Text 18497, 59 rader
Skriven 2007-06-07 10:04:32 av Frank Haber (1:379/45)
  Kommentar till text 18485 av Geo. (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Apple TV bombing in Europe?
=======================================
From: "Frank Haber" <frhaber@N0SPMrcn.com>

No, the Heath phenomenon was deeper than that.  I'm a bit older than most of
you guys, so here's boring speech number 127x10^4:

1. There was a generation of American boys (only) with a history of tinkering
(cars, farm machinery, etc.).  They loved the mixture of theory and dirty hands
that was point-point wiring. Their fathers had RF burns from their ham
transmitters as duelling scars, and thus were sympathetic to their efforts. Dad
had ruined *his* father's rugs with liquid borax from the electrolytics; a few
solder splashes on the furniture were easily ignored.

2. The era was analog.  Calibrated, temperature-compensated measurement
equipment was insanely expensive, and needed perpetual calibration. For us
peasants, there were ways (be happy with 3%; take home the calibrated gear from
the lab and calibrate yours as a tertiary standard for the neighborhood).

3. Audio amplification was also uniquely suited to cheap kits.  There was lots
of value added by the assembly-line girls soldering discrete components to tube
sockets and lug strips.  A boy could do that cheaper (early outsourcing?).

4. A boy could use lead-bearing solder, keep a mouth full of Cd-plated screws,
and no one screamed.  The line cords were also longer than a foot.

5. As someone has said, the Heath directions were magnificent.  For those who
knew what they were doing, the step-by-step "released the brain."  You got a
warm feeling from following the directions, but it was entirely separate from,
say, appreciating the circuit.  You could also add your own [stupid] little
touch, like squared-off wire runs and shipshape lacing.  For the ignorant, the
Zen of professionally directed assembly was reward enough.

6. For test and measurement gear, Heath stuff was very tweakable.  Subbing some
1% components pocketed at some fancy lab by a father, neighbor, etc. gave you
real accuracy.  For the friendless, there was always shaving molded carbon
resistors, nail polish, and prayer (for constant temperature and low humidity).

7. The Heath guys were very good at designing for low component count.  The
line girls didn't begrudge us our scabbing - they packed the brown paper bags
accurately, most of the time.  Everything was manageable, and the Heath store
would cheerfully fix the backward-diode or dead-transistor sad cases.

Flys in the ointment:

8. Competition: Dyna trumped Heath at its own game for amplifiers.  Eico had a
couple of ingenious circuits (a really good AM tunerwas one), and undercut
Heath's prices on their variants of the pervasive standard|knockoff circuits of
the age - Hewpy's audio oscillator, DuMont's oscilloscope.  Lafayette had junk
with part-Japanese construction.

9. Styles changed. Hot tubes on cheapo phenolic circuit boards never pleased
me; nor did the lifted traces and charred lug points when you had to solder two
2W resistors to same. I never did the color TV, but I kibitzed as two were
built.  Neither worked without repair.  Too complicated for home construction?
I thought so.  Early transistor audio sounded absolutely horrible.  Unsocketed
14-pin ICs were a real problem, when half the chips in the kit were bad (no one
could afford component test).  And so it goes.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5
 * Origin: Barktopia BBS Site http://HarborWebs.com:8081 (1:379/45)