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The Atmel AVR Butterfly is a $20 microcontroller on a board intended to be an introduction to AVR microcontrollers or microcontrollers in general. Low cost of entry, plenty of real world I/O (temp sensor, LCD, speaker, light sensor, ADC) and easy to program (free tool-chain, including gcc C compiler). Available from Digi-Key or Mouser online.

Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments from O'Reilly and Make-zine. Check out the author's associate website, HomeChemLab including their small but friendly and supportive forum.

Finally, for free, teach the lessons that freedom comes with the price of responsibility, and that knowledge and understanding are powerful (physics jokes aside) tools. Also honesty and integrity, include admitting to making mistakes and being unsure are valuable currency for building a reputation that can lead to being trusted (and respected). And that it is okay to be curiosity (though sometimes some tact is also needed). -- My parent's tolerance and patience were important factors in developing my good "geekiness" qualities, so I encourage an environment that is supportive not punitive about failure (mistakes).

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein

A metric crapton of LCD displays on Mouser:

http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Ntt=*lcd*+*display*&N=1323038&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchall&Ns=P_SField&OriginalKeyword=lcd+display&Ntk=Mouser_Wildcards

Many can be had for $5 for a basic one, to $10 for a pretty nice backlit one.

I was considering using a little 8 bit microcontroller (also just a few dollars) to buffer RS-232 chars from the 'puter and then convert and send the right command set for the display. You can get the command set from the display's datasheet. Usually they're simple; you just set some lines high to send a command (such as clear display, or draw a character and move one position), and then wait for a line to go low before sending the next command.

I am planning to get one and fit it into a 5 1/4" drive bay faceplate for an HTPC.

The http://www.arrickrobotics.com/ A-Robot is an excellent beginner's bot. It is rugged (can survive 10 years in a drawer and still function) gets you up and running quickly, and is expandable. A 12V, 2A power output, 3 spare RC servos, and a 40 pin I/O header (that takes an IDE cable) will let you play with electronics. Roger Arrick wrote "Robots for Dummies" that shows one project at a time how to breadboard a peripheral and code for it. Buy everything that's in the T1 kit, but don't get the BS2 - get the BS2e. $400.

The closest second for a beginner's bot is the BOE bot fromParallax. It's based on the same processor. The problem with the BOE bot is that when it breaks, it's dead. It's not really expandable like the A-Robot is. you would have to see the A-Robot (1 ft x 1ft) next to the BOE Bot (6in x 6in) to understand.

For less beginning, and more electronics, check out http://www.ere.co.th./ You are trading BASIC for assembly, and no longer have a beginner's book to guide you. You do have http://www.avrfreaks.net./ The really cool thing is all the peripherals on 16 pin headers, so you don't have to spend 3 days to get a stepper motor to spin. You will be able to bread-board parts too, with 16-pin headers on the boards.

A close second in this field would be the boards that accept Atmel STK-style headers. That's what I use when I'm not building a custom board. I'm too entrenched in 10 pin headers to go to 16 pin headers, though I made some 10-to-16-pin-adapter-boards.

Finally, you could get an AVR board like I use for my projects from http://www.geocities.com/mengjinsu. Meng's boards are great if you know how to stuff PCBs and solder them. I order them by the dozen. Get the ABR chips from http://www.digikey.com/ and the rest of your stuff from there or http://www.mouser.com./ Also, take a look at http://www.sparkfun.com/

Andy Out!

I've ordered a number of "Velleman" kits http://www.vellemanusa.com/ for various projects. They're quite similar to heathkits and others mentioned. The problem with kits like those is that they don't really teach you about electronics so much as they're just good soldering practice. A bit more professional and adult in execution than the wire+spring kits sold by rat-shack but just as empty in the theory it teaches.

If you're really interested in leaning about electronics the first thing you need to do is pick a project, pick something that someone else has already done and posted the schematics and other information about. Then head over to to this website Its the home page for a highschool electronics club but IMO it's some of the best info on the web on the basic theory about how electronics work as well as how to read diagrams, understand components and solder them together, everything you need to get started.

now you've got a project and some basic knowledge head over to a site like SparkFun loads of useful parts and kits to get you started on nearly any project. I order 99% of my parts from Digikey if they don't have it there you'd be hard pressed to find it elsewhere, it's not very beginner friendly though... Mouser Electronics is much more suited for beginners but their pricing is also a little higher and their selection not as good.

