What a delight it's been to watch these videos. I remember the magazines from the late 1980s. My first kit was the Amoeba FM bug, but since it was very small and my teenage soldering skills were novice level I couldn't get it working. Still, I built other kits. Interesting to hear Colin talk about the difficulties getting the magazine to market. Fantastic videos. Cheers!
I'm looking at my old TEC-1A right now... Colin's a real character, and I owe a big debt of gratitude to him. As a teenager in Australia in the 80s I spent many hours going through the TE books and magazines. I had a VIC20, but I didn't properly understand microprocessors until I had programmed the TEC-1A's Z80 directly in machine code. Reading Colin's publications taught me more about engineering than going to university.
Jason Harris Me similarly; I didn't know about TEC-1 back then (wish I did!), but when high-school age I used to hand-assemble code for our TRS-80 (4KB model I), and entered it via the debugger; then I started to understand computers...
Hi Dave...This brings me down memory lane....I use to buy lots of kit from Colin including the TEC and associated add on modules..Had lots of fun programming the z80 , this led me to going to night school to learn micros using the z80.....Then around 1994 ...i noticed an ad in Colins mag regarding pic micros and that was another great journey...fun times...Frank
I almost wish I was born in Australia. I just finished downloading the 15 Talking Electronics magazine and paged through the first one, it's brilliant. Thanks for doing those 5 videos, they made me nostalgic even though my early electronic experiences were totally different. No electronic magazines where I lived during my beginnings, my only source of electronic books and parts was Radio Shack.
Yeah we were lucky in that respect. I used to do just like Dave said in part 1. Every pocket money day I'd race down to our local electronics seller to see if the new TE was out yet. Great times.
An Aussie did a re-run of the TEC-1D and I took a gamble and ordered a PCB and ROM. It was easy to build and fun to troubleshoot the solder bridge on one of the LEDs. It's fully working and I find it's easier to use this to learn rudimentary Z80 programming than some of the other single board systems I've played with over the years.
You can read the history of the TEC-1 on the Wikipedia page. Colin of course makes no mention of who really did all the work but it's all there in the original magazine print.
You're entitled to your opinion. However at least some of us found then not dull, not tedious and would have kept watching even if they were twice as long.
Good footage, great mag! I've a TEC stashed away somewhere and while the points about PIC are salient, the old tester boards really let one get a grasp of systems.
SMD caps and resistors work really well on pad board.. a mix of bigger through-hole stuff like displays and smd passives makes pretty neat looking prototypes.
My tech school education left me real short of being an EE but it's that education that enables me to realize that. In a formal education the first math introduced is simple & reinforces the theory being introduce by performing simple experiments. Inside or outside the formal education setting I'm not sure how to impress on those interest how time spent on learning the theory & applicable math is time spent, that in the end that will give them more time to spend on their livelihood or hobby
I built heaps of T.E. kits as a kid. The main thing I remember is they took SO DAMN LONG to arrive (all the way from Vic to NSW). And my fluoro tube inverter kit never work. Damn it.
Postage stamps as currency - Really?! Brilliant! Back then it had value Now in the USA we have "forever" Stamps. because postage goes up so often while service is being cut back. ( And they say there is no inflation! Go figure. Nice to know there are more train enthusiasts than just plain electronics peeps. I guess you need to make an APPLICATION for greater success. Thank you dave for finding and interviewing this fellow.
Hey, nice work m8. big fan. Score +1 Australia, Engineering always had roots in Australia. Nice to see a functional mind with white hair like Mr. Mitchel there. So much to say really, i'm just fond of ur work. keep it up.
The prototype Microcomp was done birds-nest style, without any PCB. We had a problem with it working in the sunlight coming through the window, but not when a shadow fell across it. One of the address lines to the ROM had come adrift, and the light was enough to toggle the address line to the state needed.
What did you expect an interview to be but long and all talk? Especially one that involves so much history. It's about telling stories, not showing hardware.
If I may answer u on that one, What is the point of doing calculative hand work if we could just plug components and run? Well, suppose you need to change how ur circuit works, say higher gain but same transistors, or operate at a higher frequency but still using the same transistors, then you need to look at the hand calculations and figure out what passive parts need to be changed (larger or smaller). At times we like to buy the best parts for little work to be done, still wishful thinking.
