Formally I've just had the standard run of physics courses, this is mainly a hobby - I just tend to turn hobbies into obsessions. I started with computers when I was very young (I rewrote Hangman so that I could hang as many men as I needed to so that I could get the words right before I could safely walk down stairs) and from there I went straight to logic circuits and other such nonsense. I mainly just spent my time either in the library or on the internet working on stuff like this and computer nonsense from about eight years old on. This stuff is amazingly simple if you have a logical bone in your body, it's just not as accessible as it was a few decades back when building radios was the 'in' thing.
As for the different pedals and components... army surplus is great for finding odds and ends (including carbon-comp resistors and odd chips, things like that) and I've been doing tech work for a few people with much more money than me for quite some time now. It mainly comes down to borrowing pedals and finding schematics, and simple things like putting trimpots in place of resistors whose functions you'd like to know more about.
Long story short, I'm a bit obsessive about this stuff, my mind works entirely in logic and mathematics, and I sleep about an hour in a good night. I'm the hobbyist from hell.
Jeff
