When I started hacking in 1983, it was with a Timex Sinclair 1000 and one of the electronics projects kits from Radio Shack. My first books were Getting Started In Electronics by Forrest Mims, a copy of Basic BASIC by James S. Coan that was already five years old when I started learning how to program, and a couple books from the TI/Sams Understanding series that you could buy at Radio Shack.

The hobby has changed since then. Radio Shack is no longer the massive electronic hobbyist store chain it was back in the 1980s, and BASIC has been supplanted by other beginner languages. Online ordering can have pretty much anything sent to your door, and it’s less expensive. My 1983 $100 2K Z80 computer is now a 2022 $100 Raspberry Pi4 that’s a lot more capable. Python now seems to be the beginner’s language of choice, and I found it to be as easy to learn as BASIC. Getting Started In Electronics is still in print. Velleman and Elenco still make the same style of project kits/labs that you could buy at Radio Shack.

The Electronics Playground kits are old-school. For those of you with a more modern digital bent there are vendors that will sell you a Raspberry Pi package that includes a prototyping breadboard and components. At some time you’ll find yourself wanting both.