Lectron/ Braun Lectron /Egger-Lectron was a 1966 series of Electronic kits consisting of magnetic blocks.
At least one kit 3/3S/300S covering experiments in computer technique.
It was just shown/sold in the German antiques show Bares für Rares.
Some weeks ago there was also a Commodore PET or similar sold, very cheap, so it’s not a good idea selling computer stuff in this show.
Usually you need a 9V battery, but the 3S has a power adapter.
Someone can build this without blocks on a breadboard.
Most of interest are the manuals English/German which are here.
Reminds me of the PLC devices and ladder logic.
The 300S had 134 pieces and costs 1200 DM.
There are also some test devices with switches or a display.
Curiously enough, I bought a UK electronics kit earlier this year - one I was given as a present in the early/mid 1970’s (and subsequently lost during various house moves…)
It’s eventually worked its way to the top of the pile of things that need things doing to them (I’ve sort of planned to make videos of each “experiment” in the kit for a bit of fun).
I think the whole thing was quite clever with the PCB - that must have taken some thought to design so that it could be used for all the different experiments along with the components being bolted (literally) into it.
Wow, this has caused a slew of memories to come flooding back! I had one of these kits and remember making the projects, I still had the earpiece pictured on the front many years after I’d lost almost everything else. It almost certainly planted the seeds that lead to buying ETI with my meagre spending money then seeing the early signs of hobby computing in the adverts sections.
That’s a very nice kit. I see that Radionic were somewhat related to Clive Sinclair’s old Sinclair Radionics Ltd company, which was mostly bought out by the National Enterprise Board, then sold off to ESL Bristol. I’m not sure how it picked up the later Philips branding: Hans Otten has a writeup about the Philips X40, which is the same kit.
The current equivalent would probably be Snap Circuits, which are extremely well designed, but now unfortunately made in Myanmar.
I forgot my Busch kit which also has white plastic blocks. I have exactly that one called Computertechnik. This one has some larger blocks, especially that with the LCD display.
Obviously there were many kits with blocks.
Maybe they all derived from Lectron.
But usually, all are overpriced (for materials).
