Thanks for the memories Wayne! My High School drafting class was just a couple of years after yours, and I remember it fondly. Everything from drafting pencils (with lead of various sizes/hardness) to technical ink pens on vellum. I enjoyed it so much that I persuaded the instructor to let me check out one of the old drafting machines for the summer break (I think it was a Universal).
Just a few years later, in my first real job as an electronics technician, I was introduced to electronic schematic capture tools, specifically the Daisy Systems Logician and some Mentor Graphics systems. I spent hundreds of hours drawing and updating schematics for the EEs at that company. Those machines were over $100 grand each at the time, with 10MB hard drives. Then the wirelists went to automatic wirewrap machines, or later, to specialized board routing/layout machines that were even more expensive. Now we have free or cheap schematic capture software on PCs thousands of times more powerful for use as hobbyists. Amazing. Yes, a lot has changed in less than 50 years. On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 12:10 AM Wayne Burdick <[email protected]> wrote: > OK, I've really dated myself now. > > Anyone remember "drafting"? A favorite class in high school: blueprints, > mechanical drawings, schematics, straight edges, hand lettering, > projections and elevations. We invented things to draw that weren't real, > but looked like they should be. Did all the math by hand -- on a slide > rule, if necessary. Day-dreamed about what we might one day build. > > 45 years later, we're using tools we couldn't have imagined. Modeling > circuits and objects with millions of parameters and vectors, realizing > them in virtual space, manipulating them in real time. Testing finished > products before they're even assembled. > > The transformation is mind boggling. Yet the best part now, as it was > then, is the occasional burst of creative energy that propels an idea > forward. The feeling of pieces falling into place. Or forcing them into > place out of sheer necessity. > > Most of the time, we think of our new tools and techniques as advances in > the state of the art. Things we can't live without. But those same defining > moments happened just as often in simpler times. > > Case in point -- my first real project, a rendition of W7ZOI's > Micro-mountaineer. Carefully documenting it took several sheets of > 4-squares-per-inch grid paper, which may still be in my cellar, beneath a > lifetime of such drawings. With the schematic, I took a lot of pride in > making the circuits look well-organized, as if that would somehow improve > my odds. On the PC board, I drew large traces and pads with the etch-resist > pen, as if that would somehow appease the electrons. > > I etched the PCB, soldered two dozen parts, and connected a 12 V lantern > battery. Thanks to my paranoia about what would happen if I did it wrong, > I'd taken my time and done it right. > > I was rewarded with a hiss of band noise and a few CW signals on 40 meters. > > Here's to those moments, and to that timeless pursuit: turning > abstractions into reality. > > 73, > Wayne > N6KR > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to [email protected] > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
