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I read everything I need online. The only dead tree items I buy are hardcover books or special edition ebooks and printed comic compilations. I buy both direct from the author if at all possible to support them.

I mostly despise magazines and have for a very long time the last I recall reading was Nuts and Volts http://www.nutsvolts.com/ and Shotgun news http://www.shotgunnews.com/

Online is more timely and up to date, there's more content and I can participate.

E-pubs are cool too but I understand the joy of dead tree reading. A few that I get (aside from the ACM/IEEE/Make mentioned above) are:
Nuts & Volts : electronics hacking of all sorts
Servo : - sister pub to N&V focus on robotics
Home Shop Machinist
Machinist's Workshop
http://www.digitalmachinist.net/"> Digital Machinist :
three print mags directed at makers in metal. Latter focuses on CNC. Lots of projects of various levels

Two magazines that are great fun for anyone who likes electronics related things:

Nuts & Volts

Servo Magazine

i can not recommend Circuit Cellar enough.
You may want to add http://www.nutsvolts.com/

You're right about R.C.A., it's a name to license. But the high-tech creative part of H.P. lives on as Agilent, with the H.P. name leaving with the H.P. (computer) / Compaq merging.

Of older companies that did survive, the focus has often changed. Most consumers don't recall Motorola as being the company to first make car radios, or the first under $100 television set. Thaty were later huge in semiconductors, but that too changed moving off to become Freescale.

Time will tell if Byte offers anything at all for the hobbyist that wants to learn or share ideas.

It seems more likely that there won't be much difference between the ads and the articles.

The /. crowd might get more out of something like http://www.nutsvolts.com/

Or ....

Get yourself a best-of-class kit radio from Elecraft - K3 or K2 or one of their other kits. Or a cutting edge Open source High Performance Software Defined Radio from HPSDR and TAPR.

Get yourself a radio kit from Ten-Tec, or MFJ.

Or from Oak Hill Research, or Hendrick's QRP Kits, module kits from W8DIZ who also sells parts, or from various non-profit QRP groups selling kits from time to time, like NorCal QRP Club.

Get yourself a copy of Circuit Cellar or Nuts and Volts from the US, or Everyday Practical Electronics (EPE) and Elektor from Europe or Silicon Chip from Australia.

Heck, you can even get vacuum tube based kits still.

Forget it, just go buy a new chinese made mp3 player!

Wow, +4 Insightful for a parent Troll..

Nuts and Volts magazine is writing about this for several years now. CO, USA.

Latest article: http://www.nutsvolts.com/index.php?/magazine/issue/2009/03

Author: http://www.nutsvolts.com/index.php?/magazine/contributor/l_paul_verhage

Nothing new here. Move on.

Nuts and Volts magazine is writing about this for several years now. CO, USA.

Latest article: http://www.nutsvolts.com/index.php?/magazine/issue/2009/03

Author: http://www.nutsvolts.com/index.php?/magazine/contributor/l_paul_verhage

Nothing new here. Move on.

"The Art of Electronics" is great. You might also want to look up Nuts and Volts magazine http://www.nutsvolts.com/, Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, http://www.circellar.com/ and pick up a couple of Don Lancaster's "Cookbook" series http://www.tinaja.com/. Steve and Don are hardware gurus that have been around since the beginning of home computers, and there is much insight to be gained. It is an odd thing, but often older books on 'obsolete' technology are easier to grasp, and give background no longer explained in modern volumes. For instance, I have a circa 1920's transformer handbook that speaks clearly on topics that are either glossed over, or not covered at all in many newer introductory texts.