I didn't get into electronics until I was in college and I didn't study electronics in college at all. I basically just picked a project and then just did as much research and self teaching as I needed to get it done, then picked a harder project then a harder project until I am where I am today. I've actually had a couple of my custom electronics projects published in magazines and I only started learning this stuff about 6 or so years ago, not even knowing how to solder or what a resistor is. The resources above were invaluable though

Having good equipment is important too. Go to the rat-shack and buy their 15Watt iron, a spring stand with a sponge, some .22mm silver bearing solder, a de-soldering iron, a nice set of helping hands, a nice set of miniature pliers, a nice set of cutters/strippers/crimps, and some 22ga stranded hookup wire. You'll spend about $50 and have pretty much everything you need to tackle any DIY electronics project. You should also consider spending a bit of cash on a good multimeter, which isn't necessary but HIGHLY recommended for troubleshooting or reverse engineering.

Good Luck and have fun :)

When I wanted to get into robotics, I just dove right in. Bought some books on electronics and started buying tools and components.

For components, there are a lot of options. Check out E-bay and any of the many electronics surplus suppliers on the internet. For specific components, Mouser and Digi-Key tend to be excellent.

I'd recommend buying some of the mix packs of things like resistors, capacitors, ICs, etc. You can usually get variety packs of them pretty cheap.

As for books, Horowitz' The Art of Electronics is generally considered the bible, and for good reason. Any other basic book on electronics (Idiot's Guide type stuff is good) help as a second point of view, particularly if one description doesn't make sense to you, perhaps the way another author phrases it will.

As for projects, the if you don't have any ideas of your own, there are plenty of internet sites with ideas and schematics. There are several volumes of The Encyclopedia of Electronic Circuits, as well, which tend to have a variety of cool little projects. Buy a few breadboards or wirewrap boards and start building... I find breadboards to be pretty good for doing small projects.

Go to the library and get a bunch of books on electronics. Then go to Radio Shack and buy a bread board. A bread board is a board where you test circuit designs out. You don't need to do any soldering on it. A strip board is for a more permanent circuit that you don't plan on changing. One thing I recommend if you're going to be soldering on a strip board is FLUX. It makes soldering a hell of a lot easier. Components to buy from Radio Shack: A soldering iron, solder, flux, a breadboard or two. Also get a few 9 volt plugs to plug into the bread board or strip board and 9 volt batteries. Radio Shack also has a few cases you can put your circuit in, although there isn't much selection. You're going to need wire of course.

Now the question is - what do you want to build? The library books will have some circuits. So will bookstores. You can find them on the net as well. This girl from MIT has a lot of cool circuits and kits. Once you decide what to put together you will also probably be getting some other components like capacitors, resistors and chips like 555 timers. You can find 555 timers and chips like that from Radio Shack, but for more obscure chips you might want to look to see if there are electronics components stores in your area that sell this stuff. If not, go to Mouser.com or Digikey where you can usually buy whatever you need, unless it is a specialized chip that they don't have. This should get you a start on putting boards together.

As an EE who started off with one of those 50-in-one kits when I was 8, I have a few recommendations. I had a 200-in-one, but the more impressive projects on it required so many wires it was nigh-impossible to get things to stay working. Put one in and two fall out.

You can start with one of those kits, but once you get to the point where you'll really learn what you're doing, go look for books and kits separately. Look for books by Forrest Mims III and Don Lancaster (TTL Cookbook and CMOS Cookbook are classics). Check their sites out as well.

As for parts sources, for online shopping, I'd recommend Digi-Key. Jameco is a little pricey, but they have some really interesting parts, including a lot of older stuff. All Electronics is a place I used to buy from a lot; they have a lot of manufacturer surplus parts, so it's kind of like shopping in a flea market or surplus auction. Another surplus shop is MPJA. Newark and Mouser are good places to look when you want some specific part that Digi-Key doesn't have.

For starters, you'll want to buy a modular breadboard, and one of the pre-cut wire kits for them. Or, if you want to blow some more dough, you might want to get one of the Analog Design Lab or Digital Design Lab things that has a bunch of things like power supplies, LEDs, and switches integrated into it already. Also look for parts assortments, like resistor and capacitor assortments (e.g. Digi-Key items RS125-ND and PHD1-KIT-ND). If you're going to be doing digital work, you'll probably want to get lots (20 or so) of 10K resistors (for pullups) and 0.1 uF capacitors (for decoupling).

Radio Shack is where you go as a last resort. Their selection is lousy and prices are worse.

• Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics (4th ed.) by Stan Gibilisco
• Guide to Understanding Electricity and Electronics by G. Randy Slone
• Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest M. Mims III
• The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - IMHO an excellent reference, not as useful for the newbie
• Basic Electronics by Bernard Grob
• Understanding Basic Electronics by Larry D. Wolfgang
• Practical Electronics for Inventors (2nd ed.) by Paul Scherz

While Z80s are cool, some people prefer microcomputers with RAM, ROM and I/O integrated on the IC. For example:

Microchip or
Atmel

or a small board level device like:

The Basic Stamp

A very cool supplier of microcontrollers and accessories is:

Sparkfun

And the usual suppliers:

Digikey
Newark
Arrow
Mouser

Just *yesterday* I was looking for *exactly* the same thing: a way to hook up a Gumstix to a display. I would like to use it for a home automation project.

If you use one of the appropriate expansion boards, you can interface a Gumstix to a variety of raw LCD panels: there's even X Windows drivers for it. However, there's nothing for TV out (composite, for example), and there is nothing for VGA out.

The cheapest LCD touch screen I could find is $56 bucks. Then you still have to buy a controller board and LCD interface (about $150 from Gumstix), and a case, cables, etc. It adds up quick.

The more research I do, the more likely I am to do it with Palms: where else can you get a color LCD with touch screen, 200MHz processor, 32MB RAM, etc. for under $100? Palm Z22

I'd love to hear from someone with a better idea... :)

http://www.mouser.com/

Please, please please don't go to radio shack. Their product quality is crap, their prices are rediculous, and their selection is terrible. I've been using Mouser for years as a hobbyist. While their low volume or single unit prices aren't the best around, they're still very reasonable. Their service is incredible, shipping is prompt, and they have a mind-boggling inventory of even the most obscure parts. I'm sure others like Mouser exist, but that's merely one example of a company that can completely replace any need for radio shack.

If you take away their electronic components aisle, what else do they sell that you can't get for better/cheaper/faster elsewhere?

Note: Call it what you will, but I don't work for this company.

The first thing to realise there are plenty of technology related hobbyists around the world, although most are not high profile and some may be different very different demographics than yourself.

Some (hobby) groups to consider looking towards for ideas and help include: woodworkers, metalworkers (hobbyists using micromills and mini-lathes from TaigTools and Sherline, etc.), model railroads, model aircrafts (static and RC), robotics, amateur radio (ham), 2600, LUGs, and Artist Run Centres/Communities

Random list of some I use or know of:
  Make magazine http://www.makezine.com/
  Instructables http://www.instructables.com/
  ARRL http://www.arrl.org/
  http://www.sparkfun.com/ (check out their tutorials)
  http://www.fpga4fun.com/ / http://www.knjn.com/
  QRP-L http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/qrp-l/>
  GQRP http://www.gqrp.com/
  http://www.pololu.com/ (cheap stencils laser cut, e.g. 3x4 for $32)
  http://www.diyaudio.com/
  http://www.digikey.com/ (if you're still buying electronics from Radio Shack, get these 3 catalogs now!)
  http://www.mouser.com/
  http://www.jameco.com/
  the ton of various surplus/NOS dealers online
  http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/
  http://www.seattlerobotics.org/
  http://www.chibots.org/index.php
  DorkBot
  http://eyebeam.org/production/production.php?page= tools
  MIT CBA FAB http://fab.cba.mit.edu/
  http://www.leevalley.com/
  http://www.smallparts.com/
  http://www.danssmallpartsandkits.net/
  http://www.wmberg.com/
  http://www.acklandsgrainger.com/
  http://www.grainger.com/
  http://www.onlinemetals.com/
  http://www.amqrp.com/
  http://www.princessauto.com/
  http://www.sherline.com/
  http://www.taigtools.com/

It's an effect of the social and educational shift of our populace having zero interest in the technology behind all the gadgets they're using.

On mailing lists and other web-based electronics forums, the majority of people truly interested and BUILDING things with electronics are not hobbyists, they're engineers who also tinker with electronics in their spare time or as a second job.

Slashdot is probably not a good cultural place to ask this, but...

When was the last time you really repaired a piece of electronics? Was it worth it?

RadioShack stocked parts when it was common for any handyman to attempt to fix their home electronics. With costs down, and complexity up to the point where you need a hot-air soldering station to work on surface-mount technology/boards, and schematics published by manufacturers and given out with the equipment a complete relic of the distant past, no one repairs anything anymore unless they have formal training or have absolutely nothing to lose in trying.

Other things hurt the "old" RadioShack model also, like the proliferation of places like DigiKey and Mouser Electronics where you can order small parts in quantity cheaper than you could ever get them at RatShack, and have them delivered to your door next-day.

I'm amazed Fry's still sells oscilloscopes, really... and impressed.

The honor of the first stored-program digitial computer should probably go to Konrad Zuse for his Z3 machine. It was electro-mechanical, but has been proven to be Turing complete.

