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Oak point clubs: we have plenty of room for your pictures and announcements! See Clubs for more information.

I'm sure there are a few Oak Pointers who remember Heath Kits. A lot of folks around our age built these things; they were fun and not terribly expensive. I built a few myself, though honestly I can't remember anything except the voltmeter, and that's probably only because I used it for so many years after.. playing with electronics was fun. The only problem was that if you wanted to do anything complicated, well, it quickly got very complicated. It could get pretty expensive, too.

When personal computers came along in the late 70's I dropped electronics entirely: programming was a lot more fun than soldering resistors. You could do more than just make some lights blink, and a "broken" computer program didn't blow any fuses either. No burns from the soldering iron, no peering at resistors to figure out their value. Computers were definitely more fun.

This "Making Things Talk" book arrived this week. I was momentarily put off by the red toy monkey on the cover, but this is actually a serious book. What it is about is the revolution in hobby electronics that I completely missed: inexpensive microcontrollers that you can program to do all of the horribly complex stuff that would have driven me crazy in the 70's.

These little controllers come in all types: general purpose serial and USB devices, Bluetooth, wireless, ethernet: you can hook them up to your computer to program them and there isn't much you can't do. Twenty-six basic projects are covered here, from just making an LED blink to using an RFID tag as a signal to turn lights on and off. The author explains it all with humor and style - he's an instructor at New York University, and that shows. This isn't just "connect a resistor here..", Tom explains the underlying technology before jumping into circuits and programs.

The best part is that all of these things are inexpensive - even a high end microcontroller is under $100.00 and quite capable units start under $40.00. LEDS and other electronic parts are literally pennies; hobby electronics on a budget is very possible today.

• Tom Igoe
• O'Reilly
• 9780596510510

Order (or just read more about) Making Things Talk  from Amazon.com