[Coco] Sodering Iron

[gene heskett]

On 11/27/23 14:25, Andrew via Coco wrote:
> On 11/26/23 11:18 PM, coco-request at maltedmedia.com wrote:
> 
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 02:53:58 +0000
>> From: tfadden <t.fadden at cox.net>
>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Coco] Sodering Iron
>> Message-ID: <em42a4d4b6-d2e0-48b3-8b47-08c6a378cb77 at 3a18940e.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>> Hey, Andrew,
>>
>> That wasn't UEI was it?  I moved here in 1970 to  go to DeVry.  Some
>> guys I roomed with went to UEI United Electronics Institute.
> 
> Nope...I moved here to Phoenix, from California, in June 1991, about a 
> week or so after I graduated high school. The school I went to was 
> called "High Tech Institute" (yep) - the instructors I had were 
> fantastic, but if I knew then what I know now - things would be far 
> different for me, most likely.
> 
> But then again, I'd have never had both the wonderful and 
> not-so-wonderful experiences with my wife of almost 30 years now, nor 
> the friends I have met along the way. I'd be posting something different 
> here, too, no doubt (I believe I still would've been a part of this group).
> 
> The school was a "practical hands-on" kind of place, where we had 
> minimal homework (dumba** me as a teen...), but still had to know our 
> books and do labs and stuff. The course was for "computer electronics", 
> basically the idea was how to diagnose and repair computer faults, down 
> to the component level - but by then (and our instructors were honest 
> about this) things were at the "swap around boards" kind of thing.
> 
> However, I picked up more than enough to learn how to read and design my 
> own digital circuits - I was never really that good with the analog side 
> of things; they taught that first, with the culmination being to build 
> this kit AM radio, first on a "breadboard" (with brass nails! though 
> only into a cardboard-type "substrate"), then you were suppose to 
> transfer it, once working, to an actual PCB - but they didn't require 
> that part; I left mine "as-is" - and still have it. I assume it works. 
> Along the way, you learned the various RF stages for amplification and 
> demodulation, then the audio amp side, etc. Had to tune the various RF 
> cans using a frequency counter and signal generator; there was also some 
> o-scope time (which we had learned prior to that).
> 
> After that, things switched over to digital training; thru-hole ICs and 
> such on breadboards at first (built something that was basically a 
> manual RAM system with a counter to step thru and show the contents one 
> byte at a time - at that point, I finally started to grok what a CPU 
> really did - it was just basically a very fast player piano!), then 
> moved on to interfacing to the ISA bus in IBM PS/2 machines, then 
> finally doing a course on "industrial control", with the Amiga computer 
> (the class had a bunch of Amiga 500s) standing in for the Motorola 68k, 
> using Lattice C and 68k assembler, with I/O via the parallel port - 
> built a crude form of "computer vision" using an 8x8 array of 
> phototransistors and such...
> 
> The idea being that you would gain such experience with that as the 
> starting point for such things in industrial and embedded automation, 
> because the 68k was the "workhorse" of that stuff at the time.
> 
> We built a couple of other things from kits (one was the Radio Shack 
> analog VOM early on - I still have it - but I fell in love with the 
> Simpsons we were using in-class, and only recently have been able to 
> find a decent and affordable one for my collection - heh). As a "final 
> project", I chose to build and write a report on a simple robot and 
> controller I designed, that could be controlled via the parallel port of 
> a laptop my parents had gotten me before I left (Tandy ??00HD - I forget 
> the full model - but I still have it - in fact, I have all of my "first 
> computers" - including the CoCo 2 and 3 I whet my appetite on as a kid).
> 
> I recall that the place had one of the few (I didn't know at the time 
> that so few were sold) Hero 2000 robots; they also had a Terrapin 
> turtle. One student, with help of the instructor (mainly due to the size 
> of the thing) built a laser rangefinder for his final - used a HeNe 
> laser, bouncing off a far mirror (as the "target"), and the returning 
> beam, because of parallax, would land on a linear line array of LEDs, 
> that were reverse biased to act as photosensors (it was something new I 
> had never know prior to that!). I can't remember the number exactly, but 
> some power of 2 (32 probably). Then whatever one was "lit up" by the 
> laser, a counter and some other parts would "isolate it" and then via a 
> decoder and such, show the "distance" as a number (1-32?) on a pair of 
> 7-segment displays. There was thoughts of hooking it to the Amiga and 
> writing code to show the same, but that never panned out.
> 
> Anyhow - this school, in a slightly different incarnation (known as 
> "Anthem College" IIRC) was a part of that whole "for profit school" 
> scandal that happened with Phoenix University, and the place closed down 
> (the building was over off of Indian School and 16th Street, just a bit 
> west of 16th on the south side, near the then - because I don't know if 
> it is still there - VW custom shop that was there at the time, next to 
> the canal). Left more than a few students in the lurch; just before I 
> had graduated, they had added an avionics program, and there was a 
> separate "dental technician" program at a completely different building 
> under a different name - all of it shut down, afaik - and I have no idea 
> what happened to those poor students.
> 
> I never ended up using my "degree" (Associates for whatever that's 
> worth) other than as a "foot in the door" for gaining employment. My 
> first real job outta high school was working as a cashier for an Osco 
> Drug store, then after they busted me down to 2 hours a week during the 
> holidays, I jumped from them to the start of my current career, and went 
> to work for a small mom-n-pop software development company. I never 
> expected to stay - but I did, and from there I continued working and 
> honing my "programmer" chops (and today we're given this lofty but just 
> as useless title of "software engineer").
> 
> I'm now 50, currently unemployed (again - in 2020, just before the 
> pandemic started, I became unemployed from a different employer for 
> about 21 months before I found another position - this one lasted about 
> as long, then they bumped me not long after a restructuring of the 
> small, but "virtual" company - they did give me a decent severance, and 
> I also got to keep the hardware they bought me, which was nothing to 
> sneeze at, if you know anything about System76 laptops). I'm hoping to 
> get back started "on the hunt" after the holidays, but I seriously 
> thought I had more time (3 years being the average at most places I've 
> worked over the last decade or so). I knew it was going to happen, just 
> didn't think it'd be so soon.
> 
> I'm just worried now that at 50 nobody will hire me as a "software 
> engineer" - there's a bias out there (overt or not) about the game being 
> for young people only, and I should be in management or something (to 
> also be fair, I've never been a team lead - not sure why, but it must be 
> me, I guess). I'm not sure where things are going to go on that, but 
> something will hopefully eventually turn up, or maybe (big if...) I can 
> figure out how/what to do with what I have in order to make some money 
> with it (when I was recently working and was "flush with cash" I spent 
> some of it on both a small 3D printer and a small router, both of which 
> I have yet to put together because of other reasons - at any rate, the 
> router can do not just regular routing, but I also have a 10w LED laser 
> for it to "engrave and cut" with).
> 
> But no use worrying about stuff until I have a reason to worry; right 
> now, it's nothing but speculation - I just either have to be able to 
> find "the right employer" (again...) - or figure out some way to make 
> money in some other fashion.