Indeed. The whole discussion about about "electronic" vs. "electro-mechanical" serves only one purpose, namely to give all credit to the ENIAC team and no credit to Konrad Zuse. It really does not matter whether a computer is based on relays, tubes, TTL transistors or field effect transistors. In all those implementations we find a timed gate controlling a current, the basic idea of a binary operation. Besides, all those components are typically found in an electronics catalog these days.

There is actually a good reason to use relays instead of tubes. Tubes had a very short lifetime. One bad tube can ruin your day. Having to deal with 18,000 tubes is a nightmare.

ENIAC was a great team effort. However, Konrad Zuse not only built the first electronic computer, Z1, he did it alone at age of 28 without support by any university, company and government. Konrad Zuse was a true genius and he deserves the credit for building the first electronic computer.

I totally agree - I've had nothing but great experiences from Digikey.

The same can be said of Mouser.

Let me state right up front that, technological and potential privacy issues aside, I don't think this is going to make passports any more secure. I further believe the arrogance shown by the U.S. towards other countries in this matter ("You WILL convert to this same standard if you want your citizens to be able to visit our country") is absolutely typical of our current administration.

In other words, I don't agree with it.

WITH THAT SAID: Allow me to point out a few facts, based on previously-published material and my own knowledge of RFID technology.

First and foremost: What no one seems to have noticed (it may not have been reported in TFA, which I've yet to read) is that the State Department is, reportedly, going to weave their idea of a Faraday Cage right into the covers of the new passports in the form of a metallic-filament weave. Bruce Schneier mentions this on his site already.

This should, in theory, effectively counteract any sort of attempt to read the thing remotely when the passport is closed. If you're really paranoid about it, you can place your passport into an ESD Shielding Bag, available from most electronic component distributors such as Allied Electronics, DigiKey, or Mouser.

On the subject of long-distance remote reading: I doubt very much we're going to see, as one other poster pointed out (paraphrasing), "criminals with laptops and a portable reader under their coat" any time soon. For starters, the return emission from most passive RFID chips of the low and mid-frequency ranges (125-148kHz and 13.56MHz) is very weak. The chip would require a significant amount of close-up RF energy to excite it, and a large antenna and high-quality receiver to pick up the return signal.

Going further along those lines: Remember that RF field strength decreases quickly, as you move away from the source, according to the Inverse Square Law. The main reason that the low and mid-freq chips are only readable up to about 3 feet away is because, in order to have them work from further away, you'd need a transceiver the size of a large HF ham radio setup, and equally large (and obvious) antennas (the lower the frequency, the physically larger the antenna has to be).

For a criminal to effectively read such chips with portable equipment, they'd have to be standing more than close enough to the security folk to attract unwanted attention.

While I have found some references to the State Dept. having been able to read the test passports from 30 feet away with "special equipment," I also recall that this equipment was hardly portable, and required direct connection to AC power to be operable at all. In other words, it needed a lot more power than an easily-portable battery source could provide, and it was hardly what I would call surreptitious. Based on that stated range, I have reason to believe that the DoS was using 915MHz RFID tags for their test. Such tags are, according to this list, very much readable from at least 25 feet away.

I've been unable to locate any references on which specific frequency or type of RFID chip will be used in US passports (anyone else have any references on that?) Despite that, I think it's premature to draw conclusions based solely on the news articles to date. News articles do not, after all, make for a technical white paper.

I would suggest that those who get the new passports, and that have the technical know-how, try to read them with an appropriate RFID reader. Try different distances and angles, see if you can actually read the thing with the cover closed and (if possible) try a variety of d

Wifi and bluetooth are relatively expensive, and bulky.

However, there are other alternatives.

IR however (one-way) can be done for well under $2 or so, in bulk.

Batteries - as always are a problem.

I haven't seen a power consumption figure.

If you're willing to accept a lump, rechargeble alkaline AAA cells are one way to go.

(cheaper, lighter, and less toxic than other rechargables) Li-poly is quite expensive.

However.

If you are willing to accept the same format as a book, then putting 3-4 books on it is not a problem, with relatively little outlay.

Do these modules really "cost less than $100?"

Digging around the MaxStream.net site lead me to this page:
http://www.maxstream.net/products/order-developmen t-kit.php.

It looks like the lowest costing kit is $149. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, if anyone wants to know where they can purchase a Zigbee transceiver module for $79.95, you can buy them here:
http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=displaypro duct&lstdispproductid=690992&e_categoryid=283&e_pc odeid=62607

I just purchased a pair of these for a senior design project I'm working on.

a: For the wired version: Support for Power over Ethernet. This way, separate power isn't needed in many installations.

