What happened to the Electronic Magazines?

[Kjelt]

IMO it started already end of the 90s, I was an Elektor member and saw the analog well described circuits disappear towards medium sized microprocessor products where the hobbieist could only buy the board and microcontroller ready programmed in order to build it. The description of some more complex projects that needed 10 pages and 5 pages for the software were only two pages and a few snippets of code making it fairly useless for reproduction or actually understanding how the programmer solved some issues.

What actually could work are projects described into detail about the design details, why some components were choosen over others, the functionality of the hardware but also the software with full codelisting in c with comments and describing the algorithms. So in short they should make open source software and hardware and put the repository and documentation online.
That is how you would sell your magazine but lets face it a magazine is made by a couple of persons while in the world already hundreds of individuals are putting their creations online to share with others.
While the only source of information once was a monthly magazine you now have so many bloggers, vloggers programmers and engineers contributing that you do not even have time to read and view what is created each and every day.

[Specmaster]

IMO it started already end of the 90s, I was an Elektor member and saw the analog well described circuits disappear towards medium sized microprocessor products where the hobbieist could only buy the board and microcontroller ready programmed in order to build it. The description of some more complex projects that needed 10 pages and 5 pages for the software were only two pages and a few snippets of code making it fairly useless for reproduction or actually understanding how the programmer solved some issues.

What actually could work are projects described into detail about the design details, why some components were choosen over others, the functionality of the hardware but also the software with full codelisting in c with comments and describing the algorithms. So in short they should make open source software and hardware and put the repository and documentation online.
That is how you would sell your magazine but lets face it a magazine is made by a couple of persons while in the world already hundreds of individuals are putting their creations online to share with others.
While the only source of information once was a monthly magazine you now have so many bloggers, vloggers programmers and engineers contributing that you do not even have time to read and view what is created each and every day.

I agree with your comments almost 100%, yes there is lots of info on the net in general but knowing where to look for it is a full time job in itself. If this info was pulled together into an online magazine along with the type of thing you describe and also some very basic items aimed at being educational, it could inspire many people into getting into electronics and may become the next generation of inventors to take us forwards.

That was my original point in as much as there seemed to be nothing to do that out there currently. It was straight into microcontrollers from nothing, I couldn't see how that was going to be able to produce the next level of electronic building blocks but a generation of coders and assemblers.

[james_s]

The internet is what happened to them. I've been a subscriber to Nuts & Volts for nearly 30 years now, and I got Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics/Electronics Now up until their demise. I'm planning to let my Nuts & Volts subscription lapse this time around though because I find myself spending less and less time with each new issue which seem to get thinner and thinner, aimed at stuff I don't care about. It's been years since I built a project out of a modern magazine, these days if I build something from an existing plan it's something I found online. It sucks in a way, and I have a lot of nostalgia about the magazines and I'll be keeping my collection but I can't justify continuing to get them forever. I've realized for the past few years it's been a charity case, continuing to subscribe in order to support the magazine.

[vk6zgo]

One thing about magazines, is that the editors were there to sort out the nonsense from the technically correct material.
The Internet, on the other hand is brimming over with absolute duck poo, & the unfortunate beginner is left to his/her own devices when trying to navigate through it.

Some of the strange circuits presented by beginners on this forum, accompanied by a plaintive
"Why doesn't it work?" come from sites that seem to aggregate schematics from all over, with no technical oversight at all.

[Specmaster]

The internet is what happened to them. I've been a subscriber to Nuts & Volts for nearly 30 years now, and I got Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics/Electronics Now up until their demise. I'm planning to let my Nuts & Volts subscription lapse this time around though because I find myself spending less and less time with each new issue which seem to get thinner and thinner, aimed at stuff I don't care about. It's been years since I built a project out of a modern magazine, these days if I build something from an existing plan it's something I found online. It sucks in a way, and I have a lot of nostalgia about the magazines and I'll be keeping my collection but I can't justify continuing to get them forever. I've realized for the past few years it's been a charity case, continuing to subscribe in order to support the magazine.

I think you have hit on a couple of issues here thinner and thinner, aimed at stuff I don't care about which may be typical of the reasons why some have died away, less and less content, is something I have noticed in a lot of things, even news papers these days sometimes seem to struggle to find content. The other point raised is that the content that was there was something that failed to grasp your interest.

