Just found myself a home for my HP 8656B - with room for some friends. eBay auction: #323991523569
Giggity! @freqq: did you really have nothing but the midget HP as a power supply? Sorry, but I think you are pulling our legs, aren't you?
ok. in the spirit of full disclosure i will embarrass myself. in addition to the tiny hp there is a box of assorted junk raped out of old pc's, and one ancient dinosaur (new jersey electronics? who the hell were they?) that is the sum total of my power supply resources. shameful isn't it? it may get me shunned, but it feels good to be out of the closet.
THAT is my whole fukkin' bench.
mnem
Some people don't know when they've got it good...
i call horseshit. we have seen the supplies you have in storage. they weigh more than the freqq did in high school, and there are places in the world where they could power an entire village. (the pipe wrench still makes me smile)
It's not what you have, its what you do with it! Seriously about the only two things missing for a full bench, really are a freq gen and a scope. The stuff I made with the crappiest of an unregulated soldering iron!
Of course my point was to put your "embarrassment" into perspective... to some it would be an embarrassment of riches. And truth be told, as much as I may feel a bit jelly of your NJE linear
right now (which
I'll wager weighs more than "my whole fukkin' bench" ) for many, even my Spartan workspace would be similarly luxuriant.
As for "unregulated soldering iron"... I'll have to admit to being spoiled from VERY early on. Old man Basche (the head of the HS AV Dept who got me started in Electronics) gave me a Weller GT (now known as a GT7) as part of the "toolkit" they issued me (Which I was allowed to keep at the end of the year), AND my spot at the bench had a nearly-new WTCPN on which I learned to solder.
*Cue flashiebackie music*(In German accent so thick you'd swear it was Freud himself speaking) "Zo-o young man... do hyou know how to solder...?""I know how..." *pause to think about what I'm saying* "I HAVE soldered. I've never been taught how."
"Zat... eez a good honest answer. Zere may be hope for hyou yet. *Plops little scrap PCB on the bench* "Allright... first, tin zee tip... zat's eet, just a little bit. Eet helps zee heat transfer to zee work..."[/flashback mode]Looking back on it, that exchange was probably one of several "you passed a test and didn't even know it" moments which secured my place in that
"Electronics Dojo", and the "much-more-patient-than-I-deserved" tutelage I received as a result.
mnem
Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn... Tell us the lesson thart we should learn: If you don't know what you're doing, be honest about it or keep your mouth shut.