Keep an eye out for other older electronics and science books as they are sometime more useful than current popular texts. Another source for books is your local college or university. I ve made friends with the staff at the electrical engineering department, and they have been more than willing to lend me any books I needed to aid in my self-studies. Magazines like Popular Electronics are still my favorite source of information. They re well worth the few dollars a month they cost.
Computer hardware is available more and more through the methods outlined earlier.
These SIMMs were being used as a key chain yet were perfectly usable Motherboards and hard drives were once big ticket items. Now that they have come down in price, people are upgrading. That leaves all the older, unappreciated items left floating around, which means they could be picked up at rock-bottom prices. Saving Money With Microcontrollers. When I first started into electronics I was buying one IC after another.