I have many hobbies and interests. Electronics, computers (vintage and new), engineering, wood work (which I’m terrible at), anything science and chemistry in particular. Like many a young person, I really wanted a chemistry set. I wanted to make smoke bombs, stink bombs, blow stuff up, showers of exciting sparks and possibly invent a new…

There wasn’t going to be a part 3, but now I’ve completed the refurbishment of the 6 kits that I’ve recently obtained, I thought it worth a summary. The kits all came from different sources and are of different ages and conditions. The one thing that was constant throughout all the kits however was corrosion.…

In the first part of this thrilling saga, I dropped a cliff-hanger and warned that whilst these kits often look in pretty good condition, trouble lies underneath.. underneath the cardboard panel as it happens. Today, I have a 160 in 1 kit from Science Fair on the bench that I’m going to restore. Due to…

At some point in the mid 1970’s I was presented with an electronics kit from Tandy/Radio Shack/Archer/Science Fair whoever you want to call them. Actually, lets try and clear this name thing up right now. The Tandy Corporation bought Radio Shack in 1963 and used it as their retail brand in the US so Radio…

I’m working on a new project; implementing a NMEA 2000 stack on a PIC. NMEA is a protocol that sits on-top of CAN bus, and allows devices on-board boats to communicate. Anyway, this task is producing lots of audit printouts, and I mean, pages and pages of 132 column wide listing paper print-outs. It’s much…

So the Christmas break is over and it’s back to the grind. I did however manage to get most of my KIM-1 activities completed. I’ve now got seven KIM-1 machines in various states of completeness and am just waiting on parts to arrive from the four corners of the globe. The original machine is fully…