Greg Mayman wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 GM> That's the theory... of course it may be that some devices don't
 GM> believe in the same theories that we subscribe to 

I've noticed that,  on occasion.

 GM> Yeah, too much of the stuff is large scale integration that you
 GM> can't do a darn thing with except change the chip :-(((((

 RJT> Unless it's surface mount,  at which point you change the board...

 GM> Yeah. Damn frustrating, isn't it...

Absolutely.  It's gotten me downright schizoid in terms of the way I deal
with this technology.  There's the stuff I _use_,  and don't mess with, 
because of things like the above,  and then there's stuff I mess with, 
which looks to be a decade or two behind the times.  At least.

 RJT> And yet there seem to be hobbyists who are embracing that sort of
 RJT> thing.  I'm not sure why that should be.  It may be that some parts are
 RJT> only available that way (though I don't see the need to use those
 RJT> parts),  and the compactness and light weight can't be serious
 RJT> considerations in the stuff I was looking at -- other factors overrode
 RJT> this. 

 GM> Some parts are only available that way.

I suppose,  but not necessarily anything I'd feel compelled to use.

 GM> And you could possibly replace them by a whole swag of 
 GM> conventional devices, but if you want it all in one chip, you take 
 GM> what you can get.

Yeah,  I guess.  There are always a number of different ways to do things, though.

 GM> I think a lot of hobbyists today are more interested in building
 GM> the projects than in keeping them working for some foreseeable
 GM> lifetime.

I've not got a real good picture of what today's hobbyists are all about. 
I used to get the magazines regularly,  and have pretty much stopped doing
that except for having recently started buying "Nuts & Volts"
again.  And too much of the stuff I've been finding on the 'net is at a
pretty basic level,  or it's people who are doing things that I wouldn't, 
like robotics and such.  I still can't get over this one site where the guy
chronicled his spending _seven months_ to get to where he could cast these
housings for "homebrew linear bearings" for some sort of CNC
machine.  Casting aluminum?  Not me...!

 GM> If something dies later down the track, they'll start to worry
 GM> about it at that stage...

Before that happens there's some feature you want that you don't have,  or
other things change...

 RJT> The single major factor I can see that makes surface mount an
 RJT> advantage in manufacturing is that you can put stuff on both sides of a
 RJT> board,  and that board layout gets a whole lot easier and more direct. 
 RJT> More so in multilayer contstruction,  as in MBs.  About the only
 RJT> advantage I can see for a hobbyist is not having to drill quite so many
 RJT> holes,  but assembly isn't something I'd consider easier!

 GM> Surface mount is a lot smaller, even if you still only use one side
 GM> of the board.

True.  Although I've avoided scrapping any parts off such stuff so far I
have once or twice been tempted to do so,  just for how small you could
make something.  Though small isn't necessarily a big deal with me either.

 RJT> Personally I don't think I'm gonna bother with it until such time as
 RJT> regular through-hole components just aren't available any more,  and I
 RJT> don't see that as happening any time soon.  Particularly not with the
 RJT> pile of stuff I've scrapped out over the years.  :-)

 GM> The problem with surface mount is that I have to use magnifying
 GM> specs to see the things. It's bad enough just trying to read the
 GM> part numbers with conventional components.

Yes it is.  I closed up my shop back in 1992,  and at that time a guy who
worked there had a lighted magnifier that I was making pretty heavy use of.
I've since acquired one of those myself,  and just recently had to clean
all the flux fumes off the lens.    There are also a couple of
magnifying glasses on the desk at hand,  the lesser of which got some
pretty heavy use during my recent sorting of parts.  Not like it used to
be...

OTOH on my linux box I'm running a 132 column by 60 row screen,  and find
it quite readable.  

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