[GreenKeys] HEATHKIT back in business - QST Dec 2015

[Jones, Douglas W]

From: Jeffrey D Angus [jdangus at att.net] Sunday, November 22, 2015 2:14 PM

> What made Heathkit work was twofold.
> 1. You saved on the factory labor of building something.
> This was when things were built by hand, and people doing it were paid
> a living wage.
> 2. They sold stuff that was currently marketed. Like the Hi-Fi craze of the
> '50s and '60s, and low end versions of test equipment.
> 
> Imagine trying to sell an LCD TV or a DVD player "kit" now.

Well, for a reasonable price (quite low compare to buying it off-the-shelf) you can get a laptop computer kit that looks like it might be quite fun.  Even comes with a proto-board where you can play with LEDs and other auxiliary hardware:
-- http://www.cnet.com/news/pi-top-the-3d-printable-raspberry-pi-laptop-anyone-can-build/#!

This seems to be very much in the spirit of the Heathkit of yore.  Of course, I say this as a current user of a Tektronix 321 scope from the early 1960s ($5 at surplus 20 years ago), and two radio-shack analog VOMs from the 1970s.  Who needs new stuff when the old stuff lasts forever?

           Doug Jones
           jones at cs.uiowa.edu