Ms Mad Lemon

So the progress continues :o)

Check out my SIDBoomBox Project here: https://www.youtube. … zKdC_FBpol2Apz8zsoMi
Also for more updates on the SIDBox please join the facebook group here: https://www.facebook … om/groups/TheSidBox/

You can read my ‘Education and Society’ entry here

This textbook taught me the basics about electronics symbols and reading/drawing schematics. This book from 1988:

This takes me back, actually it’s the very book from my childhood, I guess my brother didn’t need to return it, or for whatever reason it was just laying abandoned around the house, so I kept taking it and looking through it, at first like any other kid I just looked through it to look at the pictures and illustrations, I don’t know there was something a little homely about this book. Eventually, I’m not sure what motivated me, but I started drawing the symbols of the components in some random notebook. Don’t forget i’m not book smart, as much as I love the idea of reading, I have dyslexia and it is more difficult, this is why I have an alternate way of learning. With any difficulty you find a way around it if you really want.

You can see in the photographs i took of the book, the components and symbols next to them.

Look at the pages below in the book, something about it just feels kinda homely and warm, at least to me. And now that it’s three decades ago, it’s that homely feeling mixed with the nostalgia now.

My other brother, the older one who i used to hang out with most of the time, was the one who was into electronics a bit more, he did study telecoms for a while so thankfully he had some electronics books. When I was around 13 or 14 years old, he saw that I loved audio electronics and gave me this book.

For sure this book being outdated, even back then, it was published in 1979. Despite that, I must admit i learned a lot from that book because of the way it’s structured.




You can see here how Penfold goes through each component on that circuit diagram and explains what it does and how it links to other components around it. The way everything is written for some reason is just comprehend-able to me.








Anyway, the first amplifier I ever attempted to build was out of this book. I actually had fun building it, I was at highschool still, but used the college facilities.

I will finish off this entry with a link to the SIDBoomBox, the finale video, so that you can enjoy, not to mention the links to the SidBoomBox playlist are included in the video description on youtube.

Some ramblings of mine here about education and my experience of it.

Firstly, a bit about my background, I went to college, studied electronics firstly. Then at university, I studied computing, getting the best grades in the group for computer hardware, I got the worst grades in the group for computer programming and systems analysis, (thank you dear brain!)…It was just the matter of my brain being wired differently, Each one of us has a specialty, the way our brain is wired, and no two brains are wired the same, its what makes us unique despite the idiotic nature of people competing to try and be the same. kinda reminds me of this:

Human existence seems to be a bit of a paradox.
After computing I was about to change my major to psychology, even studying things like cognition and other topics to prepare. But I ended up going into photography, Hey, sometimes it takes time to find yourself in life, some people don’t even when they’re 80, the oldest student at our university was 92 years old. I find that quite fascinating, I wish I could have met him actually.

The competition in knowledge, the “I know more than her” or “I know more than him” or “they know nothing compared to me, see I’ll prove it” mentality is when one’s ego gets hold of it, it becomes less about the knowledge or the topic and more about being an authority in knowledge. I find it ridiculous personally.
I’m not trying to put people off going to university, it has its benefits for sure, I’m just trying to make a point, it is my opinion based on my experiences…Even after completing education to university level myself, I learned that it’s possible for someone who doesn’t have a degree nor a phd, who hasn’t even attended university, for whatever reason, to be intelligent and intellectual, actually I know some very intelligent people who’ve not been to uni. Also not everyone can attend, hey it’s not cheap and the shackles of the student loan isn’t fun fairground ride either…
I’ve also learned that someone who has a degree or phd, can be surprisingly narrow minded or black & white thinkers, self righteous, judgemental and arrogant, possibly the unconditional praise and admiration of family, friends, community and society contributing to these traits. These negative traits often get in the way of true learning beyond text book knowledge, they get in the way of growth of character and blossoming of a person.
It does depend on the nature of a person, i’ve met someone working towards a phd who is gentle and kind, open to knowledge. I think humility and the ability to truly listen leads to an open mind and a blossoming soul.
Arrogance feeds the ego, but suffocates the soul.

One thing which many fail to understand and become aware of, is that knowledge isn’t one dimensional, it’s multi dimensional.
Not all who have intelligence are wise.

