Small Boards

As some of you know, I started university studying electrical engineering after having three years of electronics in high school. In electronics classes, we spent about half our time taking apart old televisions and radios to get the parts we needed to design and build new ones. We studied the fundamentals of tubes (“valves” to the British) and learned how to build logic gates out of relays, tubes, and these relatively new things called “transistors” – integrated circuits were far in the future. Engineers also practiced soldering and wire wrapping along with their design skills. I remember paying US$ 1.50 for a single transistor – and more if it was “special,” such as a power transistor.