"Don Pearce" wrote in message

Interesting insight into the way things were in the 60s -
I've just been reading a Wireless World from November of
that year. Valves (tubes for those across the pond) were
extremely cheap. And transistors cost pretty much the
same, which is why we treated them with kid gloves and
thermal shunts when soldering them into circuits.

http://www.soundthoughts.co.uk/look/valves.jpg

Money conversion for the young and foreign:

20 shillings to the pound, 12 pence to the shilling. A
price given as 5/6 meant five shillings and six pence. So
an ECC84 at 6/6 is 32.5 pence in today's money. A 28012
transistor, by contrast at 140/- is seven pounds -
getting on for half the weekly wage of some people back
then.

I may post some ads for complete equipment later, just to
make you cry.

I'm betting that Kitty will tell us that he's never had to replace a tube.
;-)