Popular Electronics Magazine online archive

[Louie Detroit]

I know this is kinda nerdy but I'm guessing there might be a couple of old farts here who would find this site interesting. High quality scans of content from mags from 1954 onward. Plenty of vintage audio hardware is represented here. Good times when home enthusiasts could actually do the fun electronic stuff.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Popula...nics-Guide.htm

[Louie Detroit]

Here is the mother site, If you want to sperg out for the winter on some great vintage shit, this is the place. Explore at your own risk:

https://worldradiohistory.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------
One example of the archive is the Billboard Magazine: 1894 to 2017 collection. Here is the shit that dropped late 1894.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archiv...rd-1894-12.pdf

[RMVette]

Thanks for sharing... the first one I clicked on was January of 1970 and saw an add for a soldering gun that I got for Christmas that my Dad gave me, and I still have it with the case!

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by RMVette

Thanks for sharing... the first one I clicked on was January of 1970 and saw an add for a soldering gun that I got for Christmas that my Dad gave me, and I still have it with the case!

Attachment 62299

Wanted to be a TV tech in the 50-60's....first question from the shop manager was......'Where is your Weller'???



AND today I STILL HAVE my old Weller soldering station out in the garage....fully functional and in frequent use....I even have my old TV tech tool box that used to set on the steel service cart I use to hold my top tool box green cart, red box by Snap On.......

[BayouCountry]

Popular Electronics was my brother’s favorite (not counting Playboy).

It had an influence on me. I was nerdy enough to build a reverb amp from scratch. I remember etching the circuit board, but don’t know where I got the materials. Must have bought everything from Radio Shack back in the day when they were an electronics parts store.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by BayouCountry

Popular Electronics was my brother’s favorite (not counting Playboy).

It had an influence on me. I was nerdy enough to build a reverb amp from scratch. I remember etching the circuit board, but don’t know where I got the materials. Must have bought everything from Radio Shack back in the day when they were an electronics parts store.

I used to be back in the vacuum tube daze.....and so hand wired/built all my first stereo gear, including speakers, parts for that came from an electronic parts distributor, selling to the Fed.gov as I lived in the burbs of DC.....they had more shit for sale in that place, from giant .mil surplus stuff down to 1/4 watt resistors....and bare aluminum chassis I would take a hole punch to make holes for the various vacuum tube sockets.....mount the power and output transformers to the chassis......been a while....~65 years.....

[Rodnok1]

Originally Posted by RMVette

Thanks for sharing... the first one I clicked on was January of 1970 and saw an add for a soldering gun that I got for Christmas that my Dad gave me, and I still have it with the case!

Attachment 62299

I have 2 or 3 old Weller's like that in the drawer. I dropped one and the csse shattered so it's JB welded together. I use the hell out of it. Picked it up for 5 bucks years ago.

[Louie Detroit]

Originally Posted by BayouCountry

Popular Electronics was my brother’s favorite (not counting Playboy).

It had an influence on me. I was nerdy enough to build a reverb amp from scratch. I remember etching the circuit board, but don’t know where I got the materials. Must have bought everything from Radio Shack back in the day when they were an electronics parts store.

The Shack was a good place for stuff back in the day, and then they started asking for phone numbers and pushing phones, that was obnoxious.

[Rodnok1]

Originally Posted by Louie Detroit

The Shack was a good place for stuff back in the day, and then they started asking for phone numbers and pushing phones, that was obnoxious.

They put all their cards into cell phones and hoping to make it big. Whoops.
Granted the DIY electronics people aren't nearly as plentiful as days past buy they had other options. If they could have survived afew more years the cable cutters and drone people would have flocked to them again. Selling cheap charging stuff for phones would have been a good market also to keep foot traffic up, build a base again.
I miss going there and shopping for for parts to build and fix stuff.

[73sbVert]

Originally Posted by Rodnok1

They put all their cards into cell phones and hoping to make it big. Whoops.
Granted the DIY electronics people aren't nearly as plentiful as days past buy they had other options. If they could have survived afew more years the cable cutters and drone people would have flocked to them again. Selling cheap charging stuff for phones would have been a good market also to keep foot traffic up, build a base again.
I miss going there and shopping for for parts to build and fix stuff.

Yah, I remember in the back of the store, they had several hook racks with discretes hanging. You could get a 5-pack of practically any standard resistance, capacitance, coils, even a large assortment of replacement knobs!

Was a young budding tech's dream store. Could even get a "personal computer" for only $8,000!!! Had a whole 32kb RAM if I recall, and came with a cassette player/recorder to load/save your programs on!