Have you ever encountered a program administered by the National 
Electronics Association that Certifies Electronics Technicians?

I saw in the Norfolk NE newspaper where the local Community College was 
using that test as the final exam for its 2 year course in electronics 
but anybody with a $20 bill was welcome to sit for it. I was at the time 
the tx super and only person keeping KXNE-TV 19 on the air for the NETV 
Commission, so I was well versed in the care and feeding of the klystron 
amplifiers used as high power final in UHF transmitters, which do not 
work on the same principles as normal vacuum tubes. A very expensive 
($125,000/copy) and now ancient history due to their poor 28% best 
efficiency, better methods have since been invented.

So I walked into the classroom and plunked down a 20 to take that test, 
which was a 125 question multiple choice test that got right down to the 
nitty and gritty, and I had 4 hours to finish it.  I also had the 
seasons flu for 1972 so I made a couple trips to the john in the 45 
minutes it took me to finish the test. Handing it back to the prof who 
asked if I was sure, I said that I was experienced in the physics and 
that was as good as he was going to get, grade it. 5 pages of black the 
circle corresponding to the right answer, he tossed it face down on his 
desk, got a cuppa and opened up the answer stencil envelope and I 
watched his eyebrows rise as he stared at a sea of black none of his 
students in several years of teaching that coarse had done. I missed 2. 
The first that actually passed that test during his tenure. So I've had 
the wall certificate, and a billfold card proclaiming I am a CET, #116 
in the country since. I engaged him in some idle tech conversation and 
came away with the impression he was the perfect example of the Peter 
Principle. I didn't think it was that hard but I also tested at 147 on 
the Iowa test in the 7nth grade, and in the middle of Korea in 1952 made 
a 98 on the AFQT (which got me classified 4F), took the 1st phone and 
got it w/o cracking a book in 1962. That opened the door to broadcast 
engineering culminating in 25 years of having the title of Chief 
Engineer on my office door, the last 18.75 years at WDTV-5 here in West 
Virginia. Now 89 yo, 3 years a widower, playing with linux, cnc 
machinery I've built, and 3d printers and such to keep me out of the bars.

So Andrew, if you find a chance to take that test and pass it, it opens 
many doors.

And that card Andrew, laid on a potential employers desk, has gotten me 
the job every time it was pulled out, no exceptions.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
  - Louis D. Brandeis