The development board and DCME itself break out pins from the PHY for this purpose. No problems here. You just need to hook up something like a MAX5941 and you're set. (I haven't been interested in this yet, tho.)

b: A single USB port for both versions

The FTDI FT232BM is what you're looking for. RS232 to USB, with drivers for Windows, Mac, and a linux usbserial driver to boot. $5/chip in one-offs. Great chip for interfacing with any serial device, microcontroller, etc. Mouser sells this chip on a nice backpack board with all the external logic you need -- just connect the power, tx, and rx, and you're done!

Of course, this won't get you USB HOST (which is probably what you want), so in that case you may have to pursue another design.

• Digi-Key (USA and Canada). Flat cheap shipping, sell most things in small quantities.
• Mouser.
• Jameco, although Jameco have crappy shipping to canada.
• Newark.

As well, there are a few off-axis surplus places (allelectronics.com, for example) that have super deals on things compared to the big suppliers, but less selection. Do you know a good surplus place? Add it to this thread!

• 8" XGA lcd panel - $155
• 5 x lumina 2000 LED lights (500 lumens, 25W) - $100
• Fresnel, diffuser, lense - $62
• box, fan - $15

If lcd panels can be found (with vga/dvi connector) that do SXGA or better in similar form factor, please reply. DVI input for the lcd panel of that form factor would be nice. Comments?

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.

Nice links. And here's some karma whoring (not that me needs it).

Creative people and projects:
- http://www.diyaudio.com/ (DIY audio equipment forum)
- http://sound.westhost.com/projects.htm (audio stuff schematics)
- http://headwize.com/projects/index.htm (DIY headphone stuff)
- http://www.hauptwerk.co.uk/pedalboard.html (DIY MIDI pedalboards, just add keyboards and software and you have a MIDI organ)
- http://www.diysubwoofers.org/ (what it says)
- http://www.plasmatweeter.de/eng_plasma.htm (DIY ionic tweeter)

Places to buy stuff:
- http://www.newark.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.mouser.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.tubesandmore.com/ (components for vintage electronics)

Getting stuff made:
- http://www.olimex.com/ (cheap PCBs)

There are other sources. Mouser Electronics is inexpensive and has no minimum order.

555 timer

Your idea of using surplus is only good is you have whatever said surplus already laying around. I don't happen to have any of the old parts you mention (gameboys, zip drives, scanner, etc.) lying around, or you have a large enough surplus supply (electronic goldmine, ocean state electronics, ebay but prices get whacked quickly) on the market.

Experimenting with cheap 8-bit microcontrollers such as Microchip's PIC or Atmel's AVRs is quite cheap, and typically all you need is a chip and one (really cheap if want) device - a programmer to transfer the (binary/hex) programs from your PC to the microcontroller's flash memory.

You will quickly outgrow Radio Shack unless you need a part right now and you don't have the right one in your own stock pile, often referred to as a "junk box" regardless of actual physical size. You should be getting the free catalogs (or CDs) from Digikey, Mouser, Newark, and Jameco. These all have usable online ordering systems and reasonable minimum order & shipping fees. UK geeks check G3SEK's UK Component and Tool Suppliers web page.

Many useful projects can be made for less than $100 even if you need to buy all the parts. After you build a collection of common parts (common resistors, capacitor values, PIC 16F628, AVR AT90S2313, red & green LEDs, 2N2222A, 2N3904, 2N3906, 2N4401, 2N4403, 2N4416, 4N25, 1N4148, 1N4001, 1N4007, etc.) and tools this cost will go down.

The real question is do they assume a general audience or do they assume a "knowledgeable user" is their target market? If the stuff is purely "cookbook" & kit building (AmQRP kits as an example) with little or no encouragement (and knowledge transfer) for the average Make reader to explore and expand it won't survive IMHO. BTW AmQRP kits on their own are pretty limited at expanding your knowledge, but combined with the AMQRP Homebrewer magazine and Conference Proceedings they do teach a lot. There is also the QRP-L mailing list which is very useful for technical questions (and has a rich archive)

I think it should be what Nuts and Volts magazine tries to be, but without the "legacy" dead weight and filler articles. A gentler introduction to most of the Circuit Cellar type stuff.

If people think this will recreate the Homebrew Computer Club, I expect they will be mistaken, but if you expect it to awaken the curiousity and encourage youth to learn about electronics, then I hope it is a brillent success.

