Michael Black wrote:
On Mon, 28 Nov 2011, K7ITM wrote:


With regard to the parts that places like DigiKey and Mouser and other
authorized distributors stock: I seriously doubt that any homebrew
projects are going to have much effect on what they stock. It's the
parts that are bought for production, by the reel, or at least by
hundreds for some of the more exotic parts, that get their attention.
If you see them with a stock of 10,000 or more of something, you can
bet they didn't get them because they got some orders from random
homebrewers.

But in the old days, it did matter. When there were local parts stores,
and small mail order places. Why were there all those 2N706s specified
for a long time, until 2N2222s became common? People still specify "1N34"
when what they are really specifying is a germanium small signal diode,
much of the time people didn't really care what the part number was, I
seem to recall ads just saying "germanium diodes".

In a local homebrewing magazine, they started to use some generic
specifiers for small signal transistors and diodes, and there was a
table in the magazine that listed a number of different types that one
could use.

TUN = Transistor Universal NPN
TUP = Transistor Universal PNP
DUS = Diode Universal Silicium
DUG = Diode Universal Germanium

I think some hobbyists would just go to the store for "5 TUN, 3 DUS"
and get what they needed.