Published schematics go back to the earliest days of radio. Electronics magazines and the Radio Amateur's Handbook are roughly a century old.
Before that, there was science. Although the rules were loosely defined, scientists were expected to provide enough detail in their papers for someone else to replicate their work. That's where I learned about open design, before I learned to program.
Into the modern age, when "code" became part of electronics projects, the magazines printed source code listings, and later required authors to provide their code for an online repository. I published a couple of those articles back in the day.
There are professional versions of the Denshi block, used in engineering schools in Japan in the 80's/90's (as I recall), to lay out circuits and serve as a test-bed for student lab work:
In my case, it's just a great reminder of the 70's, and how bright and shiny the future used to seem. Its also a pretty fun little woo-hoo-bonky-boing synth toy, now and then ..
I would have to wonder if there aren't pro blocks in that store somewhere, probably in their own neatly labeled section ..
Reminds me of a vaguely similar toy you used to be able to get at Radio Shack: the "electronics project kits". Typically, a given set of circuit components would be laid out on a board (typically thick cardboard) in a frame (wood). Attached to the leads of the components are small metal springs. You used the provided wires to connect components together by bending the springs back, inserting the stripped ends of the wires between the coils of the spring, and letting the spring snap back into place. Instructions provided with the kit showed you how to connect the components to yield all sorts of interesting things, from simple circuits that could make lights blink to working radio receivers, musical instruments, etc. Some of the more sophisticated and expensive ones had ICs, and I think a few of the later ones had microcontrollers.
20 years ago my town had a boutique electronics store, somewhat like a Radio Shack, except they'd developed corporate sales as a revenue stream instead of pushing cellphone contracts on consumers. It carried on until the owner died last year.
I enjoy seeing boutique businesses but it's nice to see one where the core operation (not just the IP) has a shot at outlasting the founder.
Before that, there was science. Although the rules were loosely defined, scientists were expected to provide enough detail in their papers for someone else to replicate their work. That's where I learned about open design, before I learned to program.
Into the modern age, when "code" became part of electronics projects, the magazines printed source code listings, and later required authors to provide their code for an online repository. I published a couple of those articles back in the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block
There are professional versions of the Denshi block, used in engineering schools in Japan in the 80's/90's (as I recall), to lay out circuits and serve as a test-bed for student lab work:
https://www.denshiblock.co.jp/whatdbk.html
(See also: https://www.denshiblock.co.jp/seihinindex.html ..)
In my case, it's just a great reminder of the 70's, and how bright and shiny the future used to seem. Its also a pretty fun little woo-hoo-bonky-boing synth toy, now and then ..
I would have to wonder if there aren't pro blocks in that store somewhere, probably in their own neatly labeled section ..
I enjoy seeing boutique businesses but it's nice to see one where the core operation (not just the IP) has a shot at outlasting the founder.
That’s not how these things work