My personal path of electronics education was not a planned curriculum. It was a meandering haphazard collection of lessons I learned by browsing, observing, and screwing around. Absorbing knowledge as I go whenever and wherever I can. So when someone asks how they can get started, I didn't know where to point them. "Visit Radio Shack some decades ago, before they sucked" is not a useful pointer. Eventually I learned of Adafruit and all the resources they put online for beginners, and have been pointing people in that direction. But I got a Radio Shack flashback when I read A 65-in-1 the 2024 Way on Hackaday.

I remember that type of educational electronic kits on Radio Shack shelves and remember wanting one of my own, but I never did. I've talked to many people who fondly remember their kit and credit them with changing the trajectory of their life. Pretty amazing and occasionally I wondered if getting one would have significantly changed my own life. I'll never know the answer, but I'm glad somebody is working to recreate that kind of magic for a new generation of potential tinkerers.

Following the link on that page, I learned the project creator Tom Thoen has been doing more than just nostalgically recalling his old kit. He has instructed introductory electronics courses at local colleges and his class materials are available online at https://www.profthoen.com. Reading through the lecture slides by themselves isn't as good as getting it alongside their accompanying lecture, but still informative. I think this is a great addition to the collection of pointers I can give to aspiring beginners.

[Header image: Main logic board from my Form 1+ teardown]