Max Maxfield 7/5/2012 5:24:44 PM User Rank Blogger
Re: Travel in time
@Jacek: Re "Everytime I read it, I feel like travelling in time with you."
Sadly, there is only room for two people in the time machine ... but we will send you a post card from 1975 ... you can expect a knock on the door anytime now...
Max Maxfield 7/5/2012 5:17:32 PM User Rank Blogger
Re: It's amazing when you think about it...
@Sven: As I recall, the folded papertape just sat in a box on the floor -- you fed one end into the reader. When the reader was running, the papertabe would just unfold as it was pulled out of the box...
Just one more comment about the S-3260 test system. I found this sales brochure from Tektronix showing probably the first system they made. If you look closer you can see that the paper tape punch/reader takes paper tape rolls. In the system we got there was a DEC paper tape punch/reader for folded paper tape. When we got the first update to the TekTest III operating system it was delivered on 4 or 5 rolls of paper tape. Here is a quiz. Can you guess how we could read the paper tape rolls in our reader for folded paper tape?
great blog as usual. Everytime I read it, I feel like travelling in time with you. There was a TV show in the 90's - I don't remember the title, but it was something with quantum leap :) the only difference is that your stories are much more funny (not only because of trousers) and interesting... I'll be waiting for your next blog.
I read somewhere that fashion cycles are approximately 20 years. So who knows maybe in a few years (2x20) time bellbottom trousers will be popular again.
gina r smith 6/30/2012 2:07:07 PM User Rank Beginner
Re: Good article...
I agree good article. Wow the 70s seems like a lifetime ago. It's funny I was just talking about the 70s and hippies this week. Think my hometown was too small for hippies. lol
I remember my first assignment out of college, at Westinghouse, who became Northrop Grumman less than a year after I was hired. I learned so much from the Sr engineers who really mentored me. It was funny working with high voltage.
Thanks for posting this article; it was really good. I also enjoyed the 1977 Ericsson Review article ("The Selection and Testing of Electronic Components.") The photos included in the report were great as well :-)
Re: "I was really scared, because I had never seen anything like it before"
I think all of us engineers were scared in our first assignments. Although, looking at that huge, new, state-of-the-art machine and being told "it's yours" must have been intimidating...
I remember my first assignment as a controls engineer at an automotive electronics manufacturer. "You will integrate and program this wirebonding machine into the high-volume pressure sensor line." My thoughts ==> I'M GOING TO DO WHAT!!?? :-)
Re: "Then I realized it would be much more fun to program this beast, which meant I would have to move to the component test department and become a test engineer. This will be the next part of my story."
ASIC and FPGA designer Sven Anderson continues his "Retrospective" series with reflections on the (r)evolution he's seen with regard to computer memories.
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