET), or even burned PCB traces. It may still be possible to salvage the board even in extreme cases like this, but you'll need to buy replacement MOSFETs as well, and get a little creative with soldering some wires to the board to bypass the burned traces.

I've already repaired both MSI boards and the Abit. The MSI from my client turned out to be more trouble than I expected though (one of the VIO regulators was toasted). The FIC is next up on the operating table...

Somebody asked above how well LED flashlights work. Mine is blindingly bright: looking into the beam at close range produces a dazzle effect like a flashbulb, complete with sparkly afterglow. I used highly-focused LEDs: it makes a beam about 2 feet across at a distance of 10 feet. Unfortunately, since the human eye isn't very sensitive to red, the beam doesn't appear very bright, but it's plenty good enough to see with at night. Battery life is very good: I gave up trying to run it down after 24 hours, although there was noticeable dimming by that point. One good thing about LEDs is that they simply grow dimmer as the battery runs down, unlike incandescents which have a tendency not to glow at all once the voltage falls below a critical point.