OT: Calling ALL Old Farts?

JimPerry

JimPerry

Senior Member
What is the average age of Picaxe poster? I'm 62 and have met a 79+ Picaxer locally.

Is it just me - buying tons of "stuff" and then forgetting why? :confused:
 
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tony_g

Senior Member
its not an age thing thats for sure im almost 34, i buy lots of random bits and pieces for various projects or ideas then forget about them until i have to clean the workspace lol.

i just found some soic 8 max 485 chips i bought several months ago for a couple of different projects, needless to say i realised what i bought them for when i came across them then put them back on the shelf with the other bits telling myself i must get round to using them.

no doubt i will find them again in a few months during another cleanup and go through the same old "ah i bought these for a project i must get round to" then put them back whilst concentrating on other things.

sometimes i feel like i should really be around 50, ive got the grey hair and now beard hair for it lol :p
 
rq3

rq3

Senior Member
JimPerry said:
What is the average age of Picaxe poster? I'm 62 and have met a 79+ Picaxer locally.

Is it just me - buying tons of "stuff" and then forgetting why? :confused:
Click to expand...
Other than for parts that are actually for production, I have a "box filing" system. Small boxes generically labelled so that I can see the label when sitting on a shelf: "SMT Resistors", "SMT Capacitors", "Thru Hole Resistors", "SMT IC'S", "Optoelectronics", "Electromechanical", etc., etc. You get the idea. Saves me from ordering parts I already have, easy to split the parts into "finer boxes" (0402 SMT Resistors, 0603 SMT Resistors, Steppers, DC Motors, AC Motors, Plasma Displays, OLED Displays). Sometimes there are even small boxes in bigger boxes! With a 40+ year collection (there are boxes labelled "Audio Tubes" and "uWave Tubes"), some orderly system was a necessity. The hardest part is to find the weekend to implement it, and then to stick to it.

The biggest problem is that in some cases the boxes are worth more than the parts they contain. Until you REALLY need that part you threw out.

Rip
 
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oracacle

Senior Member
i am feeling positivly yong, at less than 30, i dont have the memory issues either. working night shift doe play havoc with thrying to recieve stuff in the mail though
 
G

goom

Senior Member
63 too, and a really great memory, but a really short one.
Strangely, I have a great recall of what I have, but much less ideas as to where it is.
 
premelec

premelec

Senior Member
78 years of which 70 have been involved with electronics - still have some of those parts and tens of thousands of parts new and used ordered and piles of disorder... a rich environment from which I can often find what I need - or a substitute - lots of incomplete projects - great memories - good intentions :-0
 
D

Dippy

Moderator
45 ,buying stuff, putting into carefully labelled boxes and then forgetting where I put the boxes.
 
lbenson

lbenson

Senior Member
Ok, though I didn't like to call older people names when I was younger, and can't like it now that it could refer to me, 67.
 
J

jims

Senior Member
82 in April and enjoying and enjoying "getting back into electronics". Tend to repeat myself...Jims
 
E

eclectic

Moderator
In just over three week's time,
the new Picaxe membership list is to be re-named

Hims. Ancient and Modern.

e
 
M

MartinM57

Moderator
I might be a Her...what's in a name?

I'm hoping I'm 4.5 years from self-selected early retirement...
...but I might be an Olympic athlete retiring at 30
...or a policeman retiring at 30 years after I joined up
...or an Army soldier retiring at 50
...or a judge retiring at 70

In other words, ain't telling...
 
fernando_g

fernando_g

Senior Member
I will be 0x3A years old in a couple of months.

This tends to baffle my co-workers, but the Picaxe community will figure my age in a few nanoseconds.

My first electronic circuit that actually worked used tubes -valves for you across the pond. A small audio amplifier.

I still remember the tubes: a dual triode 12AX7, a single triode 6C4, and a pair of of power beam tetrodes 50C5. And it used a selenium rectifier.
 
B

binary1248

Senior Member
75 or 0x4b (dang, I'm going to start expressing my age in Hex, so much younger that way). Started out in vacuum tubes, then transistors, then IC's,then minicomputers (hardly mini:)) then micros (8080 and lots others). Now it's just for fun with PicAxe.
 
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papaof2

Senior Member
Currently 70 and counting. Took early retirement at 55 and have retired from succeeding jobs 3 (or is it 4?) more times since then. Did TV service calls on Saturdays when in high school (mostly swapping out tubes, then dragging big chassis back to the shop as needed), worked in TV broadcasting, then spent 33 years with a big telecom. 8080, 6809, PDP11/70, PC, Unix, Palm PDA development. PICAXE and Android apps for fun now. In my spare time, I'm writing a novel...
 
The bear

The bear

Senior Member
Hi Everyone,
I'm 72. Those darned salmon get harder to catch each year. But its' all good fun.

Regards, Bear..
 
I

inglewoodpete

Senior Member
MartinM57 said:
I might be a Her...what's in a name?

I'm hoping I'm 4.5 years from self-selected early retirement...
...but I might be an Olympic athlete retiring at 30
...or a policeman retiring at 30 years after I joined up
...or an Army soldier retiring at 50
...or a judge retiring at 70

In other words, ain't telling...
Click to expand...
Martina: she's probably turning 57 this year.
 
grim_reaper

grim_reaper

Senior Member
Has anyone totted up the ages and worked out the average yet?!

I'm 35, so feeling young after reading this thread! And like most others, have a collection of bits for the project I'll build 'next weekend'.
 
G

-Gary

New Member
I am 63, still working and designing with CAD. Memory is still good, just trying to get a handle on Picaxe code.
 
Hemi345

Hemi345

Senior Member
Dartmoor said:
grim_reaper said:
Has anyone totted up the ages and worked out the average yet?!
Click to expand...
Of the posts that I can make sense of, the average age is approx 61?
Quite high for a product aimed at school children? :cool:
Click to expand...
I kinda figured most of the regulars were up in age due to the time they have to really dig in and make progress on their projects. I have little ones that like to pull all the jumper wires off the breadboard when I'm not looking.
 
M

MFB

Senior Member
Try going back to valve circuitry. That will put the little ones off playing with the wires.
 
Buzby

Buzby

Senior Member
Hemi345 said:
I kinda figured most of the regulars were up in age due to the time they have to really dig in and make progress on their projects. ...
Click to expand...
It could be something else.

I too was surprised to see the age range of the regular members, but we do have lots of 'help me with my schoolwork' queries, but they don't seem to lead to any further forum activity once the problem is solved. Is this a sign of the younger generation using the Forum as an 'Instant Answer Machine' to answer a specific question ?.

E.g. My teenage son, who has no interest in PICAXE, dots around the Web looking for info for homework etc., but his regular socialising stuff is on his phone.

I'm sure somewhere there must be some research relating to how different age groups use the resources of the Net, but ICBA looking for it !.
( Bit of TXTSPK in there, so as to make u fink im yungr thn wot I am. )

Cheers,

Buzby

( Who remembers when a single 5mm Blue LED cost £20 )
 
hippy

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
grim_reaper said:
Has anyone totted up the ages and worked out the average yet?!
Click to expand...
Came to 59 going on 60 when I worked it out yesterday but there have been a few posts since, both lower and higher ), so I'd guess around 60.

I imagine it says more about the currently active members regularly on the forum than it does about the average age of PICAXE users. Though someone may have invested their pension fund in buying PICAXE chips :)
 
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