In the end, I am curious and not quite sure what to expect of Make. It could be really lame if all it ends up being is computer geeks pretending to be electronic engineers (or electronic hobbyists). I hope that at least 10% of it expands what I know, which is more than I can say of books like Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks (O'Reilly) and Hardware Hacking: Have Fun While Voiding Your Warranty. I am more interested in reading stuff like Hacking the Xbox (An Introduction to Reverse Engineering) by Andrew "bunnie" Huang which starts simple but gets into FPGAs and reverse engineering.

Or Mouser, or Newark.

Digikey is alright, but I've had much better luck with Mouser and Newark, although Newark is generally easier to deal with if you can funnel your orders through a corporate ordering account.

The 3M velcro straps (Hook and Loop Fasteners) are great and don't cost much. They have multiple types (length, width, colors) perforated or not.

I like the 600" x 1" roll with 8" perforations. Allows me to cut them down the middle and in half if needed. 300 1/2" x 4" straps for less than $7. Great for all kinds of organization tasks.

Here are some of the places I've found them:

Mouser
Jensen Tools

Before 1994, the idea of walking into a bookstore and seeing entire shelves of books on real-time graphics and game programming was almost unheard of. The very techniques and sciences driving the games that were already making billions of dollars for the Ataris and Nintendos of the world were still well-guarded secrets. That all changed, however, with the release of Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus by computer scientist Andre' LaMothe, and within only a few years, an entirely new genre of technical books had seemingly taken over the world.

Uh, I hate to mention it Andre, but this simply isn't true.

Just to drive that point home, here's a short list of some excellent pre-1994 books on graphics and game programming:

Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, 1st edition. Foley, Van Damm et. al. ASIN 0201121107. Addison Wesley. 1990
Zen of Assembly Language. Abrash, Michael. ASIN 0673386023. Scott Foresman Trade. 1990
Power Graphics Programming. Abrash, Michael. ASIN 0880225009. Que. 1989
Flights of Fantasy: Programming 3d Video Games in C++. Lampton, Chris. ASIN 1878739182. Waite Group. 1993
The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery. Dewdney, A K. ASIN 0716721449. W H Freeman & Co. 1990
Visual Basic: Game Programming for Windows. Young, Michael J. ASIN 1556155034. Micro$#!t Press. 1992
Balance of Power: International Politics as the Ultimate Global Game. Crawford, Chris. ASIN 0914845977. Microscope Publications Ltd. 1986
3D Computer Graphics, 1st Edition. Watt, Alan. ASIN 0201154420. Addison-Wesley. 1993
Mathematical Methods in Games, Programming, and Economics. Karlin, Samuel. ASIN 0486670201. Dover Publications (Reprint Edition). 1992
Creating Arcade Games on the Vic. Camp, Robert. ASIN 0942386256. Compute. 1984
Games Programming. Soloman, Eric. ISBN 052127110X. Cambridge University Press. 1984
The Art of Computer Game Design. Crawford, Chris and Linda. ASIN 0078811171. McGraw-Hill Osbourne Media. 1984
Atari Graphics and Arcade Game Design. Stanton, Jeffrey and Pinal, Dan. ASIN 0912003057. Arrays. 1984

The list goes on.

And don't forget good old Dr. Dobb's Journal. A certain John Carmack would not be where he is today if it weren't for Abrash's articles on tricked-out assembly language in that mag.

Sorry for using ASINs on most of them and not ISBNs, but that's all Amazon would give me.

I'm familiar with LaMothe's previous work in games. He's a career author/editor on game-related topics. One thing I've noticed that is common to everything he does is that he hypes his work up to be like "You'll be able to write games just like the pros!" when they're really more like "You'll be able to write half-assed pieces of garbage that might have been commercially viable 10 years ago!" His style is similar to Chris Crawford's - highly subjective, more designed to appeal to your emotions while occasionally throwing you a bone to keep you interested than actually cramming as much useful info as possible into one easy resource (i.e. Real-Time Rendering). He's just trying to sell you a book, that's all. You're not actually going to make anything that will really make back your "investment". Not with his stuff, anyway.

Oh, and check out some of the games he's published. Never heard of them, you say?

If you want to make a homebrew game system. Pick up a couple books on computer architecture, graphics, etc. Subscribe to Mouser, get your soldering iron nice and hot, and have a blast. You'll probably learn a lot more.

If you want to write games for a system that's 1000x faster than a Super NES, go to this amazing reference site and type "linux game programming" into the magic prompt. You won't be disappointed.

My understanding from surfing RadioShack Sucks is that their salesdroids would actually be penalized financially, or even fired altogether, for failing to obtain some arbitrary percentage of customer names and addresses. Seems like the quota was something on the order of 80-90% "compliance."

