Since I graduated from college with CS degree with a minor in EE, I haven’t done much in the way of using that EE minor. It’s been all software, albeit software fairly close to the hardware, but still software.
I was thinking back to some of the lab courses I took, and I got it into my head that maybe I should put together a little electronics work bench and mess around making some stuff.
I ended up picking up a working Tektronix 465b oscilloscope off ebay for 80 bucks.

Then I followed some advice I googled up here from somebody called mpayson who recommended buying a bunch of stuff from futurlec. So I bought a bunch of stuff from them:
If you google up futurlec on the internet, you’ll see they are in Thailand, and they’re really inexpensive, but they also have a deserved reputation for slow shipping. My order took almost a month to get here, so don’t order from them if you need it tomorrow. If you don’t need it tomorrow, I had no trouble with them at all, and everything went smoothly. It just takes awhile, expect that going in, and you probably won’t be disappointed.

I bought a bunch of variety packs of resistors, capacitors, diodes, LEDs, linear ICs, IC sockets, and transistors. I also got some solder, some proto boards, and a couple of breadboards, some 100k, 10k, 5k and 1k pots, some knobs, some toggle switches, and some battery holders.
Here are some pics of the variety packs:

Transistor pack

Resistor pack (not shown, there’s another one like it, but 1/2 watt vs. 1/4 watt.)




Various capacitor packs

LED pack

IC socket pack (they are jammed into pieces of foam, some have sockets on both sides of the foam so there are actually more there than it looks like.)

Linear IC pack. This one is probably the most interesting of the variety packs. I haven’t really looked to see what they gave me, though I did see at least one 555 timer chip, and I think a 556 dual timer chip, and what look to be some pretty hefty transistors. Edit: On googling a bit, and looking at some data sheets, the “hefty transistors” were actually negative voltage regulators — they gave me lots of 5, 12, and 15 volt voltage regulators, and a few positive v. regulators. Also, some timers, as noted before, and some voltage comparators, and a bunch of op-amps.
One think Futurlec doesn’t seem to have is a variety pack of TTL gates. That’s ok though because a) I still have a bunch left over from college, and b) they typically require a 5V power supply which is hard to get from batteries (though there may be some CMOS versions of TTL stuff that can work at different voltages, I don’t know, but then it’s probably not really “TTL”.)

TTL ICs from my college days.
Also, I got a digital multimeter:

And a soldering iron. So, I’m all set to build, umm, blinky light thingies, or maybe a weird sound generator..
Since some one asked, here are the order details:
Qty ItemNumber Unit Price Total Price
----------------------------------------------------------
1 RES14WPACK 1/4W Resistor Value Pack 2.45 2.45
1 RES12WPACK 1/2W Resistor Value Pack 4.95 4.95
1 CERPACK Ceramic Capacitor Pack 2.95 2.95
1 ELEPACK Electrolytic Capacitor Value Pack 3.95 3.95
1 MYLARPACK Mylar Capacitor Pack 3.95 3.95
1 MULTIPACK Multilayer Ceramic Capacitor Pack 3.95 3.95
1 LEDPACK Led Value Pack 4.95 4.95
1 TRAPACK Transistor Value Pack 4.95 4.95
1 LINEARPACK Linear IC Value Pack 5.95 5.95
1 DIOPACK Diode Value Pack 2.95 2.95
1 ICSPACK IC Socket Value Pack 5.95 5.95
5 PROTO777 Prototyping Board - 777 1.50 7.5
3 PRBRDLG Prototyping Board - Large 2.95 8.85
4 POT1K 1K Linear Taper Pot 0.55 2.2
4 POT5K 5K Linear Taper Pot 0.55 2.2
4 POT10K 10K Linear Taper Pot 0.55 2.2
4 POT100K 100K Linear Taper Pot 0.55 2.2
16 KNOB4 Black Aluminium with Pointer - Small 0.90 14.4
10 SPST10ST SPST on-off Standard Toggle Switch 1.15 11.5
4 CD4017 CD4017 - Decade Counter/Divider 0.30 1.2
3 CD40106 CD40106 - Hex Inverter Schmitt Trigger 0.35 1.05
30 LED5W White 5mm Round LED 0.68 20.4
1 JUMPERKIT Breadboard Jumper Kit 4.90 4.9
2 BREADBRD Breadboard 5.90 11.8
3 2XAAHOLDERB 2 x AA Battery Holder 0.30 0.9
2 4XAAHOLDERB 4 x AA Battery Holder 0.50 1
2 6XAAHOLDER 6 x AA Battery Holder 0.55 1.1
1 4XDHOLDER 4 x D Battery Holder 1.10 1.1
10 9VBATTCLIP 9V Battery Clip 0.10 1
1 SOLDERPEN Solder Pen 0.95 0.95
----------------------------------------------------------
Sub-Total 143.40
Postage 14.00
Total 157.40
(Actually there was an additional $31.00 to ship via FedEX,
so the total came to 188.40.)