• Elmer101
    a tutorial on radio theory with practical experiments. Think of it as a grown-up's version (you are a grown-up, right?) of the 500-in-1 manual. It's based on an existing design, a transceiver kit from Small Wonder Labs, and so you can read it and do experiements with with your own parts or with the kit. [A ham license to use these kits no longer requires a morse code test, just a 35-question written Technician exam.]
• QRPKits.com. This site runs the gamut for easy radio kits from simple transmitters to software-defined radio.
• Nuts and Volts magazine, a great resource, with a good coverage of general electronics, radio, robotics, microprocessors.
• Circuit Cellar magazine, descended from Steve's Circuit Cellar column in the old Byte magazine. Slightly more in depth articles, but fewer areas of coverage.

• 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

Lots of suppliers and circuits
http://www.makezine.com/

Lots of suppliers and circuits
http://www.nutsvolts.com/

Online textbook
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Forum
http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/index.php

Too bad the CDP1802's architect, Joe Weisbecker, didn't live to see his microprocessor become the first in interstellar space. Coincidentally, this month also marks the 30th anniversary of his Popular Electronics article on the COSMAC ELF; Nuts and Volts magazine is covering it.

If you haven't found it yet, check out Nuts and Volts Magazine and their spinoff Servo Magazine (which is dedicated to robotics - hobbyist and professional) - both are great magazines. I have been a subscriber to Nuts and Volts since around 1992 or so, and a subscriber to Servo since it started (a year or two ago). I highly reccommend both (if for nothing else, as a resource for supplier listings!)...

I wonder if these guys know about the new /. slogan. Might have to change it to "Cogs and Coulombs".

I've you're more interested in just making interesting stuff, Nuts and Volts http://www.nutsvolts.com/ is jammed with great projects. It comes out monthly and covers a wide range of projects. Some hacking but more of a focus on building stuff.

Other great DIY 'tinkering' sites I like are AX84.com, 18watt.com, and Byonics.

I'd post a link to my site with pictures/notes on my own hand-built tube amp project or my mini-GPS/APRS project (not yet out of planning), but I'm afraid of the /.-ing I'd take. :)

Best price I've seen on this: http://www.elexp.com/kit_x909.htm

If I remember correctly, ads in Nuts & Volts and Circuit Cellar magazines list these at around $179.

http://www.nutsvolts.com/
http://www.circuitcellar.com/

http://www.servomagazine.com/ - mainly robotics

and their sister (parent?) magazine:

http://www.nutsvolts.com/ - mainly electronics but covers robotic stuff quite often.

These magazines also have Lego Mindstorms articles in them quite often.

Server has advertising for several companies carrying various kits. In my opinion the kits would be the way to go...even if you can only purchase a few and run you class in groups. As one poster mentioned, the problem with building from the ground up is that you spend most of your time building the hardware and very little of your time programming and running.

Once you have the class going with kits then add some simple "build from scratch" projects like BEAM robotics. Even with these various PIC or ATOM kits will come in handy.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with the Servo or Nuts&Volts but I am a long time satified customer (Servo: since its first issue two years ago or so; Nuts&Volts: several years since when another electronics magazine died and switched the remainder of my subscription to N&V).

Merlin.

Lots of DIY stuff here.

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.

Nuts & Volts is pretty decent nowadays, going by the last couple of copies I've bought from the newsstand. I'm thinking it might almost be worth subscribing to.

Linux Format not as good as LJ, but often comes with a CDROM of linux software.

sys admin is interesting from time to time.

Nuts & Volts has PC projects from time to time.

I also like Popcom and ARRL mags.

Nuts N Volts is a great electronics mag, from beginner to advanced. Electronic House is a great resource to steal ideas from. Those are the only 2 that I really get "in person" anymore. I keep meaning to re-sub to Wired, but haven't. Most everything else is read online.

I strongly second this recommendation.
Another good one is Nuts and Volts magazine. I have bought a copy of Nuts and Volts every month for about a year now, it's probably time to subscribe.
Depending on what hardware stuff you are into, another site to check out is the the piclist.

Nuts and Volts Magazine is pretty good.

You'd be all set if you scored some back issues.

Real good stuff in those.

Caveat: I haven't done ANY research on this, but...

