Electronics Today International

[FreeThinker]

Anyone remember Electronics Today International magazine? Started in Australia circa 1971 so Dave may remember it, Fine magazine nothing Quite like it today.

[quantumfall]

Yes, I remember it being published here in the UK, I had a great big pile in the 1980's.  I wish I had them now unfortunately with life's changes and shortage of space at one time or another they had to go along with other electronics mags of that time I had.

I would read it cover to cover and built some of the projects as well.

I'm not sure if it was ETI because it merged with another mag but they had circuit board layouts in the back you could use to make your own pcbs.

I used to take the mag to the local copy shop and they would copy the layout on to plastic film, I would use this to expose a copper board and etch etc.  The copy shop changed to a big chain and when I took in a layout to have copied onto the plastic they refused saying it was copy write or what ever, I tried to explain that they where there to be copied, it was their only reason to be in the mag, but no go.

I did get the editor on the phone and he said they were technically correct to refuse to copy the artwork and suggested using a film negative method but would not give me a letter to allow me to get the artwork copied at the copy shop.  I was very annoyed and I think it was the reason among the costs as well, that made me fed up with the hobby for years..

[EEVblog]

Yes, I grew up on that and EA + others.
Roger Harrison was one of the stalwarts.
ETI eventually merged with EA, as they were both Federal Publishing mags, and 2 was too many. But essentially ETI just died, apart from the "with ETI" text they keep on the front page for EA for many years.
Silicon Chip eventually bought all rights to EA and ETI, so they own all the back issues etc.

Dave.

[quantumfall]

The other mags here in the UK I remember was Practical Electronics and also Everyday Electronics.

Is there any legit way to get back issues or PDFs of any of these mags now ? I have seen some on ebay but they are £4 each which is a bit expensive to buy a lot of them, I may get one or two if no other way.

[FreeThinker]

I had every issue from about 1980 through to the mid nineties until the wife said it was her or the mags.It was a close call but the mags had to go  .Used to love the way they would explain the workings of a chip or a particular theorem.Do you remember A.S.Lipson?, or the editors crush on Felicity Kendal.Electronics soap opera in monthly installments.Elektor is a poor substitute .

[EEVblog]

Is there any legit way to get back issues or PDFs of any of these mags now ? I have seen some on ebay but they are £4 each which is a bit expensive to buy a lot of them, I may get one or two if no other way.

SC have been promising to release all the back issues of EA on disc, but it been a few years now...

Dave.

[FreeThinker]

The other mags here in the UK I remember was Practical Electronics and also Everyday Electronics.

Is there any legit way to get back issues or PDFs of any of these mags now ? I have seen some on ebay but they are £4 each which is a bit expensive to buy a lot of them, I may get one or two if no other way.

A Quick google only turned up this http://www.aaelectron.co.uk/eti/ which appears to only carry links to tables of content and not much more. Shame. Still got a couple of the ETI cookbooks somewhere.Think there was a sister magazine called hobby electronics which was a little more basic that I got sometimes If they had an article/project for my beloved sinclair zx80....Now there was a development board 

[quantumfall]

Is there any legit way to get back issues or PDFs of any of these mags now ? I have seen some on ebay but they are £4 each which is a bit expensive to buy a lot of them, I may get one or two if no other way.

SC have been promising to release all the back issues of EA on disc, but it been a few years now...

Dave.

I would love to read any of these old magazines,  Why would they hide away these magazines ? Its got to be good for the electronics community to keep all this great information and encourage people to have an interest in the past as its still important to see how things can be done, even if a micro controller is now used.

[quantumfall]

The other mags here in the UK I remember was Practical Electronics and also Everyday Electronics.

Is there any legit way to get back issues or PDFs of any of these mags now ? I have seen some on ebay but they are £4 each which is a bit expensive to buy a lot of them, I may get one or two if no other way.

Think there was a sister magazine called hobby electronics which was a little more basic that I got sometimes If they had an article/project for my beloved sinclair zx80....Now there was a development board 

Yes I now remember that one..  I liked it as well, Elektor was a bit to pro for my level of understanding but I did buy it a few times.

[FreeThinker]

Friend of mine made the audio system designed by John Lindsey Hood, Top of the range+ used it for many happy years before 'upgrading'.I remember one of his articles where he went on a little rant about the thermal noise of some resistors he had been supplied with causing 'a measurable' distortion in his preamp.Yeah if you were a bat! but such was his passion for his work.Wonder if he is still around?
Edit! It's John Linsley Hood and he passed away in March 2004. RIP
His Class A Amp http://www.hifiengine.com/gallery/images/john-linsley-hood-400.shtml

[Zad]

I grew up with ETI, they had some excellent 'serious' projects such as the Vocoder and the Cortex computer. Working out how things like that worked, with the PSU module, keyboard, memory, audio filters and so on, taught me more about electronics at an intuitive level than university ever did. A few months ago there was a BBC TV series on 1980s synth pop music, and I think it was Martyn Ware from The Human League who said his first synth was built from an ETI design.

At the top were mags like Wireless World, ETI and Elektor, with Everyday Electronics and Practical Electronics towards the bottom end of the market, recycling the same projects every few years. Bath overflow monitors, microphone pre-amps, disco lights etc. Not long ago, one of the torrent people scanned and uploaded almost the complete set of Elektor up to the mid 80s. It would be nice if someone could do the same to the old ETIs.

[FreeThinker]

Cortex! Thats it, I was scratching my head trying to remember what it was called.Did you build one or like me read (and re-read) and only dream? As i remember it's spec was world shattering at the time and could be built to your own spec to suit needs/finances.The article it ran on sprite handling and it's multi plane output was a revelation at the time, my mobile phone probably performs better now but at the time it was state of the art.

