Si said:
Nuts&volts is still available. Now days, the availability of
thousands of circuits and schematics on line makes magazines
somewhat dated.
http://www.nutsvolts.com/
Huh? Finding circuits and information is not nearly the
same thing as waiting for the new issue of a magazine to arrive.
And since the magazines had to try to address a large readership,
the contents varied. I never would have stuck with the magazines
when I found them at age 11 if all the contents had been technical.
I could read the letter column, I could read the amateur radio
column, even read the reviews, and that gave reason to keep
reading while I grasped the schematics and the technical stuff.
There were also lots of things I wasn't interested in but learned
about anyway because they were clustered with the things I
was interested in, and other things I actually got interested in
because I read about them.
Give up the magazine format, and it's way too easy to narrowcast.
Sure, likely people can find a website that has "1001 wireless
microphones" and another that has "101 single transistor sirens"
but that implies that information is all that counts.
I'm starving for magazines. I miss going to the newsstand to
see if the latest issue is out. I miss sitting down with it
to read it cover to cover, maybe even setting it aside to spread
it out or to read it when I can curl up with it. I miss rereading
them.
But the magazines aren't what they used to. Maybe it's because
it's 36 years since I first noticed there were hobby electronic
magazines, and so it has all gone stale. I suspect it's more
that the price has risen so much, and I won't get that much
reading time out of it.
Michael
