It may Amaze you to know that Australia was largely self-sufficient in its electronics. Industry When I started Dicksmith Electronics in 1968, most of what I sold was manufactured here. Transformers were manufactured here late '70s mid 80s was sort of like the Golden Age of hobby Electronics I've always been interested in electronics I think because you can't see what's really going on, but there's something magical going on I was always a tinkerer I Guess that's all they mucked around with. That was my hobby.

The sense of being in electronics was was a giant maano said that interest just stayed with me for life here in Australia The community was pretty much revolved around the electronics magazines. actually finding a set of like-minded people in electronics that was quite quite hard. We were lucky back then. our science teacher had an interest in electronics and thought it would be nice to do it as a component.

You're sort of exploring how the stuff is. It was only limited to your imagination at the stage. I Starting out retail, electronic shops did not exist. dead buys me soldering on for my birthday I Just just literally the solder everything I get my hands on I Had to go to the local tip and I found that that was a fantastic source of bids.

color TV was coming to Australia on every roadside there were TVs to be had by the score to pick up and rat four components. there certainly were hobby shops that used to sell. Electronics Yes, there was places in the city on a Saturday morning you couldn't move in there. if.

I'm going to do this I need soldering LS I need equipment I need parts and I'm really needing more money and so how do I support that and that's what I think starts you thinking about business and then Dick Smith came along. Revolutionized the whole field because I opened the first self-service type store and he spent money on marketing which was absolutely Revolution The electronics Industry in Australia employs just under 35,000 people, but there was more people interested in electronics in those days. that's waned a lot and I think a lot of that's been service. Mount Technology Everything has become much more monolithic and closed boxes.

I mean you need a a computer or a robot to actually do what we did back in the' 70s 80s with the larger components. Well, it's really hard hard to repair them and you don't want to. The word repair has been made redundant. for the short term.

You just Chuck it out and buy a new one. The waste we have now is staggering. If you're young and you want to learn Electronics How do you start? it needs to reintroduce Electronics to to schools. There's a vast Gulf of technical ignorance.

There's a very small proportion of the population who are aware of technology and how it works and how it functions. Kids have moved on to say computers and iPods and digital music. The average person: they have no knowledge of electricity, they don't even know How a light bulb works. If this doesn't happen now, you're going to wind up with a real technological black hole in Australia shortly.

There's still opportunity here for developing specialist equipment. There's a huge opportunity I Think to build good Electronics in Australia All you need is talent and enthusiasm and you can take on the world. There are opportunities to produce that better mouse trap. You can make very sophisticated, well packag electronic equipment.

in this country, the niche product out there. You can take the World by storm and nobody's going to even touch you. We have thrived and survived, but if there is much of a market change, will we survive? Don't really know.