Hi Dave, thumbs up for all the five episodes A suggestion. Can you please make a video about your memories and experiences with talking electronics. Also did the kits came with the magazine or you guys have to buy it separately through phone or something?
Great interview. My question is at what point is math best introduced? Sometimes math can be a very useful tool. But one has to learn how to use the tool first.
I happen to have two packs of five brand new, never used, SMD PIC16F84A-20/SM programmable micro-controllers that I got in a couple of grab bags of electronic components i bought from my local Jaycar Electronics store, I also have four brand new DAC0802LCN 8-Bit Digital to Analog converter ICs which were also in the grab bags.
Very good interview ,it was very interesting in listening to some of his memories of how he ran the mag. Just one tip though Dave for your improving your interviewing technique .Stop constantly saying "yep" or other affirmative's every 10 second's it's very distracting .
I use the Microcontroller Zilog ez8 Encore and the Zilog XP series. Witch have the same features like AVR128 +DMA .3Chan... And the ZILOG Window C Dev-IDE + Debugger. But here in Europe they dont know much from new Zilog stuff.
Yes that is 1 time to use the math tool, another time would be when attempting to design a new circuit to do a particular task My question still is when to teach to tool of math?
The same PIC chip that is in a coffee maker is used in a satellite. Granted it was not anything special as far as satellites go, with a long lifespan or any critically important function, but it seems to indicate how universally accepted and widely used Microchip's PIC stuff is. I can't say I was ever overly impressed with the Tempe fab's facilities, and tooling, but they have a darn good market share for what they do. I do hope Colin lives a very long time. He seems to have a really good plan for releasing a decent backlog of kits. I had almost forgotten about Zilog. Almost..LOL If you ever do see Colin again, send along my best wishes and sincerest thanks. He came along ans filled a void at the proper time. If I run out of or need something anymore I may as well be in Death Valley or the outback. Our last brick & mortar electronics shop closed in 2012. There are 6,000,000 people in the county and the only store does not stock any inventory. Yeah! I have to go in and the order it, and I have to come back 3-30 days later, and I am paying brick and mortar prices. Why even bother?
I was in the marines and that z80 processor was in our SB6814 switch board I have had a few of the z81 processors they were pretty much the same thing but I think the speed changed a little. we had one of out Switch boards for a telephone switch board go down and the processor took the crap and you know the militaly they give way to much for anything. and at the time for shits and giggles I took my z81 and put it in and it workd and it worked better.
![ร้อยพ่อพันแม่ - WanMai [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XY2pNYASEbg/mqdefault.jpg)
What a delight it's been to watch these videos. I remember the magazines from the late 1980s. My first kit was the Amoeba FM bug, but since it was very small and my teenage soldering skills were novice level I couldn't get it working. Still, I built other kits. Interesting to hear Colin talk about the difficulties getting the magazine to market. Fantastic videos. Cheers!
You folks are lucky to have this motivation in the form of Mr. Mitchell, I wish my life crossed paths with people of his sort.
Thank you Colin & Dave for a very enjoyable 5-part interview.
Who couldnt like this? This interviews are awesome! My respect to Colin Mitchel and Dave!
I'm looking at my old TEC-1A right now... Colin's a real character, and I owe a big debt of gratitude to him. As a teenager in Australia in the 80s I spent many hours going through the TE books and magazines. I had a VIC20, but I didn't properly understand microprocessors until I had programmed the TEC-1A's Z80 directly in machine code. Reading Colin's publications taught me more about engineering than going to university.
Jason Harris Me similarly; I didn't know about TEC-1 back then (wish I did!), but when high-school age I used to hand-assemble code for our TRS-80 (4KB model I), and entered it via the debugger; then I started to understand computers...
Mr. Mitchell is a genius, a gentlemen and a pleasure to learn from. Thank you both.
Awesome videos, Colin we would LOVE to see more videos of stuff you do or have done in the past. Simply amazing thank you.
