> I'm continually astounded that Silicon Chip is still alive; but they
> continue to exhibit signs of good business management in the face
> of change

They do have a good mix of information and things to make. It must
be a struggle to come up with novel and viable projects. Looking back
at my mags from the 70s and 80s - before micros, before everything
came on a ship from China for $5 - the simplicity of many projects is
very noticeable. Sunday afternoon, garden shed, Veroboard, make a
doorbell that chirps like a canary. Kind of.

Now and then you'll see a letter to the editor about "too many micro
or SMT projects" but if you want functions and flexibility then a micro
is the only economic option, vs a big board full of DIP logic.

Some of the simpler SC projects, particularly those using the smaller
PICs or PICAXEs, I pass on to a group of high school students who
in earlier times could not have gone straight to Sparkfun or eBay as
they can now and not learn anything on the way. They are still keen
to get busy with a soldering iron and a full SC project article is about
as good as it gets. A lot of them are pretty competent with Arduino
etc but not so with basic components and interfacing. SC projects
are very helpful in that regard, and counter some of the bad practices
found on the web all too easily.

For example, I recently passed on a very good NiMH charger project.
The student had asked for advice and offered up some awful thing he'd
got off the web as a circuit he would have made otherwise. His poor
poor batteries if he had

Joe


-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7797 / Virus Database: 4656/13192 - Release Date: 10/11/16

--=20
http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
.