resistors

I recently inherited some furniture, including a computer desk and chest of drawers. I’m now using the computer desk as my operating desk and the chest of drawers for storage. In moving stuff out of the small kid’s desk that I was using for storage, I’ve come across a bunch of amusing little things that I’d squirreled away. One of them is this IRC Resist-O-Guide.

You simply dial in the colors on your resistor, and it tells you the value! On the back is a list of all the standard values.

I’m not sure how I came into possession of this little wonder. It was obviously given out as swag by a company called Master Electronics, which at one time was prosperous enough to have outlets on both the east side and west side of Detroit. Perhaps my dad picked it up at one of the stores. He used to build hi-fi kits back in the day.

As far as IRC goes, the brand is now owned by TT Electronics, a UK company. I’ve sent them an e-mail, asking if the Resist-O-Guide might still be available, but I doubt that it is.

UPDATE 2/28/17

This morning, I received a reply to my inquiry from Tom Morris, Applications Engineer-Eastern US, Resistors. He says,

Hi Dan,

Thank you so much for the trip down memory lane.  I remember these well.  Unfortunately, they are not available anymore.  I did see a large quantity on eBay for sale a couple years ago, though.

Thanks so much.

-Tom

I replied that I figured as much, and that it’s debatable as to whether or not something like the Resist-O-Guide is still  useful, given that the majority or resistors are probably now surface mount components.

Tom replied to that, “Actually there are still a relatively large number sold with color coding. I’d guesstimate that 15% are still color coded. “