I acquired a training manual for television repair when I was probably about 5. I could barely read about then, but the thing was loaded with cartoon illustrations of electrons running around circuits (they had arms and legs). They also got rattled and bumped from a hot cathode and flew off into the space between the cathode, grid, and anode. A lot of their buddies hung around on the grid which seemed to disenchant them from flying by. However, if they did go by, boy howdy, they took off for the anode. Some smacked it so hard, they bounced right off...
There were a lot of old transistor radios when I was a kid, and a surprising amount of information to be had between our encyclodias, an old collection of mechanix illustrated, and the actual schematics that were often printed on a sheet that was then glued to the inside of the radios. I had no tools of the trade. Rather I'd use oversized pliers, about any steel rod I could find, and awful solder from radio shack. The steel rod was my soldering iron. I'd put it into the fire of the gas-stove, until it was hot, and then quickly work with it. Boy, I got a LOT of burns. But I made a good many gadgets: Crystal radios, small amplifiers, variations on the blocking oscillator (which I thought I invented!), little transmitters.
Before I got out of grade school, I came up with my first sound effects generator, which was salvaged from a transistor radio. Everything was then tucked inside the radio's case. Anyway, I took it to school and had it promptly taken away until the end of the year...
