Wow! Popular Electronics treasure trove!!

Started by Mark Hammer, November 22, 2005, 03:36:48 PM

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Mark Hammer

You find the most amazing things with the most lame Google searches.  "Build FET preamp" led me to a site with tons of scanned articles from PopularElectronics of the 60's and early 70's.

The main index can be found here:  http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Popular_Electronics.htm

Other projects/articles of interest to folks here that I've selected are.....

Reverb in your car: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Feb1966/PE_Feb1966.htm
CBAudio Leveller: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Feb1967/PE_Feb1967.htm
The Mini-Verb!: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/May1967/PE_May1967.htm
Reverb-b-b-b- adaptor: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Jan1968/PE_Jan1968.htm
The M/M/M Instrument/Guitar Amplifier Pt1: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1968/PE_Apr1968.htm
Pt2: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/May1968/PE_May1968.htm
FET Preamp (for stereos): http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/May1969/PE_May1969.htm
The Psych-Tone melody synthesizer: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Feb1971/PE_Feb1971.htm

Many, if not all, the project articles were items offered by legendary Southwest Technical Products.  Note the several tiny reverb projects, and the full-featured guitar amp (it had fuzz, tremolo and reverb, and 4-band EQ).

Whoever Michael Holley is, please forward his name onto the Vatican immediately for canonization!  I think we can safely say that the criterion number of people will have witnessed several miracles by the end of the day. :icon_biggrin:

cd

Thanks for posting that link, that's the oldest bunch of PEs I've ever seen.  Another good resource (for those that haven't tapped it already) is your local library.  I know what you're thinking - DUH where else can you find magazines? - but I'm talking about the *online* version of your local library.  Many have searchable magazine/newspaper databases (by abstract or keyword) some with complete copies of the magazine in PDF!!!  Look for Ebscohost or something similar.  I can't tell you how many hours I've wasted looking through old copies of PE and Poptronics online... but it's a lot :)

phaeton

Wow...

Is the current Popular Electronics as cool as these old issues?  I might have to get a subscription....
Stark Raving Mad Scientist

Mark Hammer

Doesn't exist anymore.  In the mid-to-late 90's, Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics (which by that point had been transformed into Electronics Now, same mag different title) were merged into Poptronix, which disappeared at the turn of the century.  Much of what MIGHT have shown up in Poptronix was ported over to Nuts and Volts.

Speaking of Radio Electronics, Michael Holley has another page of Radio Electronics articles featuring SWTPC products.  http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Radio_Electronics.htm  The only music-related thing is a pre-amp only versioon of the MMM guitar amp linked to in the other set of URLs.

Peter Snowberg

Eschew paradigm obfuscation

chaddhamilton

Quote from: Mark Hammer on November 22, 2005, 03:36:48 PM
Whoever Michael Holley is, please forward his name onto the Vatican immediately for canonization!  I think we can safely say that the criterion number of people will have witnessed several miracles by the end of the day. :icon_biggrin:

AND, he drove a reverb'd AMC Rambler. How cool is that?!
Rock on.

Herr Masel

Quote from: Peter Snowberg on November 22, 2005, 04:56:36 PM
http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/May1976/Gates_Letter.pdf

little did anyone know.

"and deluge the hobby market with good software." Little did anyone know indeed!  :-\ :icon_rolleyes:
Cool stuff about the reverb though!

jrem

Quote from: Peter Snowberg on November 22, 2005, 04:56:36 PM
http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/May1976/Gates_Letter.pdf

little did anyone know.

blah blah blah, now we get windows for free instead of basic, and look what's happened, my gawd, just imagine what he and Intel could have been if I paid for every copy of M$ software I've used.


A.S.P.

funny - found that site yesterday by accident, looking for the august `85 issue - in vain...
Analogue Signal Processing

Dan N

Thanks Mark!

As soon as I saw this post I started crossing my fingers for THIS article:

http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Mar1970/PE_Mar1970.htm

Yay!!!

Rob Strand

Send:     . .- .-. - .... / - --- / --. --- .-. -
According to the water analogy of electricity, transistor leakage is caused by holes.

Paul Perry (Frostwave)

Michael Holley was there at the beginning of PC history... he says that he remembers "a  vendor explaining that the order for joysticks was held up in U.S. Customs because they thought it might be a sexual apparatus."
Yeah those were the days all right!

swal

I went to my university library today and found all the popular electronis, electronics now and protronics from all of the 90's in full pdf and html format for students. And, I also asked around for hard copies and they have most of the 70's and 80's on hardcopy in storage. So, they said they will get them out of storage for me to look at and get copies of if i want. So, if anyone as a certain article they would like to see, I'll check with my university to see if it's allright to get copies of, just give me a shout. either post or pm me. thnx :icon_biggrin:
S J Waldner

Phorhas

Thanks Mark, that's some great reading... but alas... too much reading ? when will I eat and sleep ?!
Electron Pusher

MartyMart

Quote from: Paul Perry (Frostwave) on November 23, 2005, 05:30:19 PM
Michael Holley was there at the beginning of PC history... he says that he remembers "a  vendor explaining that the order for joysticks was held up in U.S. Customs because they thought it might be a sexual apparatus."
Yeah those were the days all right!


"Joy - Sticks"    that's funny   ;D :icon_lol:

Marty.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm"
My Website www.martinlister.com

brett

Hi.
That mini-verb reverb unit is a corker!
Anyone know if you can still get those tiny Gibbs reverb tanks, or any other tank that fits into a stompbox.  I never imagined that such a thing existed :icon_eek:.
cheers
Brett Robinson
Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend. (Mao Zedong)