I'll bet I'm not the only one here who remembers Heathkit.
Heathkit was a little before my time, but my dad had built stuff from them and still had a bunch of catalogs in the bookcase. I even remember basses in the catalogs - think they were Ekos? or something of that ilk.
Not long ago I bought a Heathkit "Electronic Design Experimenter" off ebay for $15
Most. awesome. thing. evar.
Its got a built in power supply, function generator, couple of pots, and a breadboard to test out circuit designs. I hotrodded it by wiring in a bunch of 1/4" jacks on the back that run to the outer pads on the breadboard. So when I build up an audio circuit (an effect, or what have you), I can plop the thing down and hook it right up to a guitar or amp or whatever.
The only downside is that stuff tends to live on there forever, since its so convenient.