I had one of those. We called them luggables.

Ooh. I remember those "lightweight" Compaq laptops. I had to travel on the train from London to Edinburgh once with one of them. It was like carrying a suitcase full of bricks!

A few years ago I was on a light freighter in a scrap yard when a man, woman and TV crew forced their way on, hijacked it, took control, nearly crashed it and then kidnapped me, embarking on a long voyage. They actually damaged the vessel quite a bit and it was already in quite a state of disrepair. I was told if I helped I could be in the documentary they were making and so I decided to help. I could have done with some good test equipment but instead I made do with what was available and patched it up. I repaired the faulty servo controlled plate: it needed testing as it regulated the amount of thrust in the H-drive unit, luckily I found I was able to measure the disturbance in the force with a Wheatstone bridge circuit and wet-finger.

After was seemed like a millennium I was able to disembark onto another freighter, which was captained by an oldish man and an extremely hairy guy. I'm not sure what they were filming and I was slightly annoyed that I wasn't filmed making those vital repairs.....I never did see the old light freighter again.

I was tasked to set up an automated weather station on a remote site. It seemed simple enough. Just bring all the equipment on the list and plug everything when you get there. Everything tested well before transporting it for 6 hours but trouble started when configuring at the site. It seems one of the ICs in the box shown below was giving noisy signals.

After some troubleshooting, I suspected that the 74LS14 might not be firing well but unable to confirm it without looking at its output signal. A snapshot from an oscilloscope would have been very helpful to see if the output are suppressing noise from the reed switches. I had to take the whole console box back with me in order to troubleshoot it. It would have been great to have a portable oscilloscope at the time.

In my spare time I am a navigator on offshore racing yachts, being the navigator means I also get to look after all the electronics a modern yacht carries for navigation, weather, performance monitoring and safety. Everything needed to cross an ocean safely. And yep you guessed it when one goes a wrong it is usually one of the ones at the top of the mast! Sorry no photos it is always one hand for the boat and one hand to hang on in offshore sailing, no hands spare for selfies.

Going through the US Army's Prime Power School decades ago, we did two labs/practical exercises that really helped me understand multimeters.  One was building a multimeter from a kit - back in the Archer/Radio Shack days.  The other was a lab taking readings with that kit multimeter, an average reading meter and a true RMS meter.  I learned that cheap meters typically use a simple blocking diode, measure DC and scale for sinusoidal AC.  That means one doesn't trust a zero reading until you also reverse the leads and make another measurement - just in case.  In my current job, we work with a controller with a built-in battery charger.  One of the charger capacitors has potential on the top.  A cheap meter shows zero with the leads to cap, to chassis.  Reverse them and you get -56V.  That'll sting.  If you don't have the "better meter option", hopefully this trick will help.

Using a cheap multimeter almost cost me my life one night.  I received a call from a good friend one evening who was having trouble with the lights flickering in his house,  also an electric heater he had plugged in was popping its reset button constantly. I grabbed some basic tools and went over to his place to try and help him out. I started at the fuse panel with my cheap chinese made multimeter, the meter would read voltage on some circuits and zero on others. I grabbed a screwdriver and proceeded to tighten a terminal that appeared very loose, just as soon as the screwdriver touched the terminal that my meter had said had no voltage - i received a severe shock that brought me down to my knees. After i recovered and realized i was okay i went and borrowed a much higher quality multimeter and retested the terminal voltages. Many of the circuits that had read no voltage from my el' cheapo meter were indeed live and had normal voltage. The moral to my story is that you get what you pay for when it comes to vital test equipment, and using inexpensive, poorly made equipment can cause you to have a very bad day!  I won't be testing anymore deadly circuits until i obtain a quality multimeter such as the one available from this company. My attitude has taken a shocking turn of events!

Thanks I enjoyed doing it.

, nicely done.

It was Christmas eve and oddly enough it was snowing but not so oddly I was making my way back from the pub. I leaned against a lamppost to get a better look at the falling snow flakes in the lamp light. Down the road, home was still a long way away and I looked back at the way I had come. I laughed to see that some fool had been trying to write something in the snow with their footprints. It might be Merry Xmas in heiroglyphics I thought. A noise behind made me turn just as the lamppost I was leaning against decided to move. I slipped to the floor rather quickly. Next thing I knew a bloke dressed in red was sitting me up against the lamppost which was now back in its original position.

"You alright?" the bloke asked.

"I think so," I replied rubbing my head and trying to focus on the bloke. "You look like Santa," I said grinning foolishly.

"Er.. that's right I am. I'm out er... delivering. Know anything about engines?" he asked. "My er.. sleigh has broken down."

"A bit I replied," unsure of whether I could fix anything right now.

He helped me up and we staggered off to his sleigh.

"This looks a lot like the sleigh the Round Table use," I grinned.

"Er... does it? I expect they're all the same really," Santa replied.

He lifted the bonnet and I peered into the gloomy engine compartment.

"It's probably a fuse or something," I said doubtfully as I sniffed the vague burning smell.

"Oh No! Christmas is going to be ruined," Santa lamented.

"Well I could probably fix it if I had some tools. Unfortunately I haven't got any with me," I replied.

"I might have a few in the back of the sleigh," Santa said cautiously and we went back to have a look. He lifted down a sack and started pulling out tools still in their boxes.

"A multimeter, An oscilliscope, digital calipers, wire cutters..."  I listed the items as he passed them to me. I recognised this list from somewhere. Then as he dropped a BeagleBone AI in the snow at his feet, I looked down and noticed his white trainers. White trainers not black boots and suddenly in a brief moment of sobriety I put it all together. "These things are the Element14 Christmas gifts and you're not Santa ... you're a thief!!!" I cried at the same time trying to make a grab for him but, he slipped away from me.

He snatched at the sack. However, the beer I had consumed suddenly took control of my legs again and I fell on the sack dragging it from his hands. He ran off into the night empty handed leaving me surrounded by electronic goodies. I heard shouting. I tried to focus on the direction it was coming from. To my surprise, Chris Stanton and Karen Corbeill come looming out of the darkness.

"You're a hero! You've saved Christmas," they chorused. They helped me up and between them they lifted the sack. "We need to go and get these delivered. Thanks for stopping the thief," they turned to leave.

"Hang on I have shum more here," I slurred, the beer taking control of my tongue now.

"You keep them for your good deed. " With that they left me holding a few of the gifts.

"Happee chrishmus," I called but they had already gone.