Semi-Conducting: Rambles Through the Post-Cagean Thicket

Chapter 1: A Hidden Switch


Columbia University, with megaphone, spring 1968. Photo by Nicolas Collins (age 14).

How not to learn to solder. Photo by Nicolas Collins.

Manual for Tandberg Model 64 tape recorder. Click image or HERE.


Data sheet for Signetics NE566 Function Generator, the heart of many a homemade oscillator in the 1970s.


Parallel reviews of Live Dead by the Grateful Dead and Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley in Rolling Stone, February 7, 1970.


My first functional circuit, an oscillator, 1972. Photo by Nicolas Collins.

Nicolas Collins, Tone Gen (1972). Sole existing recording from high school experiments with homemade oscillator and Tandberg tape recorder.