I wouldn't think sound card inputs would be of any real use, except to check out the waveform. They're not going to be calibrated for voltage, and if you did calibrate them, I can't believe they'd be very stable.

But the big problem is that those inputs are going to be intended for AC input. They are BY DESIGN intended to ignore any DC component of the input; they do so typically by a capacitor isolating the input. This is exactly what you DON'T want.

If you're really interested in this kind of stuff, just pick up a copy of Nuts & Volts magazine at better newsstands; in the back you'll find hundreds of classified ads for lots of hungry garage inventors and small manufacturers producing, among other very interesting toys, input cards to do exactly this sort of thing.

Ten-Tec has some decent radio kits. For $24 you can get the 1054 which is a stripped-down regen shortwave receiver. For $69 you can get the 1253 which is a complete regen receiver. Either will provide decent listening to both ham and shortwave broadcast stations.

Ramsey kits are ok, but you need to read carefully. For example, they advertise kits like the SR2 with a photo of it in a case. The case is a $14.95 option and you still don't get a speaker.

As for building ease, I can't really comment. The only recent kit I've built is the Ramsey SR2. It was easy but time-consuming and a bit boring, as I've soldered thousands of components in my time.

Nuts & Volts magazine is a good source of ads for kits.

I'm not sure how much you can learn from one of these kits. They tend to not have much in the way of experimentation. You build the kit, play with it for an hour or two, then stash it on a shelf. If you're going to go the kit route, I would start with a simple blinking LED kit or something to learn soldering, then maybe a decent radio kit that you'll actually be able to use.

If you want to get the kids interested, I would go to Radio Shack and dig around in the back. There you will find some dusty books from the Engineer's Mini-Notebook line ($1.99). They have easy explanations, circuit diagrams, and lots of experiments to try. They don't make it trivial to find the parts and you'll be spending quite a bit of time prowling Radio Shack parts racks, but it's worth it. The kids will get to do some of the design work themselves.

Ten-Tec has some decent radio kits. For $24 you can get the 1054 which is a stripped-down regen shortwave receiver. For $69 you can get the 1253 which is a complete regen receiver. Either will provide decent listening to both ham and shortwave broadcast stations.

Ramsey kits are ok, but you need to read carefully. For example, they advertise kits like the SR2 with a photo of it in a case. The case is a $14.95 option and you still don't get a speaker.

As for building ease, I can't really comment. The only recent kit I've built is the Ramsey SR2. It was easy but time-consuming and a bit boring, as I've soldered thousands of components in my time.

Nuts & Volts magazine is a good source of ads for kits.

I'm not sure how much you can learn from one of these kits. They tend to not have much in the way of experimentation. You build the kit, play with it for an hour or two, then stash it on a shelf. If you're going to go the kit route, I would start with a simple blinking LED kit or something to learn soldering, then maybe a decent radio kit that you'll actually be able to use.

If you want to get the kids interested, I would go to Radio Shack and dig around in the back. There you will find some dusty books from the Engineer's Mini-Notebook line ($1.99). They have easy explanations, circuit diagrams, and lots of experiments to try. They don't make it trivial to find the parts and you'll be spending quite a bit of time prowling Radio Shack parts racks, but it's worth it. The kids will get to do some of the design work themselves.

You wouldn't even neeed 200mhz. I have a p90 I use for mining p2p that runs win98 and Morpheus - even under that crufty load, it plays mp3s without skipping. Sort of.

An optimized linux miniboard boxed with a standard laptop IDE drive and an LCD display from those black&white Nuts & Volts ads and a couple of buttons would be a pretty hip guerilla rio. I would opt for the optional duct tape trimming.

is Agamemnon by Team Delta. I first read about it in Nuts 'n Volts. Team Delta made this bot with a built in camera and video relay to a VR Helmet and thrustmaster joystick. The weapons consisted of a weed whacker and a pneumatic punch. It is a welcome relief to find that not all bots are made up of that dumb wedge/no weapon idea.