Computer Man
Guest
Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:13 pm
Needing a bistable to operate on a supply voltage from
3 to 8 volts (depending upon the state of discharge of the
battery in my R/C model), and not having any suitable
CMOS to hand, I fashioned one in the DTL style from the
junk box.
Which led me to muse ... when the bulk of electronics
mass-production has moved to miniature surface mount
components, will the junk boxes held by enthusiastic
amateurs, with their myriad of wire-ended components
prove to be the gold mine that funds their retirement pensions?
(I've probably got 5000 NPN small-signal BJTs that I'll
never get around to using!)
Don Stauffer
Guest
Sat Aug 15, 2009 2:17 pm
Computer Man wrote:
Quote:
Needing a bistable to operate on a supply voltage from
3 to 8 volts (depending upon the state of discharge of the
battery in my R/C model), and not having any suitable
CMOS to hand, I fashioned one in the DTL style from the
junk box.
Which led me to muse ... when the bulk of electronics
mass-production has moved to miniature surface mount
components, will the junk boxes held by enthusiastic
amateurs, with their myriad of wire-ended components
prove to be the gold mine that funds their retirement pensions?
(I've probably got 5000 NPN small-signal BJTs that I'll
never get around to using!)
Probably not. There was so much of that stuff around that it is
considered junk, and very few museums value it much. Not that I am
happy at that situation. I hope at least a few specialty (electronics)
museums pick up a fair amount of representative junk. I cry sometimes
when I hear of old computers that were trashed.
Speaking of which, I was doing my own collecting for a desktop home
collection of old computer stuff. I had a small board of core memory. I
was cleaning it up one day when the soldering iron and its holder fell
off an upper shelf and landed SQUARE on the core area, really trashing
it. Anyone have a board with some core memory on it they don't want?
