Thanks for the EEVBLOG! The kit could be made mandatory in all high schools. Sure beats reading Shakespeare. You never know we might even become a "knowledge nation" one day.
A few comments if I may...
THE SIDE CUTTERS:
The side cutters look pretty average. I hate having to use crappy side cutters. Every place I have worked at I have reached out to unbelievers and witnessed born again conversion to the TRONEX brand of side cutters. These are a godsend to electronics engineers, technicians and hobbyists. They are of vastly superior quality. They seem to last forever providing you don't cut nails with them. (They do work well on fingernails though!). Mektronics sells a variety of these side cutters, sometimes on special. My favourite is the Tronex 7111 side cutters for general PCB work. If I recall they sell for around $60 or so but will last a lifetime. And no, I don't work for Mektronics.
BLACK PCBs:
Black PCB's look sexy and might even attract chicks. I recently followed one of Dave's EEVBLOG suggestions with a company in NZ called Circuit Labs and got a 4 layered complex board done in matt black. Like with Dave's experience the quality was outstanding, the price cheap and the turnaround time very quick. The reason I got black was the board was used in an optics application and light reflection has to be minimised. Thanks for the tip Dave! I also found it to be very hard to trace PCB tracks visually, but they do look sexy.
The 555:
As for the 555, about 25 years ago some of the bipolar 555's from one manufacturer (not CMOS) were quite noisy. I suspected this was because the the totem pole output transistors could both turn on at the same time creating a very brief short from rail to ground. They were also not very reliable. Since then, if I have used these devices I use the CMOS variety.
Finally, other ubiquitous nostalgic parts besides the '555 include the BC547, LM317, 7805. And let's not forget the 2N3055 and his best mate the MJE2955.
cheers,
another Dave.