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Old 21st Jul 2021, 5:42 pm   #9
Hartley118
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK.
Posts: 2,196
Default Re: (The trade). Golden years?

A ‘trade’ that I used to be in was college/university teaching. The ‘60s and early ‘70s were a most exciting period of syllabus transition from valves to transistors and ICs. In an era where much teaching focused on valves, I had the glorious opportunity to set up a brand new electronics teaching laboratory at UMIST where the previous style (doubtless innovative in its day) had presented the student with a rather boring VR65 pentode already mounted on pattress board with the connections brought out to screw terminals which the student then connected to an Advance H1 oscillator and Telequipment ‘scope in order to follow the printed instructions and get home as early as possible in the afternoon with a scribbled set of results to write up later.

Transistors and ICs changed all that. Students were at last able to learn to solder and quickly build circuits on tagboards and Veroboard - proper electronics, where they could try out ideas, sometimes learning by burning out components as they went. Fortunately there was then no bureaucratic requirement for fume extraction - the first thing I learned is that 40 students all soldering does create quite a fug in the lab!

Instead of there being a race to escape from the lab ASAP, students tended to get so absorbed that the steward often had to eject them at locking up time. I think that, thanks to transistors facilitating circuit building, they enjoyed it. Hopefully they learned some stuff as well from time to time.

Golden years indeed.

Martin
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