It has been a couple weeks
since I last posted any of the electronics-themed comics which frequently appeared
in the vintage trade magazines. This sextet of comics came from the November and
December 1961 issues of Radio-Electronics. I particularly like the first
one from page 99. It depicts a great
The Three Stooges
type scenario. The comic from page 107 was ahead of its time in prognosticating
electronic one-armed bandit
machines. You would need to be familiar with the days of CRT televisions and the
picture alignment process to fully appreciate the one on page 108. Anyway, feel
free to include any of these or the hundreds of others linked at the bottom of the
page in your next live presentation. They're a great
segue into your next
spiel on project
progress (or lack thereof) or design techniques.
This note regarding the comic to the left came in from RF Cafe visitor Joseph B.:
The following radio comic brought back some memories. Back in
the 1980's, I worked for Westinghouse on nuclear plant training simulators.
These were an exact duplicate of a plant's control board - massive, massive with
lots of switches, lights, and meters, etc. The computer(s) were Gould
mini-computers and the 10 to 20 Meg (yes, Meg) disk drives were the size of
dishwashers. Programming was done via "glass teletypes†", and the
instructors/control station was a high-class color glass teletype. Everything
was sitting out on tables. Once one of the color instructors stations was left
with it's cover removed. As a somewhat knowledgeable electrical engineer, I
pointed out the obvious hazard to our top manager. He questioned my assessment
of the danger. My reply, pointing to an item inside the terminal "That's called
a flyback transformer. Know why? It carries 30,000 volts and if you touch it,
you 'FLY BACK!'" The next day, that terminal had a wood box covering it. And
there were no more bare terminals, ever.
† Slang name for a CRT being used in place of a paper
teletype device.
"The green wire's the ground, the red goes to the speaker,
and I usually ignore the white one."
Page 133, November 1961
