Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Magazines

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
6,514
Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
6,514
I love 'em - the electronics ones of course :p

I used to be an avid collector of the printed issues - as a kid it took up all my spending money and I purchased every issue of every type I knew of:

Wireless World
Practical Electronics
Practical Wireless
Everyday Electronics
Elektor
ETI

and, when I could get them (they were only rarely on the shelves), some of the 'foreign' magazine like Nuts and Volts :)

Now, I have them all on a HDD - pdf issues going back decades. I sold or dumped all the hard copies (with the usual regrets thereafter....:confused:) but can now sit and browses issue after issue for hours. My HDD contains nearly 150Gb of magazines!!! And I have this inane ability of (almost) being able to recognise or recall the articles from them!

I think I spotted an ETI circuit on here a while ago - you get to recognise the magazines by the way they did their schematics - and I know some magazines all the way from their inception (Elektor for one).

Do you keep your own 'library' for reference? Do you have any collections you'd like to exchange or pass on to help me build mine still further?

Magazines.png

Properties.png

Here's a snapshot of the folder I keep. Obviously, if you want to exchange data it may require snail mail and DVDs as my internet connection (upload) is particularly slow....

It may also answer someone's other post on how I 'know so much stuff'...... I did say that 'I read - A LOT!'.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
25,510
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
25,510
I have:
  • an almost complete Silicon Chip collection in paper form
  • a DVD version of Radio, Television & Hobbies (right the way back to issue #1
  • Access to a complete Electronics Australia at our state reference library that I donated the issues they were missing to form a complete set.
  • Access to the Australian ETI at the reference library which has missing issues (that I might try to locate and donate)
I too have purchased, discarded, and regretted :-(
 

OBW0549

Jul 5, 2016
157
Joined
Jul 5, 2016
Messages
157
The only magazine I have left from my once-vast collection is my copy of Volume 1, Issue 1 (September 1975) of Byte magazine. I keep it around to remind myself how far we've come from those heady days of home-brewed 8008, 8080 and 6800 computer systems, front panels with toggle switches to mimic the minicomputers of the day, and storing programs on audio tape.

I read a lot, too, but these days it's mostly application notes and data sheets.
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
6,514
Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
6,514
I keep it around to remind myself how far we've come from those heady days of home-brewed 8008, 8080 and 6800 computer systems
...and a laugh at the adverts for 5-1/4" floppy drives at $999 :eek:
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
6,514
Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
6,514
Access to the Australian ETI
Your recent post quoting a variable PSU from 1979 made me check out my issues only to find they were completely different. I wonder if all the ETI Australia were totally different from ETI UK?

Nowadays the major magazines have the same content regardless of the country they are published in.
 

Minder

Apr 24, 2015
3,478
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
3,478
Born and growing up in the UK, we were friends with quite a few US servicemen located at the air bases there and I used to scrounge all the Popular Mechanics I could, although not strictly electronic, there was some neat projects to build.
M.
 

Externet

Aug 24, 2009
891
Joined
Aug 24, 2009
Messages
891
I had to let my complete Popular electronics magazine collection from volume 1 issue 1 let go to a friend when moved overseas. He did not take good care of it. Included the later Electronics now issues to about 1990.
Same with my Popular science magazine, collection since about 1970.

Huge regret.

When my employer moved, I had 40 metres of shelves filled with all imaginable and nonimaginable databooks but no truck nor room to keep. Offered them to the local public library, and they said no, thanks.

You can now fatten your magazine collection sustantially by clicking every checkmark :

----> http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Popular-Electronics-Guide.htm

Enjoy! Will take you several years of reading and enjoyment, but without the pleasure of being paper-on-hand.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

Terry01

Jul 5, 2017
206
Joined
Jul 5, 2017
Messages
206
I wonder how much of an effect everything being a key tap away instead of like you say waiting for each issue every week has had. The excitement and everything that follows after compared to just a few key taps. Funny how things change.
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
6,514
Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
6,514
Talk about being a geek..... as a young lad I frequented the Central Library in Middlesbrough to browse their substantial collection of back issues of electronics magazines. They had every issue of Wireless World magazine going back to 1913!!!

A few decades later I tried to go back to have another browse through them to be told they'd binned the lot :eek: - I don't know if I was gob-smacked or disgusted. I'd have taken the lot if I could.

I don't even know why I collect them on my local HDD either - they are, as @Terry01 says, only a click away for the most part.

Anyone ever read Television magazine? In particular I enjoyed Les Lowrey-Johns (spelling?) column on the vagaries of running a TV repair shop.
 

Minder

Apr 24, 2015
3,478
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
3,478
the vagaries of running a TV repair shop.

I did that for a while when I first came to this country.]
But I recalled an amusing incident in the UK when TV was first broadcast.
The field tech got a call one day that this old dear that watched a soap opera complained that her neighbor got the program episode a day ahead of her.
At first he tried to placate her, but she insisted.
At that time we were right on the fringe of transmission range from London in one direction and the midlands on the other. and the old mechanical operated tuners had a coil inserted as to which channel TX you were selected for.
Her neighbour had London and she got hers from the midlands TX. which sent it out a day later.!:D
M.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ian

terrypin

Jan 4, 2016
12
Joined
Jan 4, 2016
Messages
12
I still have a dozen copies of Elektor (mainly 'Summer Circuits'), most 'Everyday with Practical Electronics' from 1992 to 2005. All the rest binned long ago.

I wrote for several of the UK mags in the 90s. But regrettably the only electronics articles I still have on my PC are some of my chatty one-page series called 'HOME BASE: Jottings of an electronics hobbyist'. Maybe for 'Everyday with Practical Electronics'. If you're nostalgic for the home electronics of those days, here are those I still have. Just download and unzip HB-All.zip to get the 15 text files.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e1cyqd3znv6howp/HB-All.zip?dl=1

Terry, East Grinstead, UK
 

kellys_eye

Jun 25, 2010
6,514
Joined
Jun 25, 2010
Messages
6,514
It seems like retaining the Summer Circuits series is a common trait - those were the only issues I kept (other than issues 1-20) but eventually even those went to the bins.

In my travels I came across the 300-series of books which were sort-of collectives of the Summer Circuits but in greater quantity and depth. I had ALL the issue from 300 to 315 before selling them - for a pittance - on an eBay auction. The #300 book was 'rare' due to (I think) some copyright issues meaning they were all taken OUT of print and that issue couldn't be bought - theoretically. I found one in Singapore (the great electronics 'mart' I can't recall the name of now) that started my collection. I only wish I'd scanned all issues before selling them.

Thanks for the download Terry - I'll spend a few hours reading through them.

My only effort to write an article (sent to ETI magazine) was, sadly, turned down - it was a security software key device, outputting a serial datastream to the PCs COM port like 'dongles' used to do to protect software. I was told there was limited application for such a device......:(

One day I may get up the enthusiasm to try again - I'd love to have something in print (other than a self-help guide I wrote on Sailor Marine equipment installation - I did it as a favour for someone when working in Korea. Next thing I knew he'd 'published' it and it was all over the place....:cool: - infamy... of sorts :D)
 

flippineck

Sep 8, 2013
358
Joined
Sep 8, 2013
Messages
358
I remember a late 1970's issue of ETI which contained a design for a BFO / Beat Frequency Oscillator metal detector, spent ages building it as a young lad, the bugger never worked despite the help of several family friend eggheads :-( strongly suspect I fried the transistors with my 10 year old soldering skills
 
Top