Good story! You had me hooked at the part about a national standard being built on spare parts, returns and scounged units!
Sent from BlueMail On Jan 4, 2019, 18:07, at 18:07, "Rice, Hugh (IPH Writing Systems)" <[email protected]> wrote: >HP's Santa Clara Division (SCD), in addition to building the Cesium >Beam Frequency Standard Atomic Clocks, was an official time-keeper for >the U.S. Naval Observatory, maintaining the west coast reference for >Coordinated Universal Time. This was done in our standards lab where >we kept a rack of several HP Cesium standards. Hopefully the attached >picture of the lab comes through for some of you. > >A side note on the Cesium Standards in this lab. It was a collection >of random instruments from over the years. The 5060 and 5061 family >was reliable and easy to repair, especially with the factory was >upstairs, and these were likely scrounged units of some kind. >Customers also used to send Cesium Beam tubes to HP for disposal and >end of life. These customer tubes were sometimes replaced on periodic >maintenance schedules when used in critical applications, and often had >a lot of good life left. The standards lab working with the CBT techs >would pick through the returns, and select out the best tubes for the >standards lab. As far as I know, the standards lab never had to >purchase a new CBT. I'll bet there are a few on this list that would >love to pick though the piles of old CBTs we had back in the day. > >In about 1987, Jim Horner, the general manager of SCD, said: "If we >keep the official time for the US Naval Observatory, we should have a >fancy display in the lobby showing exact time." This would allow us >to showcase our technology to customers and dignitaries that would >visit the site. But there was a catch: IT MUST ALWAYS HAVE THE >CORRECT TIME. (Oh, and PFS engineering needed to find the money to >pay for it. But it didn't wind up being all the expensive.) > >Some years prior, at HP headquarters (or maybe HP Labs?), they also had >a "Lobby Clock" to show off HPs accurate time keeping technology to >visitors. I never saw a picture of this it, but it was supposedly an >elegant electro-mechanical clock, in a glass case so you could look in >at the gold plated gears and such. On day, a visitor saw it and said: >"I think your clock is slow." Impossible! It is connected to the >house standard, and is *perfect*. But it was checked, and sure >enough, the clock was slow by some embarrassing amount. The gold >plating on the gears had gotten gummed up, and caused the clock to drag >behind. Some senior executive (Packard, Hewlett, HP Labs director?) >probably lost their temper, and had it quickly removed. HP didn't >need an atomic clock in the lobby of the corporate headquarters with >the incorrect time. (I think Lou Mueller told me this story, and >most of this one is probably true. He was the lead CBT engineer, and >his history with Cesium Standards went back to nearly the beginning of >time. A wonderful guy that was always very kind to me, and told lots >of great stories.) > >This was a after the 5061B project was complete, and I was now the >production engineer on the 5061B. My follies as a clock designer had >not been discovered yet, and PFS management asked me to design the >Lobby Clock display, and figure out a way to make sure it was never >wrong. I had learned a lot about turning a 1PPS signal into a >HH:MM:SS format, and leveraged this new expertise into the new lobby >clock. > >The strategy was to have a small clock display in the standards lab, >sitting on top of the rack of official Cesium Standards, where the >tech's there could regularly confirm that it indeed had the correct >time. A key feature of the design was to have the 6 digits of the >clock display in BCD data format, which could be piped out to the lobby >on a 24 connector data cable. (I got to learn about RS 422 line >drivers, which I used to drive the data lines. The distance from the >standards lab to the lobby was maybe 100 feet.) The clock display in >the lobby would display the BCD data, and not have to be checked, as >long as the standards lab guys kept their local display accurate. No >gears to gum up. What could go wrong? > >The guys from the industrial design team designed a very elegant, very >large black glass display for my electronics to hide behind. On the >left side was an "analog clock" made of long narrow LED segments, and >would progress around in a circular display with simulated hour, >minutes and second hands. On the right side was a giant 7-segment, dot >matrix like digital display for the time. The digits were maybe a foot >tall. We had two giant PCBs laid out to hold the analog and digital >clock LEDs, and all the electronics to control them. All mounted in a >fancy aluminum box, with the enormous glass display over the top. It >was at least 3 feet wide, and nearly as tall. And really heavy. >Facilities pulled the 24 conductor cable through all the false ceilings >and found AC power up there for me to plug into, and mounted the beast >high on the wall in the lobby. We fired it all up, and it worked >great. (Yes, I tested it extensively before we installed it.) > >SCD management scheduled a grand opening ceremony for the clock >display, and invited Len Cutler down to do the official unveiling. A >few quick speeches, and Len pulled off the black cloth hiding it until >the big event. He appeared very pleased with the product. It >remained in the SCD lobby for many years, and was still there the last >time I visited in the late 1990s. As far as I know, it never had the >wrong time. Or at least it always showed the same time as the little, >reference clock in the standards lab. > >This was a really fun project, that was completed over a few months, >and something that I was proud of for many years. I wonder if it is >still on the wall of the lobby. Keysight technologies now occupies the >building, but is no longer in the Cesium Standard business. > >Have any of you ever seen this clock in the old SCD lobby, on Stevens >Creek Boulevard where it crosses Lawrence Expressway in Santa Clara? >Anyone know how long it was there? > >Happy time keeping, > >Hugh Rice > > > > > > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] >To unsubscribe, go to >http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com >and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
