Net Work (1996-2025) goes full circle

Signing off for now

Since 1996 I've written the monthly 'Net Work' column for Practical Electronics magazine, and I believe it's become the longest running, most widely-read magazine feature of its type.

Net Work started at a time when the Internet and Email were still relatively new, and going online meant there were lots of technical aspects to master. So I started with the basics, and mentioned interesting-looking FTP and web sites (when web sites were few and far between). In between times, I produced some constructional projects and co-wrote several tutorial series.

My column would go on to cover all manner of PC and home computing, smart meters, electric vehicles and space programmes. There has never been a shortage of topics to cover, and thanks to the web, there has never been more information for me to digest either.

After almost 29 years of uninterrupted publication, I'm now ready to stand back and take time off from Net Work, so the April 2025 column is sadly the final one in the series. I've come full circle, so in the April '25 issue I reflect on how I started with temperamental 14.4k dial up access, all the way up to ~1Gbps fibre-to-the-premises that arrived at the end of 2024. I also describe how the Internet evolved from the 1990s up to the present day, when it's become an essential utility for pretty much everyone.

A summary of each month's Net Work magazine column can be found on the PE web site Net Work blog though you'll have to read the magazine itself for full details. :)

I've enjoyed working for over fifty years in the hobby/ semi-pro/ educational electronics publishing sector, and I'm grateful for all the support I've enjoyed from the title's founders and publishers (IPC Magazines Ltd. of London, Wimborne Publishing Ltd. and Electron Publishing Limited).

Practical Electronics is now in the safe hands of Silicon Chip Publications in Australia who are working very hard to bring readers their favourite magazine title every month.

I'm still hoping to write occasional articles through the year, covering the latest trends heading our way, as well as offering handy hints and tips to help readers get the most from current technologies. My many thanks go to all those regular readers who say that Net Work is the first column they turn to, and they enjoy reading about some of the latest technological developments that are looming over the horizon.

Garland Bros. - gone but not forgotten

Garland Bros. was another long-established electronics components shop in London that formed part of the vital supply line that constructors everywhere depended on during the hobby's golden days. I wrote a few more lines about them, plus a visit to their address in Google Maps here.  I welcome any memories or comments you might have of them.

The legacy of Watford Electronics Ltd.

This article is a tribute to Watford Electronics’ journey from its humble beginnings to greatness. A download of the Watford 1978 catalogue is available along with some contemporary advertisements by this well-respected brand, which became known as saverstore.com during its heyday.

Click to read more ...

Stripboard/ Veroboard and layout software

Veroboard was invented in Britain by post-war aircraft industry engineers working for Vero Precision Engineering Limited and a patent was filed in 1959 - over sixty years ago! They worked for Geoffrey Verdon-Roe (1918-1997) who was the son of its Chairman, Alliot Verdon-Roe of AVRO aircraft fame (Lancaster bomber, Shackleton, Avro Vulcan etc).

Alliot Verdon-Roe was also connected with contractors working in the UK space programme. It's my belief that the product was created (a) to give Vero engineers something to do, and (b) to develop a way of protoyping circuits fit for the space race, in the new transistor age.

The UK Intellectual Property Office kindly helped me to locate those long-lost patent documents from the 1950s: the original GB Veroboard Patent is downloadable from my site here. The French patent is here.

It is a copper-clad insulated board (SRBP) that is milled to create strips of copper that are then punched with a regular matrix, usually 0.1" between centres. Strips can be broken using a spot face cutter or twist drill, or parallel strips can be linked with jumper wires.

The original patent drawing for Vero's 'improved wiring board'

Historically, bulky circuits were prototyped and wired up on wooden panels like breadboards, and the name 'breadboarding' has stuck ever since.

Veroboard manufacture in 1966 [click to see]Veroboard has been a masterpiece of design that brought the world the ability to build and experiment with electronic circuits. As an electronics prototyping medium it's never been bettered. The biggest piece of Veroboard I ever bought as a hobbyist must have been about 18" long, and needless to say it arrived in the post smashed up!

• I described the full story of Veroboard in the January 2025 issue of Practical Electronics magazine.
• You can download all my constructional projects from the 1970's onwards here. Many of them were built on Veroboard originally.

Ambyr Stripboard Magic

A popular (in its time) stripboard/ Veroboard layout program for Windows, 1990's era Stripboard Magic was developed in Britain by Ambyr Ltd. but disappeared without trace after a brief spell of success, selling as boxed software in Maplin stores too. Although it has been abandoned, copies of it spring up all over the web.

