alldav was created with a simple goal in mind, providing electronic hobbyists with materials and components that they would need, in quantities that they could use.
Many of today's largest electronic companies started in the garages of weekend tinkers who were able to conjure their creations with just a soldering iron in hand and frequent visits to the local Radio Shack. Hardware was what they built, because it was what they could build, as opposed to software which required access to scarce and expensive computing resources. In some cases, the hardware was built for the purpose of writing software.
Since that time, the tables have turned. Over the last decade, barriers for software hobbyists have fallen, as the costs to develop and publicly distribute software have plummeted with the advent of the Internet age. During that same time, hardware has become ever more inaccessible to the weekend garage tinkerer. As components have shrunk, the ability of making even the simplest circuits with modern surface mount devices has withered.
For a while, the tide was held back as many components continued to be available in breadboard compatible DIP packages. Today, this is rarely the case. Not only are components increasingly available only in smaller sizes, but they are also increasingly harder to come by as stores like Radio Shack seem unwilling to stock surface mount components for the elite few who can wield their soldering wands with sufficient finesse. The online distributors which seem to be a hobbyist's only remaining bastion of hope have minimum order fees and shipping that easily dwarf the costs of many components.
Ironically, the shrinking size of modern components may be precisely the godsend which allows for faster and cheaper shipping to the next generation of hardware hobbyists. Together, we will see.