Hi Dave...This brings me down memory lane....I use to buy lots of kit from Colin including the TEC and associated add on modules..Had lots of fun programming the z80 , this led me to going to night school to learn micros using the z80.....Then around 1994 ...i noticed an ad in Colins mag regarding pic micros and that was another great journey...fun times...Frank
I almost wish I was born in Australia. I just finished downloading the 15 Talking Electronics magazine and paged through the first one, it's brilliant. Thanks for doing those 5 videos, they made me nostalgic even though my early electronic experiences were totally different. No electronic magazines where I lived during my beginnings, my only source of electronic books and parts was Radio Shack.
SlyPearTree This magazine was magic back in the day! Be sure to watch my 5 interview videos with Colin Mitchell!
Yeah we were lucky in that respect. I used to do just like Dave said in part 1. Every pocket money day I'd race down to our local electronics seller to see if the new TE was out yet. Great times.
Great interview Dave. Thanks for publishing this.
A fantastic series of videos. Thanks Colin, thanks Dave.
On Colins web site, left hand column down the bottom. All this stuff is free and available.
Ahhh. You got me all pumped up. Where are the PDF's. This all makes sense in my head.
I wish we had this magazine in England - even though I'm a 90s kid I would have loved building these kits!
An Aussie did a re-run of the TEC-1D and I took a gamble and ordered a PCB and ROM. It was easy to build and fun to troubleshoot the solder bridge on one of the LEDs. It's fully working and I find it's easier to use this to learn rudimentary Z80 programming than some of the other single board systems I've played with over the years.
You can read the history of the TEC-1 on the Wikipedia page. Colin of course makes no mention of who really did all the work but it's all there in the original magazine print.
Ah thanks for making me spill my coffee :)
You're entitled to your opinion. However at least some of us found then not dull, not tedious and would have kept watching even if they were twice as long.
Good footage, great mag! I've a TEC stashed away somewhere and while the points about PIC are salient, the old tester boards really let one get a grasp of systems.
It's not VERY VERY VERY long. I have product reviews that are over an hour.
Yep. PDFs for 1 - 15 are all on the TE website - scroll down the left menu.
I like the knob of the trimmer made with a red LED with the legs through the trimmer :D
I'd love to get into that box. I dare say Colin has an awesome shed out back too n all!
SMD caps and resistors work really well on pad board.. a mix of bigger through-hole stuff like displays and smd passives makes pretty neat looking prototypes.
I don't really interview people, I have a conversation with them. So you get that.
Yeah, it was a huge innovation. School kids could easily pay for stuff without involving their parents.
I enjoyed listening to these interviews, thanks guys for the history. Is Colins site still selling kits?
I already broke it up into 5 parts!
Hard question. Depends entirely on the individual I think and their circumstances.
My tech school education left me real short of being an EE but it's that education that enables me to realize that. In a formal education the first math introduced is simple & reinforces the theory being introduce by performing simple experiments. Inside or outside the formal education setting I'm not sure how to impress on those interest how time spent on learning the theory & applicable math is time spent, that in the end that will give them more time to spend on their livelihood or hobby
I built heaps of T.E. kits as a kid.
The main thing I remember is they took SO DAMN LONG to arrive (all the way from Vic to NSW).
And my fluoro tube inverter kit never work. Damn it.
Chris Gammell is in the USA and The Amp Hour is done every week. Distance is not an excuse today!
Postage stamps as currency - Really?! Brilliant! Back then it had value Now in the USA we have "forever" Stamps. because postage goes up so often while service is being cut back. ( And they say there is no inflation! Go figure. Nice to know there are more train enthusiasts than just plain electronics peeps. I guess you need to make an APPLICATION for greater success. Thank you dave for finding and interviewing this fellow.
Hey, nice work m8. big fan. Score +1 Australia, Engineering always had roots in Australia. Nice to see a functional mind with white hair like Mr. Mitchel there. So much to say really, i'm just fond of ur work. keep it up.
2:45 Was that an LED soldered to the trimpot to make a knob? Great idea!
The prototype Microcomp was done birds-nest style, without any PCB. We had a problem with it working in the sunlight coming through the window, but not when a shadow fell across it. One of the address lines to the ROM had come adrift, and the light was enough to toggle the address line to the state needed.
