WRT the levels of homebuilding: sometimes you have to change your
view on what constitutes the component level. If you look at amateur
radio historically, early hams had to construct their own coils,
capacitors, and resistors. Later these things were sold ready-made.
With the advent of monolithic circuits whole subassemblies were
subsumed into a single part. Now we consider entire functional blocks
to be "components".
18 years ago I went to work for Telebit. They made modems (really
good modems by the way). My idea was a device to allow people to dial
up and connect to the Internet. We built it and called it the
Netblazer. It was built around a generic PC motherboard.
I ran into a problem with engineering and manufacturing when they
wanted a complete parts breakdown on the motherboard we had selected.
I tried to explain that the motherboard itself was the 'component'
and not all the devices attached to the motherboard. I didn't care
about the individual parts, only the high-level function of the board
itself. Even the processor didn't matter so long as it executed a
certain set of instructions.
Today we accept that as reasonable. Back then it was a revolutionary
concept.
I guess it all depends on which end of the telescope you are looking
through.
73 de Brian, WB6RQN
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