University can help you learn a heck of a lot and you can benefit so much, not to mention that piece of paper at the end. However it can be very one dimensional, it can make you book smart, even end up as an outright nerd having immense knowledge, which is very useful when applied, sure, but that doesn’t mean every dimension of knowledge is gained, I did learn a lot in my life which I didn’t learn at School, college nor university.. All the things that I know in life, education taught me some of it, but experience taught me the brunt of it, I still feel like i’m self taught.

I have been thinking about this for a while, I’ve met many different types of people, formally educated and self educated of different backgrounds, ethnicities, mentalities. I’m fascinated by people. I know I would have enjoyed psychology because of this, however, there’s one vital thing that made me wonder if it’s a good idea or not. My ability to relate and put myself in the shoes of genuine people who are genuinely suffering (yes I can tell the difference), I know I would have to get into that sort of work and it would affect me a bit too much in life I think. I cannot just switch off from such things at the end of the day. This empathetic and compassionate trait of mine is a double edge sword, both a good and bad thing, overall, i’m grateful that I have it.

After all, lets face it, we’re on earth only for a limited amount of time, spending it competing, fighting, backstabbing and manipulating, or combatting others to establish ones superiority is futile and quite a huge shameful waste of existence.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on quite a bit, I had better leave it here.

Stay safe dear reader if you have reached this far :o)

One of the things I was lacking throughout certain years of my childhood were VU meters, the other cassette recorders we got later, just simply didn’t have any at all. One of them was this Fergusson 3T32 dual cassette:

Next thing I do, freakin build a little device, all it is, a light bulb paralleled with a loudspeaker, the JVC on full blast, the crappy speaker just throwing out music into the air along with a light going dim and bright to the music. On retrospect it was ridiculous! But the excitement of seeing a light “dance to music” you won’t believe how many cassettes I listened to in one go while gazing at that freakin bulb, and completely in the dark too.

I look back almost in awe of the things I did with my electronics parts to try and get an LED vu meter working after that. My thinking was, the LEDs relate to one another, One goes on after the other, after the other etc.. So brainiac here decides to create an array of LEDs in parallel to the audio source, each with a resistor value higher than the one previous to it.

The result was…interesting nonetheless, but it was no VU meter. It was just a cascade of freakin LEDs pulsating, each dimmer than the one before it.

But I have to admit, I look back and it was kinda cute. A learning process which I can look back and chuckle at.
I asked my brother and his friend, how an LED VU is done, the answer I got was that there’s a capacitor in between the LEDs (“they think” ). So out came my bucket of components once again, I hated cleaning up after that, It was like a lego set or something (I loved playing with Legos btw, probably explains why I’m so much into Minecraft). Anyway let me just tell you that an array of LEDs with capacitors in between them, is very underwhelming.

I left the idea for a while and continued trying to get the LEDs/lights to be brighter so that I didn’t need to put the volume stupidly high. Bearing in mind I was in my final year at primary school and the only knowledge of electronics I had was tinkering around with components from that bucket of mine.
So I decided to put a 1.5v AA battery in series with an LED and the headphone output of a standard boombox (Yeah I know, I cringed too remembering it) But the funny thing is, the LED was pulsing brighter to the music with the battery in series. I’m glad I didn’t go any further with this, it must have been some miraculous inner knowledge that said to me if I stick 12v in series with a boombox, it really would freakin boom.

One problem I had was the sound, sure I made lights pulsate but I couldn’t hear anything, and with an LED in series with a speaker, yeah you can imagine what that sounds like, a semi rectified audio signal.

I asked my brother what I need and he said an amplifier. Thats when audio amplifiers became something I desperately wanted to build in my childhood but had no freakin idea how! They used those 3 legged spiders which I had no clue how to connect at the time. You’d know what I thought of them if you’ve read the ‘About Ms Mad Lemon’ section of my website already.

The thing is though, even though I wasn’t immediately successful in getting anything working how I wanted it, bear in mind I had never read any electronics book nor been taught at all. I still tried, I made mistakes and did things wrong but I believe that is one of the reasons why kids learn things faster, they’re not afraid of making mistakes, whether its electronics or language learning, or learning a musical instrument, it can apply to anything at all. Think we as adults need to drop the fear and pride as it does hinder learning.
Anyway enough pondering. Next I will write about my efforts with trying to build audio amplifiers, albeit much later in my life, but I did it eventually. And in quite a big way. I got some VU meters working very well also ;o)

Adios!