Electronics Career Game Changers

Great post.  Looks like you had a front row seat to witness many of the advancements. 

I started work life after school as a field engineer. Machine tools had some digital circuits, but industrial control were all analog. Analog drives, racks of op amp cards, relay cards, power relays, protection relays, etc.. 

When we went to a customer site, we first stopped at the office for a map , directions, and a contact phone number. We might do some equipment swap.

Sometimes the supervisor called me at home to tell me to simply get on a highway and drive west. Stop at a phone booth in an hour or so for more information. 

No cell phones, we carried a phone charge card. 

We didn't have PCs, so we carried boxes carbon paper forms for writing the service report while on site, having the customer sign, and we turn in for billing. 

We did have the flexibility to schedule our own calls, so many times the bosses weren't sure exactly where we were. It was the wild west.

A few years later came along plcs and digital drives, but the interfaces were still analog. Networking came next along with operator interface terminals.

Networks got faster. Comm networks and programming networks were still separate. Faster networks now could handle deterministic comms and asynchronous data on the same wires. 

No longer the wild west, the supervisor can find you anytime night and day. Your car can be found anytime. On the road, rather than a really good dinner in grubby clothes, and onto bed, you use your pc at night in the hotel to submit reports, billing, timesheets, expenses and email.

Technology has a ton of productivity improvements, it does have a price.

Yea....my work cell phone is a ball-and-chain. It turns working hours into a 24-7 affair.

Yes, though we do send them a check each year to encourage the continued improvement.

robogary said:

the supervisor can find you anytime night and day.

With change sometimes we lose a little of what was special.

I got fed uo of being called into the factory during MY time just to change a fuse or something equally trivial. So I used an old Philips EL3302 cassette recorder to simulate an answering machine. The outgoing message was complete with drop-outs and 'phasing' effects to create the impression of a well-used cassette, and a wow-and-fluttery 1KHz tone at the end. Sometimes I'd record the incoming messages, if any. It worked a treat!

And what about the introduction of spandex ? 

That needs an explanation, what did Spandex change for you?....

Of course it didn't do anything for me since I am allergic to synthetic elastic (polyether-polyurea copolymer) and even quasi-natural elastics like latex..

Now spam was a negative phenomenon with an impact...

dougw  The question certainly got a deep belly laugh from me.  What other word elicits such a wide range of response?  You get BOTH polar opposites of "Oh my!" - almost in the same thought. Hilarious!!   Hopefully, robogary's response doesn't make us regret asking the question - like the pictures of the suit I wore to prom.

Prom Leisure Suits weren't spandex, but the general topic of engineering fashion is another possible topic for an interesting intellectual technical discussion.  :-)