Between local stores like Active Electronics, the utterly-amazing variety of electronic parts on eBay and topnotch mail-order houses like Digi-Key, Jameco, and Mouser, it's pretty darned rare for me to set foot in a RatShit store these days. Their 1/4-watt resistor assortments are still a killer deal, though.

I don't really have any suggestions for disk drives and monitors. But conformal coating will get you started in putting a standard desktop computer on a yacht

-James Jefferson Amateur Radio Station KB0THN

Oh dear - you're obviously reluctant to try that again but perhaps you're not sure why, so let's do the math. Your average computer needs about 100 watts to run. Let's simplify things and assume for a second that they only need 12VDC as well. That's 8.5 amps. In order for a series voltage divider to work, your resistors must eat 90% of the voltage (120/(120-12)) - 108 volts. 108 volts at 8.5 amps is 918 watts, roughly the same as a large element on a kitchen stove. Divide this by 4 and you get 229 watts per resistor. I don't believe you can buy those kinds of resistors at Radio Shack.

Also, if you fried the motherboard, then your resistors were probably of too low a value. You need 12.7 ohms total, so for a bridge rectifier where only two of the diodes would be conducting at any given time and the resistors would effectively be in series, you'd want 6.4 ohm resistors. Mouser sells a 6.8 ohm 300 watt resistor that would work. Make sure to bolt it to a heatsink of the proper size.

So now you know what you need to fix before you try it again, and this time, please, get the solder rain on videotape.

You get a nice built in keyboard, an lcd display,
and it'll sync up to your real computer.

From there you can program your Z80 in assy, C, or basic. Heck, you can even download a basic interpretter onto your little palm-top/pda.

Experience the joys of accessing memory, indirectly indexing, and jumping back and forth.

And save $900 in the process!

So yeah, this is cute, but as dumb as a box of rocks. You can get those microprocessor notebook-style trainers for a couple of hundred bucks (check mouser.com ), not 9!

Try Mouser Electronics or Digi-Key.

If I remember right, Jameco's online site only has a subset of their inventory. For maximum browsing enjoyment, get their dead-tree catalog.

Great company, highly recommended. I've ordered from them on and off since I was in high school, way back in the 70's. (That's back when people still played with electronics as a hobby, and Edmund Scientific had some of the coolest, most exotic stuff I'd ever seen.)

*DigiKey and Mouser are more focused on commercial users, but they're great sources for hard-to-find parts, or a specific variant of a part.

3M has a vacuum, as displayed on this page from the Mouser Electronics catalog.

Costs a couple hundred bucks. 1 HP motor, has a filter that's supposed to be able to trap toner, and looks like it's got all sorts of exciting, elongated attachments for your sucking pleasure.

However, like someone else here, I suggest putting the keyboard through the dishwasher. I tend to take the electronics out of mine first and just run the plastic (keycaps, chassis) through, but there's nothing particularly bad about water and keyboards, or any other modern electronics.

Just make sure things get dried out before the metal bits (fasteners, microswitch parts and other contacts) begin to oxidize, but even a little of that would be far from fatal.

-

3M has a vacuum, as displayed on this page from the Mouser Electronics catalog.

Costs a couple hundred bucks. 1 HP motor, has a filter that's supposed to be able to trap toner, and looks like it's got all sorts of exciting, elongated attachments for your sucking pleasure.

However, like someone else here, I suggest putting the keyboard through the dishwasher. I tend to take the electronics out of mine first and just run the plastic (keycaps, chassis) through, but there's nothing particularly bad about water and keyboards, or any other modern electronics.

Just make sure things get dried out before the metal bits (fasteners, microswitch parts and other contacts) begin to oxidize, but even a little of that would be far from fatal.

-

3M has a vacuum, as displayed on this page from the Mouser Electronics catalog.

Costs a couple hundred bucks. 1 HP motor, has a filter that's supposed to be able to trap toner, and looks like it's got all sorts of exciting, elongated attachments for your sucking pleasure.

However, like someone else here, I suggest putting the keyboard through the dishwasher. I tend to take the electronics out of mine first and just run the plastic (keycaps, chassis) through, but there's nothing particularly bad about water and keyboards, or any other modern electronics.

Just make sure things get dried out before the metal bits (fasteners, microswitch parts and other contacts) begin to oxidize, but even a little of that would be far from fatal.

-

Assuming you want .1" jumpers:

In the lower right hand corner of P65. or in the lower left of P66

other sizes are available too.

Mouser probally has them too.

• Marlin P. Jones - Cheap surplus stuff. May or may not work
  
• Mouser - My favorite catalog right now. A whole lot of stuff, good prices. Look in the Jameco catalog to find what you want (nice color pictures help), and actually order it from Mouser (which has a boring catalog).
  
