Tektronix scopes still look as desirable now as they did back then, and not for nostalgic reasons. There's not much tech from that age where the same can be said.
Americans had already made the "l" in "solder" silent by 1969.
My Tektronix scope was much bigger than those shown, no circuit boards, powered by tubes. Wish I could have kept hold of it.
In 1980 the manager of the PCB department of Marconi Radar showed me an example of what was about the first PCB they ever had that was laid out by computer. He pointed out that you could tell it was computer laid out because you could see little staircase steps in the diagonal traces.
Otherwise Marconi had a whole team of young girls laying out boards with black sticky tape on transparent film over light boxes.
There's not much tech from that age where the same can be said.
I once had an X,Y pen plotter from that era, perhaps a bit before. Amazing device.
A flat bed with suction holes to "stick" the paper down. A chassis made out of cast aluminium, it was really heavy. And all run by tubes. Wish I could have kept that too.
Americans had already made the "l" in "solder" silent by 1969.
Must have happened long before that. My dad taught me to solder well before 1969 (as a result of nagging and haranguing) and I never heard him pronounce the "l". An uncle, who designed an assembly for the original Minuteman missile, never pronounced the "l" either. I do hear Canadians voicing it, though.
BTW, this interesting video goes a long way toward explaining why Tektronix scopes were so pricey. And also why it's such a pity to see one on the scrap heap.
The Chinese famine (40 million people dead) was only 8 years in the rear view mirror. The Cultural Revolution was still thrashing along.
Vietnam going strong.
In the US, there was Woodstock (don't remember that, though).
Twiggy who?
Dudes started walking around on the moon, IIRC.
Richard Nixon was working his Madman Theory of foreign policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
Amusing that I am currently burning in a board (hey, it hasn't been powered up for more than a few minutes since roughly 1990) which was made by similar techniques sometime around 1974. Once I'm sure it won't fry a cap I will be propellerizing it to turn its Nixie tube display, originally intended to dislay weight data, into you guessed it a clock.
RDL2004
Posts: 2,554
Comments
-Tor
Americans had already made the "l" in "solder" silent by 1969.
My Tektronix scope was much bigger than those shown, no circuit boards, powered by tubes. Wish I could have kept hold of it.
In 1980 the manager of the PCB department of Marconi Radar showed me an example of what was about the first PCB they ever had that was laid out by computer. He pointed out that you could tell it was computer laid out because you could see little staircase steps in the diagonal traces.
Otherwise Marconi had a whole team of young girls laying out boards with black sticky tape on transparent film over light boxes.
I once had an X,Y pen plotter from that era, perhaps a bit before. Amazing device.
A flat bed with suction holes to "stick" the paper down. A chassis made out of cast aluminium, it was really heavy. And all run by tubes. Wish I could have kept that too.
Hand taping....yeah, I remember...
Must have happened long before that. My dad taught me to solder well before 1969 (as a result of nagging and haranguing) and I never heard him pronounce the "l". An uncle, who designed an assembly for the original Minuteman missile, never pronounced the "l" either. I do hear Canadians voicing it, though.
BTW, this interesting video goes a long way toward explaining why Tektronix scopes were so pricey. And also why it's such a pity to see one on the scrap heap.
Bean
The Chinese famine (40 million people dead) was only 8 years in the rear view mirror. The Cultural Revolution was still thrashing along.
Vietnam going strong.
In the US, there was Woodstock (don't remember that, though).
Twiggy who?
Dudes started walking around on the moon, IIRC.
Richard Nixon was working his Madman Theory of foreign policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
I guess a lot has changed.