I hadn't even thought of the aspect of being able to boost the cell output on a cloudy day.

 

I used to love looking at those in the back of Popular Science magazines but never got one that I can remember. Seems to me they were popular when I was more going through the phase of resurrecting dead lawnmowers and making go carts out of them.

 

What year did you actually get into electronics Wook? I started as a teen around 1972 or so.

I started getting interested in electronics somewhere around 1964 I guess; I can only give an approximate date because we moved to the "new" house in 1965. I was fascinated by the glowing tubes in the back of our old DuMont black and white TV set. It stopped working correctly, and I got permission from my Mom to pull the tubes out (labelling them and their sockets with a magic marker so I could put them back where they came out of, just 1, 2, 3.. ), wrapped each one in several layers of tissue paper, put them in a bag and took them on my bike down to a Rexall drug store that had a tube tester.

When we were building the "new" house in the 1964-1965 time frame, I was the "wire rat"'; I ran all of the Romex electrical wire in the house. Didn't make any of the connections; just ran the wiring.

Right after we moved in '65, Dad bought a Norelco electronics kit for me:

I went through all the circuits that could be built with it; AM radios, toy organs, all kinds of stuff. It had cardboard schematics with holes in them that overlaid an array of same-size holes in a board; you'd screw springs into the holes and attach component leads to them. The transistors in the kit were all PNP (that I remember at the moment) and were encased in an aluminum package much like the push-button of a mechanical pencil with 3 wire leads from the bottom. Can't remember the device numbers.

Anyway, the transistors being PNP caused the kit designers to draw the schematics with ground towards the top, and +V towards the bottom. I didn't like it one bit when NPN transistors came into common use, and the "new" standards of +V on the top, -V on the bottom in schematics.

I etched my first PCB somewhere around 1969. Didn't look too great, as I did the resist freehand - but it worked. Made a tube amp from a salvaged TV transformer and a 12AU7 tube; took some galvanized sheet metal to the H.S. metal shop, and used the sheet metal brake to bend up a nice enclosure.

By September 1974, I was beginning to attend courses at NAS Memphis.

Getting back to the original topic, I think that the "old hands" here should at least come to an agreement on a standardized nomenclature to be used on the AAC board. It should be consistent with generally accepted nomenclature, and documented somewhere in the E-book section, complete with representative images.

My concern here is to reduce confusion for our n00bs. If the experienced members can't agree on a standardized nomenclature for use on here, how are we going to keep our n00bs from becoming confused?

 

I got into electronics really only a few years ago properly. Before then, I could take apart things, but never put them back together , or understand how they work. But now, after learning ohm's law and basic circuit theory... everything slots into place. I used to like computers more than electronics but I think I've flipped on that decision.

My teacher refers to veroboard (the stuff with copper) as stripboard and matrix board alternately. Though he does call breadboards, breadboards.

 

Lets make up our own word. Electroplate? http://www.focalprice.com/CX060Y/1022cm_Electroplate_Electro_Plate_Yellow.html

 

Hello,

The 16 in one and the 150 in one remind me of the Philips boxes with experiments:
http://ee.old.no/

It was made with a raster plate and springs that could be placed on that plate:

Bertus

 

We all use wikipedia often to give n00bs direction and definition.

Wikipedia shows a breadboard as a plug version solderless protoboard.

I think we should stick with that convention.