Hi, I am new here.

@valveampman

Welcome to the forum.

Do you have any projects in mind for now or the near future ?

No doubt about it!  You're welcome.  Seniority in numbers... if not age.

welcome

@valveampman

A great welcome to you. 

ZX81 eh! I recall those but couldn't afford one. By the time I could  technology moved on! It does that doesn't it.

You will find the forum a great place to explore and contribute to.

Cheers

Ron B

Hi all and thanks for all the welcomes.

To add to the potted history most if not all of my projects have come out of one of two now sadly defunct magazines: Radio Constructor and EPE ( the early ones) the late ones were so dumbed down they became in my view, comics, oh, I almost forgot Wireless World, but that one was a bit too high-end for me, my dad like it but he would.

In the Radio Constructor, there was a project robot called, "Cyclops", this was back in the med '70s.  The object was not, repeat not, to use the new logic IC that had just come on to the market but to use all transistors. Like a twit, I tried to make this thing and couldn't get the thing to work.  Now, is there anyone in this forum who remembers this?

I have still got this and all of the magazines it came from.  It has always been my intent to rebuild this with the newfangled logic ICs,  so be on the lookout for this in the future, or in this case, back to the future.

This completes the second of 3 parts of where I have come from.

Hi Colin @valveampman,

  Thanks for the reminder about Radio Constructor ... I remember buying a few issues, a little earlier than the period you mention ... a monthly item used to be a 'discussion' between two guys in a radio shop, the stereotypical pairing of a senior and a junior. One month they discussed the first 'Integrated Circuit' they had managed to buy ... from memory it was an audio amplifer, probably about 300mW output and I have a feeling it was an RCA device in a circular can with part number starting CA...

Contemporary with this, was the latter days of the so called Camm's comics ... named after the author https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_James_Camm

which included Practical Wireless, Practical Electronics and Practical Television. I have a feeling PE morphed into the EPE you mention.

Things have changed a bit since then ... those 'comics' included excellent articles which have few equals now.

Luckily there are people, of which Bill - @dronebot is an excellent example, who spend an inordinate amount of effort, filling the void, using contemporary technology. (Thanks Bill!)

Best wishes and I hope you find joining the forum useful and interesting. Dave

I was surprised to read that EPE has been bought by a UK publisher and separated back into 3 publications. ie Practical Electronics, etc. Goto one... not too bad for the occasional read. 😊 

Back to my background.

As my user name suggests, I am a bit of an Audiophile and had a company for 18 months back in 2004, (LaidbackAudio) making audio amps the old way.   Still got a couple of amps on my bucket list that I would like to build and develop (for myself) if the bits are still obtainable.

My hobbies are vast and wide-ranging, ranging from electronics to engineering, (just put up a workshop for a lathe and a mill) scale modelling (Airfix and such like) (putting up a shed for that, airbrushing and the inside of flats do not mix, ask me how I know 🤔 ) to my latest craze, learning C and Python (have a RaspberryPi on order, no idea when that to going to turn up.

That just about wraps things up on my colourful background.

Colin.