Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!mit-eddie!media-lab!minsky
From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: HeathKit Catalogue
Message-ID: <4911@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 17 Jan 91 15:15:18 GMT
References: <37.2790F66B@egsgate.fidonet.org> <889@wells.UUCP> <894@wells.UUCP> <1991Jan17.051057.22484@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 13

In article <1991Jan17.051057.22484@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:
>Well said, about Heath. It was a nice era in its own way, but
>technological progress has made kits obsolete. Thankfully, electronic
>equipment no longer requires painstaking assembly by hand
>(so you can't save any money by offering to do this yourself).

Right on.  The equipment is better, but my impression is that the
entering engineering students have fewer skills than they used to. 

(On the other side, I read an article by some historian who asserted
that throughout recorded history, senior professors have always
complained that their new students are worse than they were in the
good old days.)