You said that the past few years its been a charity case, but I expect that if the content had not dwindled away and some of the content was relevant and of interest to you, that you'd still be happy to subscribe unless it become prohibitively expensive, is that correct? If it gone over to being online and was only readable say though an app that was encoded which is what I suspect zino.com do, then it should be possible to keep the cost down to a reasonable level, you'd be happy?

[Specmaster]

One thing about magazines, is that the editors were there to sort out the nonsense from the technically correct material.
The Internet, on the other hand is brimming over with absolute duck poo, & the unfortunate beginner is left to his/her own devices when trying to navigate through it.

Some of the strange circuits presented by beginners on this forum, accompanied by a plaintive
"Why doesn't it work?" come from sites that seem to aggregate schematics from all over, with no technical oversight at all.

Very true point and if the magazine did publish something was wrong, it was addressed in the next issue whereas if you choose to have ago at making from a misguided website / blog (Youtube is awash with these) and you go and purchase all the BOM to make this object and it doesn't work as expected, in most cases you are left to your own devices, there is next to or zero support from the content provider.

[schmitt trigger]

Another veteran here, that subscribed to US, British and Australian magazines from about 1975 to 2010..........

I fully agree with all the comments above.
Between 1975 and 1987 I lived in Mexico, and getting a US subscription would cost me three times as much, but it was worth every single penny.

The only other thing that I will add, is that even the ads would be very informative. I would browse thru the early, single-page ads from Jameco, Digikey and others, and compare component prices and check the latest components: "BiFet opamps! 1k RAM! 600 volt, 35 amp Triac!".

I would also salivate at the kits, which would describe in tantalizing detail the circuit features such as: "....the preamp stage employs the latest Texas Instruments low-noise, high slew rate opamps, low noise, 1% metal film resistors, and Sprague film capacitors.  The optional power supply employs a low hum toroid transformer, and computer-grade electrolytic capacitors."

[floobydust]

High-end grocery store here has 0 electronics magazines on the shelf, but I counted 12 magazines featuring guns and rifles on the cover. There's a bias against electronics magazines for stores to display them.

Magazine projects got silly - either bonehead simple or stupid complicated/expensive to build.
Some don't give the source-code used in the MCU. Hear that Silicon Chip?

The maker-movement and associated magazines are doing better because their projects are more relevant, open-source, and not so old school.

[james_s]

I think you have hit on a couple of issues here thinner and thinner, aimed at stuff I don't care about which may be typical of the reasons why some have died away, less and less content, is something I have noticed in a lot of things, even news papers these days sometimes seem to struggle to find content. The other point raised is that the content that was there was something that failed to grasp your interest.

You said that the past few years its been a charity case, but I expect that if the content had not dwindled away and some of the content was relevant and of interest to you, that you'd still be happy to subscribe unless it become prohibitively expensive, is that correct? If it gone over to being online and was only readable say though an app that was encoded which is what I suspect zino.com do, then it should be possible to keep the cost down to a reasonable level, you'd be happy?

Yes, far too many of the projects in recent years have started with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi and that's precisely the sort of stuff the internet is full of, I don't need a magazine for that. I want unique projects, electronic gadgets built from scratch, quality articles that cover various aspects of electrical and electronics engineering, interesting new parts, retro stuff, etc. There is some of that remaining but not enough to be worth continuing to subscribe.

I will *not* pay for a digital subscription that is locked to a specific app though, that is precisely why I dumped Everyday Practical Electronics and never looked back. They went from ordinary unlocked PDF's to the PocketMags app which despite jumping through hoops I was never able to get it to work at all on anything I had so I gave up. I abandoned my subscription right there and was then able to eventually find most of the issues I had already paid in advance for on torrent sites. Eventually I think they dumped Pocketmags and went back to pdf but I was so irked by the experience that I never subscribed again. It's too bad really because it was a great magazine though a bit overpriced. Even the online digital version was substantially more expensive than a physical subscription to Nuts & Volts.

More recently I found a legitimate site that has digitized issues of all sorts of old magazines, lately I've been reading Radio Electronics back all the way to the 1950s. Since discovering that I have enough reading material to keep me occupied for a long time. Every once in a while I've built a project from some decades old magazine article and that's always fun.

