How Can They Make It So Cheap?
When I was young, if I listened to older people waffling on at all, I couldn’t fail to observe that they typically had a limited repertoire of conversational topics. One of their favorite subjects was how much things had changed since they were young; also, how the young people of that time didn’t appreciate just how lucky they were. Now it scares me to say that I now find myself doing the same thing.
Of course, it’s totally different in my case, because things really have changed since I was young (but it’s also true that the young people of today don’t realize how lucky they are). In those days, in England circa the 1960s, things were relatively expensive, and we rarely threw anything out. When your vacuum tube television went wonky (and it always did after a while), the repair man came around to your house to fix it. If your electric kettle or electric toaster or radio set broke, you took it to a local repair shop to have it mended. You never thought of buying a new one of anything until all other options had been exhausted.
There were little television and appliance repair shops all over the place. There was one at the bottom of our road, along with a tiny watchmaker’s store and an ironmonger’s shop of indeterminate size (much like Doctor Who’s TARDIS, the ironmongers was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside).
On the off chance you aren’t familiar with the term ironmonger, the suffix “-monger” denotes a dealer or trader in a specified commodity. When I was a kid, there were “mongers” all over the place. At that time, I had a vague understanding that a fishmonger “monged” fish, a cheesemonger “monged” cheese, and an ironmonger “monged” iron. Now that I’m older and wiser, the way I recall that ironmonger’s store it is that it was like a regular hardware store but replete with polished wood and antique brass fittings and dripping with style and panache.
Our ironmonger’s store was owned by two little old ladies. Behind the wooden counter was an incredibly tall wall (or so it seemed to a short boy) containing myriad little wooden drawers. There was also a rolling ladder whose top disappeared in the gloom above us. For some unaccountable reason, whatever item the customer required always involved one of the ladies scooting up the ladder and disappearing into the nether regions, climbing so high that she disappeared from sight and the only way you knew she was still there was the faint clattering of the drawers being opened and closed.
But I fear we are in danger of wandering off into the weeds. The point of this column (yes, of course there’s a point) is that, in the days of my youth, it was cheaper to make something than to buy one, and it was cheaper to fix something that had broken than to throw it out and replace it with a new one. I remember a friend’s father building a color television from a kit that cost only a fraction of the price of an assembled set purchased from the store.
These days, by comparison, you can obtain things for almost unbelievably low prices. Take the Arduino Uno, for example. I know it’s only an 8-bit processor running at only 16 MHz with only 32 KB of flash and 2 KB of SRAM, but I love these little scamps and I use them in all sorts of projects.
It wasn’t so long ago that an Arduino Uno cost around $24.00. More recently, I’ve seen them on MPJA.com for only $12.95 (this is a site that’s well worth visiting — I’ve purchased lots of stuff from them over the years and never had any problems).
Just the other day, I was bouncing around Amazon.com, as you do, when I ran across an Arduino Uno for only $8.95 (since this was on Amazon Prime, shipping was free). I was still reeling from the shock of seeing this when something else caught my eye — the Kuman Expansion Board for Arduino Uno for only $8.88 on Amazon Prime.
Right from the get-go, this seemed to be a great idea — an acrylic base onto which you can attach a half-size breadboard and an Arduino Uno. This would stop any flying leads pulling out when you move it around, which is a common problem with Arduino projects.
My first thought was that the $8.88 covered only the acrylic base and the half-size breadboard, which I thought was a pretty good deal. However, the image also showed a USB cord and an Arduino Uno, and the text seemed to support this.
I couldn’t resist. I had to sate my curiosity, so I ordered one of the little rascals. It just arrived. You do indeed get the “Full Monty,” as it were — the acrylic base, the half-size breadboard, an Arduino Uno (with USB cable), and some screws to hold everything together. (As an aside, there’s also a comprehensive Kuman Starter Kit for Arduino Uno for the unbelievably low price of $23.99.)
Sometimes you can run into problems with Arduino Clones with the Arduino’s integrated development environment (IDE) not recognizing whatever USB interface they used. Happily, there was no issue in this case — I just plugged it in, loaded a sketch, and ran it with no problems whatsoever.
I have to say that, at this price, it’s almost a “no-brainer” to stock up on these little beauties. I’m certainly telling all my friends, and I’m still asking myself, “How Can They Make It So Cheap?”