• Digikey - order anything here you can't get from Mouser.
  
• Radio Shack - if you don't mind paying a 400% markup ($1.50 for a quad NAND gate??!) or if you need it at 6pm on a Saturday night, suck it up and go here
  
• Fry's - last I was in the valley, they had a pretty low selection compared to a real distributor. Prices were better than Radio Shack though.
  

If you want ideas for a project, hanging around in the back of Radio Shack might get you started, but I'd encourage you to read manufacturer app notes. Phillips has all sorts of consumer audio/video stuff you could build all laid out in their app notes.

Check out things like the PIC or SX microcontrollers. For ~$10 you and the price of a cheap ROM programmer kit, you can have incredible design flexibility

Yeah, there's a certain appeal to using lots of 74xx chips, but there's really no reason to when it's smaller, cheaper, and much more flexible when you put it on a microcontroller. And VHDL/Verilog may both suck at first compared to the beauty of _real_ hardware, but their potential for semi-intelligent glue logic between your microcontrollers, memory, system busses, etc cannot be overlooked. And, unlike 74xx's, you can rewire without laying out your entire circuit again.

But will the quality be the same? Aren't the more expensive parts expensive just because they are designed for outer space use?

Well, Radio Shack electronic components have a reputation for being the very poorest quality. It is possible to acquire much higher quality components for similar or better prices at places like Digi-Key or Mouser Electronics.

Even if they did use the very highest quality electronic components available there wouldn't be much relative cost difference. If a resistor at Radio Shack is $0.10ea and a much better resistor is available from a real electronics supplier for $0.20ea then there's not going to be much of a difference when you need a dozen of them.

If anybody knows about (and makes the equipment for) making holes in cases for electrical and electronic gear, it's Greenlee.

Check out http://www.greenlee.textron.com/products/holemakin g.html

One place that carries them is Mouser

I'm not sure where to tell you to find them overseas (relative to my U.S. mainland location), but check with any amateur radio operators you can find, ask radio-television repair shops where they buy their parts and supplies, stuff like that.

You'll be able to tell by the price that Greenlee stuff is designed to be used much more often than once or twice, so maybe you can modify cases for other people in your situation and get some of your money back.

Good luck, e-mail me if I can help (except with paying for them, of course :-)

Get your water really cold with ice and then get a PCB etchant heater from Mouser. They're a good price and will heat up to 100F I believe. Which, also, happens to be the temp you'll need if you ever decide to do color processing (which coincidentally, isnt as hard as you may think). Also, check out photo.net which is a community for photography.

And get yourself the books "Getting Started In Electronics" and ALL of the little "Engineer's Handbook" books (recently updated, I noticed) by Forrest Mims. This man has started more people into electronics than I could possibly imagine. I hope he was compensated well by the publisher for his great contribution to electronics - I owe a lot of my start to get where I am now to him.

I CANNOT recommend these books highly enough and I'm suprised nobody else has. Once you get those, you can get on your way with some parts and things, but get them from someplace like DigiKey or Mouser and you'll save a lot of money experimenting. I also recommend surplus places, one in particular: BG Micro, they have lots of stuff to tinker with cheap.

Do you like digital stuff? Then go check out a Java-based TINI from Ibutton or even better, some of the kits that are available from Parallax Inc. They're expensive, but their stuff is quality and works.

Good luck on a rewarding and interesting hobby with almost no bounds!

Anybody got a source for good replacement switches?

Try Mouser Electronics. They've always been great for me. If that doesn't work for you, there's one other big one I'm familiar with - but the name escapes me.

Also, here's a DMOZ listing for electronics distributors & vendors.

The procedure is pretty simple with the proper parts. Get a #75 drill (part# 5876-409-75 from Mouser Electronics) and wrap the shaft with tape until it will stay in your drill. Better yet, get the right drill, but those things are expensive!.... RadioShack sells this "High Tech Silver-Bearing Solder" that worked great. I belive it is .015" in diameter. I had some trouble with some other solder the first time. Make sure to grab some desoldering braid if something does need to be taken off.

Actually drilling the pin is pretty quick. Make sure to mark the depth on the drill bit so it doesn't go too deep. It may help to tape down the wires while trying to solder them. By far the most difficult part is soldering the "bridge" on the RP6. I managed to get it without a magnifying glass but wasn't easy. Don't keep the iron there too long or it may take it completely off.

Technically, I belive the chip will still work with the drilled hole. I don't think it serves any purpose. The pair I did works great now but had a problem at first because one of the wires was shorting out on the metal heatsink. They don't seem to be stable at 450 MHz for some reason, but that is probably a cooling problem or something else.