[djsb]

http://www.epemag3.com/

Feb. 1999 - Wimborne Publishing acquired its UK rival Electronics Today International (ETI). As quoted here.

http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/history.htm

[FreeThinker]

http://www.epemag3.com/

Very Nice but it's not Electronics Today International is it?

[Zad]

I think I was 11, maybe 12 at the time, so it was way waaay out of my reach. After extensive Googling (I knew it existed, just not quite sure where), PDFs of the articles are available here. They are a bit unreliable opening on my PC of some reason, but fine if I save to disk.

ftp://whtech.com/Powertran%20Cortex/ETI%20Articles/

More info available up 1 directory ftp://whtech.com/Powertran%20Cortex/

I remember reading the first article in the back of my dad's car on the way to the airport to pick my auntie up from her travels somewhere exotic. That night, the world just seemed so utterly amazing. Jets taking off and landing from the far corners of the earth, and incredible colour computers with phenomenal power, memory space and storage. I swear I would have exploded with delight if someone had got me the data sheets!. Good days. Not quite so good when I priced the parts for a keyboard and it was nearly 2 years pocket money. I still get a bit excited looking at it!

[quantumfall]

I remember reading the first article in the back of my dad's car on the way to the airport to pick my auntie up from her travels somewhere exotic. That night, the world just seemed so utterly amazing. Jets taking off and landing from the far corners of the earth, and incredible colour computers with phenomenal power, memory space and storage. I swear I would have exploded with delight if someone had got me the data sheets!. Good days. Not quite so good when I priced the parts for a keyboard and it was nearly 2 years pocket money. I still get a bit excited looking at it!

Thanks for that its a very nice anecdote, I had similar excitement with electronics myself.  The money well still struggling there unfortunately.

[FreeThinker]

I think I was 11, maybe 12 at the time, so it was way waaay out of my reach

I was a little older then you (cough!) with a young family so it was out of my reach too.But thanks to you I now have one (An emulator anyway   ).
This shows EXACTLY what I meant about ETI. Its informative style detailed explanation while not getting too techy alongside a passion and love of electronics. Many user groups sprang up from projects like this and thrived for many years. Thats why I like EEVBLOG so much, Daves obvious passion for his work.

PS The links don't work but if you copy and paste without the last '/' it worked for me (In Opera)

[christ]

I just stumbled across this thread.
Started with ETI at the start of the '80's myself!
Have you seen http://www.all-electric.com/schematic/eticircuits/index.htm - takes me back to the world of 555 timer circuits!

[graynomad]

The editor of ETI was Collyn Rivers,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_Today_International

I knew him reasonably well and used to stay with him when I passed through Broome. He now lives in Sydney so I don't expect to see him again as I almost never go into cities.

He told me that Kerry Packer showed him how to make a million $ and having seen the house he had in Broome (with ocean frontage onto Cable Beach) I can well believe that.

Amongst other achievements Collyn drove through Africa in the 50s in a 53-horsepower Bedford 4x4 truck. 

He now writes technical articles for the CMCA (Aussie motohome club) magazine and publishes books about solar and vehicle power systems.

I too have fond memories of reading ETI in my (electronics) formative years.
______
Rob

[SeanB]

I remember ETI, and who remembers Television?

[vk6zgo]

I remember ETI, and who remembers Television?

"Television" was/is a great magazine!( I thought it was still around!)

The tech articles got me out of a lot of strife with European sourced Picture Monitors,some of which had fairly poor documentation & used weird (to me) special components.
They weren't really any weirder than the Sony stuff,&  I found from "Television" that many were widely used in Europe in domestic TVs.
In Australia, the Sony parts were readily available,& the documentation better.so they were easier to work on.

"Television" even showed me a few things I didn't know about Sony stuff!

As a diehard "Radio TV & Hobbies"/"Electronics Australia" follower,I never really liked ETI--they were a bit too "cutesy" for my liking,but
I'm of an older generation.

[SeanB]

Television just stoppede  ocming here, no explanation. nothing on the unhelpful website either, so stopped my call order.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I remember ETI, and who remembers Television?

Yep - As well as service info, back in the days when people repaired TVs, and there were few enough basic models out there for magazines to usefully cover it, they had the occasional interesting construction feature, I recall building their colour signals board to replace the circuitry in an old TV I had - I wrote to them asking for suggestions on how to interface it, and was surprised to get a hand-drawn schematic back with full details!
I also have a vague recollection of them doing a retrofit teletext board design based on the Philips SAA50x0 chipset, as well as a vidicon based CCTV camera.

Anyone remember their occasional 'glamourous' front covers...?

While we're at it, who remembers Radio & Electronics constructor...?

[Uncle Vernon]

As a diehard "Radio TV & Hobbies"/"Electronics Australia" follower,I never really liked ETI--they were a bit too "cutesy" for my liking,but
I'm of an older generation.

Cutesy?  I guess that's one perspective.  ETI was a revolution, while all the others were building pieces'o'crap mounted in 35mm slide boxes, ETI was making real useable stuff synths, mixing desks, high power amps etc.
RIP ETI still sadly missed.

[FreeThinker]

As a diehard "Radio TV & Hobbies"/"Electronics Australia" follower,I never really liked ETI--they were a bit too "cutesy" for my liking,but
I'm of an older generation.

Cutesy?  I guess that's one perspective.  ETI was a revolution, while all the others were building pieces'o'crap mounted in 35mm slide boxes, ETI was making real useable stuff synths, mixing desks, high power amps etc.
RIP ETI still sadly missed.

In my opinion THE best Electronics mag bar none. Sadly missed indeed.