Rant... Ok, Whine... The Life and Death of Stereo.

[Annemehr]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:
>
> What ever happened to 'Stereo'? How could it have such
> a grand a glorious life, only to fade away into 
> obscurity?
<snip>

> I've also noticed that 'do it yourself' electronic
> stores have faded into obscurity. Isn't there anyone
> any more who longs for the satisfaction and knowledge
> of 'doing it themselves'? 
<snip>

Sorry for snipping your rant.  I hear you, though.

Yeah, everything's cheap crap now, even the expensive stuff.

I vividly remember when I had to drag my husband out of every Radio 
Shack.  They used to always have a whole wall of electronic 
components -- capacitors, resistors, diodes, transistors...and all 
kinds of microchips...now it's just phones and gadgets; we never even 
go in there anymore.

Me, I used to like Heathkit.  True, it was all pre-designed, but I 
just liked sorting through all the components and putting them 
together -- sorta like doing models and jigsaw puzzles, I guess.  
That business is long gone -- it's way cheaper just to have the 
Chinese assemble stuff than to box all the pieces up with 
instructions.  So, when they lost the part of the customer base who 
bought the kits to save money, the ones who did it just for fun 
weren't enough to keep the business afloat.

Come to think of it now, I knew a guy in college who, in 1981, built 
himself a personal computer from the microchips up.  Not so long ago, 
my husband would peruse PC Shopper and go to computer shows and build 
his out of individual components -- a motherboard here, video card 
there, monitor, power supply, etc.  Now, he just gets the whole thing 
in a box.

You *can* still sew your own clothes.  You *can't* save money doing 
it, though, by the time you buy everything you need -- you may as 
well have gone to Target.  You'd think at least you'd have the 
advantage of choosing the perfect fabric, but it often seems that the 
sections for quilting fabrics and fleece -- "crafty" type fabric -- 
kind of overwhelm the store, at the expense of having a good 
selection to use for clothing.

Anyway, sorry about the crappy speakers, man.

Annemehr
who is at least planting a little vegetable garden this year