On 26/05/17 21:24, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Fri, 26 May 2017 18:17:46 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

You are preaching to the converted. I loved my Meccano. I would do
anything for more, I longed for the motor with gears etc.

I bought my son kits that went unopened. He just wasn't
interested.

Hmm same here...

Yep, Lego NXT here. What could be better these days, building things,
with servo motors, sensors, all easyly programable. A few of the
things in the book where built but no playing as in "what can I make
this stuff do".

Yet the same lad has "built" an 8 bit adder with input/output
registers in Minecraft from scratch. Started by looking up circuits
for adders and went from there, I think he still works on building a
8 bit microprocessor from time to time. Builds all manner of space
ships in Kerbal Space Program, so the imgination and "what if" is
there. I guess the reward feedback loop is much shorter, want to
change something? click, click, drag, click, test. Rather than 15
minutes or longer deconstructing and reconstructing...

Nowt wrong in that.

When I were a lad it was meccano and model planes. Then it was soldering
transistors together which became my first career. Programming
mainframes == too bloody slow

Then micros arrived with screens and keyboards and computing was now
minutes, not days.

And computers cost hundreds, not millions

Today you wouldn't make something out of meccano. You would solid model
it and get it 3D printed. Or laser cut.




--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."

Billy Connolly