[Specmaster]

Yes, far too many of the projects in recent years have started with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi and that's precisely the sort of stuff the internet is full of, I don't need a magazine for that. I want unique projects, electronic gadgets built from scratch, quality articles that cover various aspects of electrical and electronics engineering, interesting new parts, retro stuff, etc. There is some of that remaining but not enough to be worth continuing to subscribe.

I will *not* pay for a digital subscription that is locked to a specific app though, that is precisely why I dumped Everyday Practical Electronics and never looked back. They went from ordinary unlocked PDF's to the PocketMags app which despite jumping through hoops I was never able to get it to work at all on anything I had so I gave up. I abandoned my subscription right there and was then able to eventually find most of the issues I had already paid in advance for on torrent sites. Eventually I think they dumped Pocketmags and went back to pdf but I was so irked by the experience that I never subscribed again. It's too bad really because it was a great magazine though a bit overpriced. Even the online digital version was substantially more expensive than a physical subscription to Nuts & Volts.

More recently I found a legitimate site that has digitized issues of all sorts of old magazines, lately I've been reading Radio Electronics back all the way to the 1950s. Since discovering that I have enough reading material to keep me occupied for a long time. Every once in a while I've built a project from some decades old magazine article and that's always fun.

Exactly, not everyone and his dog wants to get involved with Arduino's or Raspberry Pi's, maybe at a later stage / date but right now I'm happy with discrete parts in my electronics thank you very much.

Costs on a PDF version should be considerably lower than a printed version in full colour, I fail to see how they think they can justify the costs??

Would you mind sharing the site address for those old digitised issues please?

[james_s]

I have nothing against Arduinos and RPis but the internet is saturated with projects involving connecting various modules to those, I don't need a magazine for that. Also the Q&A section frequently posts answers that are not informative or occasionally downright wrong. Overall it just seems the quality has fallen noticeably, certainly compared to the old stuff.


Sure, I had to find it, the bookmark is on my laptop at home.
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Radio_Electronics%20_Master_Page.htm

[rdl]

I've downloaded quite a few from the Internet Archive:

http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Aradioelectronicsmagazine

[nctnico]

I think the decline started well before the internet.

I agree. I cancelled my subscription to Elektor early in the 90's because it got boring. They had a 'high end' audio amplifier twice a year and lots of model railroad stuff. Also no sourcecode for their microcontroller projects which took all the fun out of building any of their microcontroller based projects yourself and modifying it to your own needs (isn't that what an electronics hobby is all about?).

[jolshefsky]

Starting probably as early as the 1960s and steadily accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s and continuing today, businesses switched from "providing goods and services" to "focusing on the bottom-line" (that is, cost versus profit).

For electronics publications, they were once content to fill a niche of hobbyists trying to learn something new, clever, or otherwise just interesting. But expert writers and editors are not cheap, so when the focus changed to the bottom-line, the most obvious thing (to business-minded managers) was to eliminate the most expensive parts of the business which were the experts. The magazines drained momentum for a few more decades but once the Internet took off, the articles written by these average-smart experts were at best average compared to the aggregated tidbits of real experts writing content online.

[Mr. Scram]

Starting probably as early as the 1960s and steadily accelerating through the 1980s and 1990s and continuing today, businesses switched from "providing goods and services" to "focusing on the bottom-line" (that is, cost versus profit).

For electronics publications, they were once content to fill a niche of hobbyists trying to learn something new, clever, or otherwise just interesting. But expert writers and editors are not cheap, so when the focus changed to the bottom-line, the most obvious thing (to business-minded managers) was to eliminate the most expensive parts of the business which were the experts. The magazines drained momentum for a few more decades but once the Internet took off, the articles written by these average-smart experts were at best average compared to the aggregated tidbits of real experts writing content online.

I think the notion that the bottom line wasn't the main target before is a misconception.

[schmitt trigger]

The redeeming grace of an electronics magazine was that the articles were reviewed at least by one editor, who corrected not only glaring technical errors, but also grammatical mistakes.

If errors were printed, there would be a published correction in the next issue, and/or some letters to the editor pointing out the error.

With the web, mistakes go unchecked.
I'm sure that we posters in this and other fora have seen multiple times a variation of the following post: Help, my XYZ-5 circuit is not working. Followed by a schematic full of basic mistakes.
I sometimes feel pity because many are from developing countries where finding electronic components is both expensive and a real chore.