The problem is he's in Melbourne and I'm in Sydney.
What did you expect an interview to be but long and all talk? Especially one that involves so much history. It's about telling stories, not showing hardware.
Where are the electronics that talk? LOL :) Love your videos Dave I have watched every one. Greetings from Texas.
If I may answer u on that one, What is the point of doing calculative hand work if we could just plug components and run?
Well, suppose you need to change how ur circuit works, say higher gain but same transistors, or operate at a higher frequency but still using the same transistors, then you need to look at the hand calculations and figure out what passive parts need to be changed (larger or smaller). At times we like to buy the best parts for little work to be done, still wishful thinking.
Great videos. Why not have "a chat with Colin" as an upcoming video now and then?
Hi Dave, thumbs up for all the five episodes
A suggestion. Can you please make a video about your memories and experiences with talking electronics. Also did the kits came with the magazine or you guys have to buy it separately through phone or something?
still - - WOW wish we had anything like this here
Can you still get those old Talikng Electronics Magazines? Maybe a PDF?
What did these chips used to work with? Great video!
Great interview. My question is at what point is math best introduced? Sometimes math can be a very useful tool. But one has to learn how to use the tool first.
MORE!!
that was great, thanks for sharing.
You need to replace the battery in the fire/smoke detector :)
I started running around checking all my detectors but they were all fine :b
I happen to have two packs of five brand new, never used, SMD PIC16F84A-20/SM programmable micro-controllers that I got in a couple of grab bags of electronic components i bought from my local Jaycar Electronics store, I also have four brand new DAC0802LCN 8-Bit Digital to Analog converter ICs which were also in the grab bags.
Very good interview ,it was very interesting in listening to some of his memories of how he ran the mag.
Just one tip though Dave for your improving your interviewing technique .Stop constantly saying "yep" or other affirmative's every 10 second's it's very distracting .
where can i get the schematics for the pic programmer that he was talking about? something that works.
I use the Microcontroller Zilog ez8 Encore and the Zilog XP series.
Witch have the same features like AVR128 +DMA .3Chan...
And the ZILOG Window C Dev-IDE + Debugger.
But here in Europe they dont know much from new Zilog stuff.
Thanx Dave~
wow the infinity bug seems cool ...
Yes that is 1 time to use the math tool, another time would be when attempting to design a new circuit to do a particular task My question still is when to teach to tool of math?
The same PIC chip that is in a coffee maker is used in a satellite. Granted it was not anything special as far as satellites go, with a long lifespan or any critically important function, but it seems to indicate how universally accepted and widely used Microchip's PIC stuff is. I can't say I was ever overly impressed with the Tempe fab's facilities, and tooling, but they have a darn good market share for what they do. I do hope Colin lives a very long time. He seems to have a really good plan for releasing a decent backlog of kits. I had almost forgotten about Zilog. Almost..LOL If you ever do see Colin again, send along my best wishes and sincerest thanks. He came along ans filled a void at the proper time. If I run out of or need something anymore I may as well be in Death Valley or the outback. Our last brick & mortar electronics shop closed in 2012. There are 6,000,000 people in the county and the only store does not stock any inventory. Yeah! I have to go in and the order it, and I have to come back 3-30 days later, and I am paying brick and mortar prices. Why even bother?
I was in the marines and that z80 processor was in our SB6814 switch board I have had a few of the z81 processors they were pretty much the same thing but I think the speed changed a little. we had one of out Switch boards for a telephone switch board go down and the processor took the crap and you know the militaly they give way to much for anything. and at the time for shits and giggles I took my z81 and put it in and it workd and it worked better.
Z80 for the win !
I did make a video, search for magazine memories. #142
Great videos, thanks! :)
Audio is way off!
Awesome!!!
Very Good
Audio, yes. Video, no.
Maybe with both of you connected through Skype?
A bit like Circuit girl?
Anyway, nice video blog, keep it up for all of us nerds :-)
Skype is really shitty. Doesn't make for good video.
You could connect with Skype or similar?
Anyway, keep up your inspiring videos!
Battery in smoke alarm is complaining
damnit i did the exact same thing... facepalm XD
try skype