[HH] trends in hardware hacking

[Tom Metro]

Greg London wrote:
> Is this a function of everything going online and brick-and-mortar
> stores just aren't needed? Or is electronics just not a hobby anymore?
> 
> A few months ago, I read some article by an old school hacker saying
> that that hobbyists soldering parts together was a "phase" like the
> pet rock or hula hoops were a phase.
> 
> At the time, I thought he was nuts. But jeebus, I'm not so sure anymore.

I saw an interview with the founder of "Make Magazine" (ran on CNN; I
might have posted a link or mentioned it here before) who talked about
this and can answer it with more authority than I.

I remember when "Make" magazine[1] first came out (2005) and thinking a
sarcastic "good luck," as not long before I'd witnessed the die off off
"Radio Electronics"[2] (1929-2003; later known as "Electronics Now" and
"Poptronics"[3] for a brief while after merging with "Popular
Electronics") and other electronics hobby magazines.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Magazine
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-Electronics
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poptronics

There clearly had been a decline of interest in the field, probably
starting in the 80's or early 90's. While magazines in general were
starting to die off in the 2000, these were some of the first to go.

Some speculate that the move to surface mount electronics made it
impractical to do electronics as a hobby. That seems to be part of it.
It also could just be that computers and programming absorbed all the
available hacker interest. If most of the things you used to need to
build your own hardware for could now be done more easily by writing a
few lines of code, then why bother?

The guy from Make said that back in the 1950s there was a pervasive
do-it-yourself attitude, and that has gradually faded away ever since.

But for whatever reason - a new generation of kids? or perhaps the
Internet facilitating better communications, allowing smaller niche
audiences to flourish without the need of a costly to produce magazine -
there has been a resurgence of the D-I-Y culture in the last 5 years.
not just in electronics, but other crafts as well (something that
appears to be reflected in the areas covered by "Make").

Now you can find a how-to video on YouTube for just about anything
imaginable. I bet a search on something like "how to solder" would
return dozens of videos.

And I don't think we've ever had so many choices when it comes to low
cost, hobby friendly embedded computing platforms. Small micros with
integrated peripherals have been around since the late 80's, but there
was not much outreach from the manufacturers, and no middleman packaging
them up in kits. (I think the Microchip PIC - and its packaging as the
Parallax BASIC Stamp - was among the first in the mid-90's, but it stood
largely alone for a long time.)

So it seems the Make guy had the timing right for reintroducing such a
publication. They also took a different approach to the business model.
I believe they publish quarterly, and price the issues more like a book
than a magazine.

(Although I've sampled a few issues, I've never subscribed to "Make."
Mostly because I don't think I'd have the time to apply what's in it,
and thus wouldn't get actual value from it. I know some people just
enjoy reading abut the projects, and I guess over the decades I
subscribed to "Radio Electronics" I built relatively few of the
projects, but that magazine was also packed with regular columns with
not only informed my hobby interests, but my early professional
interests as well.)

In related news, I see New England-based "Circuit Cellar" still survives
today. Their niche is embedded systems and always tended to have more
complex projects than the other magazines. A 12-issue print subscription
runs $50 now. (I'll follow them on Twitter, @editor_cc, for a while and
see if they have any interesting content.)

What do other HH list subscribers think? Have you witnessed the ebbs and
lows in D-I-Y interest?

 -Tom