[EEVblog]

Although in its day there were some heated exchanges on the “letters to the editor “ section, no profane insults or ad hominem attacks would be allowed by the magazine editor.

It was a more civilised age!

[Freelander]

I was a more civilised age!

You mean you were younger when you read them Dave ?   

[EEVblog]

The internet is what happened to them.

Well, yes, but the decline started somewhat before the internet.
The web happened in 1995, and you could argue that a magazine like Electronics Australia (the longest running electronics magazine in the world) started it's decline in the late 80's.
I put a lot of the blame on the home computer revolution.
What did curious kids do in the 60's and especially the 70's? There were no computers or other gadget filled worlds to catch their attention, so hobby electronics was an obvious avenue to pursue.
But once computers came along, the curious kids got caught up in those and diverted their attention away. Hobby electronics became more obscure.
Heck, even I mostly gave up electronics as a hobby and caught caught up in computers and programming in the 90's.
Then the cheap consumer gadgets came along and it was all over red rover.
I and countless others basically called the end to hobby electronics in the late 90's and 2000's.
Then along came the maker revolution that surprised all the old hobbyists, and hobby electronics became cool again.

[Gyro]

I think the decline started well before the internet.

I agree. I cancelled my subscription to Elektor early in the 90's because it got boring. They had a 'high end' audio amplifier twice a year and lots of model railroad stuff. Also no sourcecode for their microcontroller projects which took all the fun out of building any of their microcontroller based projects yourself and modifying it to your own needs (isn't that what an electronics hobby is all about?).

Actually, the most interesting bit of Elektor these days is the 'Labs' Section. That's where the projects under development are. You can download files from there if you just register for a basic free account...

https://www.elektormagazine.com/labs

[jonovid]

I was doing some research into the Australian AWA radiosondes used over VIC , Victoria in the 1960's.
seeking the uniquely Australian electronic circuits used and any Australian photos.
but a lack of information on line, as this is before the internet, had me looking for
Electronics Australia magazine archives from 1965 to about 1985. but there is non on the internet. 
other then private collections. or ebay   my father had a EA magazine collection at the time.

[ferdieCX]

I was doing some research into the Australian AWA radiosondes used over VIC , Victoria in the 1960's.
seeking the uniquely Australian electronic circuits used and any Australian photos.
but a lack of information on line, as this is before the internet, had me looking for
Electronics Australia magazine archives from 1965 to about 1985. but there is non on the internet. 
other then private collections. or ebay   my father had a EA magazine collection at the time.

Hi, you will find January 1967 and March 1969 in this link

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Elecronics_Australia.htm

[schmitt trigger]

The internet is what happened to them.

I put a lot of the blame on the home computer revolution.

I believe you are absolutely correct.
In the US, the best American Electronics magazine in the 70s and early 80s was Popular Electronics. At one point they had a circulation close to 450K.
But then they had the brilliant idea that they should be involved with the new personal computers, and changed the name to Computers & Electronics.

The rest evolved exactly as you have accurately described.

[JoeO]

I was doing some research into the Australian AWA radiosondes used over VIC , Victoria in the 1960's.
seeking the uniquely Australian electronic circuits used and any Australian photos.
but a lack of information on line, as this is before the internet, had me looking for
Electronics Australia magazine archives from 1965 to about 1985. but there is non on the internet. 
other then private collections. or ebay   my father had a EA magazine collection at the time.

Hi, you will find January 1967 and March 1969 in this link

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Elecronics_Australia.htm

Page 12 of the January 1967 has an interesting ad.

[james_s]

The internet is what happened to them.

I put a lot of the blame on the home computer revolution.

I believe you are absolutely correct.
In the US, the best American Electronics magazine in the 70s and early 80s was Popular Electronics. At one point they had a circulation close to 450K.
But then they had the brilliant idea that they should be involved with the new personal computers, and changed the name to Computers & Electronics.

The rest evolved exactly as you have accurately described.

There was some crossover though. In the early 90s I built an interface card (from a magazine article) to plug into my PC/XT and wrote programs in BASIC to control all sorts of stuff. I had many hours of fun with that, of course now an AVR or PIC would be more capable but microcontrollers weren't really a thing back then. I mean they were around but most required expensive programming hardware and specialized software.