It ran in Windows XP but proved problematic in Windows 7+, the commonest problem being an error on installation Setup is unable to find installation languages in setup.lid file. Error105.

Stripboard Magic in Windows 7 Pro/ 64 bit [click to see]You can search and download Stripboard Magic 1.0 from various places around the web (not here!).  After unzipping the program into a folder, instead of using the program's front-end installer, a solution is to open the DATA1.CAB file with a software tool like Jared Breland's Universal Extractor which will extract the cabinet file, so try extracting that to a sub-folder. In there you will find the executable for Stripboard Magic. Double-click the .exe and it should run, and see how far you get. I took a screenshot (left) to prove it installed OK.

Also try LochMaster (literally, Hole Master) from Germany's Abacom. As always, all such material is downloaded and used entirely at your risk, not mine.

Library of constructional projects and reprints - Alan Winstanley

Here is a full list of my constructional projects since the 1970's (Mains Delay Switch, April 1978) to the last one (Windicator, July 1995) with links to PDF reprints. The background design and prototype notes can be found separately, in the individual parts of my online 'Interviews' elsewhere on this web site.

	EE Mains Delay Switch  April 78
	Auto Nightlight  July 78
	Fuse Checker  Oct 78
	Water Level Alert  Dec 78
	Time Delay Indicator  Feb 79
	Darkroom Timer  July 79
	Uniboards 1 Opto Alarm Nov 79
	Uniboards 2 Burglar Alarm  Dec 79
	Uniboards 3 9V PSU   Jan 80
	Mains On-Off Timer  Jan 80
	Uniboards 4 Touch Switch  Mar 80
	Gas Sentinel  Apr 80
	Uniboards 5 Audio Tone Generator  May 80
	Uniboards 6 Voltage Converter  Jun 80
	Uniboards 7 Dusk-Dawn Relay  Oct 80
	Soil Moisture Monitor  Nov 80
	Xmas Lights Flasher  Dec 80
	IC Uniboards 1 No Entry Indicator  Dec 80
	IC Uniboards 2 Ice Alarm  Jan 81
	IC Uniboards 3 6-7½-9V PSU  Feb 81
	Bench Power Supply  Mar 81
	IC Uniboards 4 Mini Siren  Mar 81
	Pressure Mat Trigger Alarm  Nov 81
	Siren Module  Jan 82
	In-car PSU  Apr 82
	Security Vari-Light  Dec 82
	Opto Repeater  Jan 83
	4 Channel Gas & Smoke Sentinel  Jan 84
	Washer Fluid [Car] Monitor  Aug 84
	Mains Monitor  Feb 85
	Continuity Test Unit  Jul 85
	Drill Control Unit  Aug 85
	Door Chime  Jun 87
	Door Sentinel  May 88
	Power Controller [Phase Control type]  Sep 88
	Auto Nightlight  Dec 91
	Auto Garage Light  Mar 92
	UV Exposure Timer Jul 92
	Washer [car, fluid] Monitor  Sep 92
	Pond Heater Thermostat   Jan 94
	Power Controller [Burst Firing]  Nov 94
	Multipurpose Thermostat  Mar 95
	Windicator  Jul 95

Interview Part 8: Here comes the future

In the final part I explain how the world-wide web grabbed my attention, but not before I had completed two more Teach-In series, helped bring the PhizzyB computer to our readership and written the story of electricity generation in "From Pipelines To Pylons". I rounded off with a 50 Years Golden Anniversary celebration of the magazine I have worked for since 1976.

Click to read more ...

Interview Part 7: At the surgery

It's onwards with the Teach-In Micro Lab Ingenuity Unlimited, Circuit Surgery, Ohm Sweet Ohm and introducing EPE's feline friend, Piddles the Cat in the penultimate instalment of my potted history.

Click to read more ...

Interview Part 6: A labour of love

Updated on Friday, February 13, 2015 at 6:04PM by Alan W

Updated on Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 10:42AM by Alan W

Updated on Friday, September 8, 2017 at 12:42AM by Alan W

The next part (nearly there now!) of my potted history picks up the story from the early 1990s when I put project developments on the back burner and headed over to the Teach-In series instead, co-authoring Teach-In 93 with the Mini Lab and Micro Lab, designed by Keith Dye and Geoff MacDonald.

Click to read more ...