What ever happend to .. Heathkit, Polaroid, Packard-Bell, etc?

[D_B]

What ever happend to ....




12 tainted brands that have lost their way ... 12 Tainted Tech Brands that Have Lost Their Way - PC World

 

[TSandM]

My first radio and stereo were Heathkits . . . haven't heard that name in just about forever. Ozymandias comes to mind . . .

 

[D_B]

My first radio and stereo were Heathkits . . . haven't heard that name in just about forever. Ozymandias comes to mind . . .

Ozymandias ... had to search that phrase
It comes from a translation of Ramesses II's throne_name "User-maat-re Setep-en-re. " into Greek .."King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works"
and refers to a sonnet by Percy Shelley ... "The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable decline of all people, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time."
Ozymandias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thank you

 

[annasea]

Very sad to read about Polaroid as that's the only one listed that hasn't been duplicated elsewhere, AFAIK. (Photoshop doesn't count.)

I remember taking photography classes and creating Polaroid transfers. You could never get the same print twice and usually the results were quite interesting and wonderful.

 

[tc]

I worked at one of the heathkit stores for a couple of years in the mid-80's.

Probably the best job in the world for learning about electronics.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I had one of the 100 in project kits that they could never sell now. 8 yr olds messin with lectricity. The consumer cops would have your nuts in sling over that.

 

[deadly_risk]

I still regularly see and work with heathkit radios and antenna tuners. They are valued in the ham radio community around here as being things you can actually work on and fix yourself, unlike modern microprocessor controlled, surface mount radios.

 

[deadly_risk]

Attached are two pics, one is a commodore 128 that at one time was used auto adjust the dual azimuth satellite tracking antennas on the physics building roof. When I turned it on last it was still "tracking" the mir space station.

The other is a picture of one of the radio station set ups I have in the school radio room, with a heathkit antenna tuner at the top left. Sorry for the bad picture quality. I think that is a heathkit station analyzer at the bottom left, but I don't remember for sure.

 

[Desert_Diver]

I had at least three Heathkits. HW-101 transceiver, their 100 watt linear (before the citizens band radio people got it banned) and a VSWR meter. Spent many enjoyable hours building and operating their hardware.

Art

 

[herman]

Made many a QRP contact on a HW-8...sometimes mobile.
Holding a 20wpm QRP CW QSO mobile while driving, that's multitasking, cell phones and driving are a piece of cake.
I need to find another one of those things

de KA4HAM