MidnightArrakis
Well-known member
[I did "sticky tape" PCB layouts in the 70,s, (using Bishop Graphics)] -- Believe it or not.....I -- STILL -- have my original "Bishop Graphics" PCB-footprint template 3-ring binder from when I was beginning to do PCB layouts back in the mid-70's!!! I wonder what it might be worth today???
[achieving a "signature look" for each PCB layout engineer] -- During sometime in the late 70's, I was hired by an engineering company where I had lived at the time, to be their "Senior PCB Designer". As it turned out, in the same general part of town where I lived and where this engineering company was located at, there was also a local PCB-fabrication shop. Since PCB-fabrication was a relatively "new" thing back then, most all of the local electronics companies within our part of the state would all use this local PCB-fabricator for their fabrication needs. So.....because of the time-delay of mailing PCB-artwork to the PCB-fabricator and getting your finished boards back by UPS and/or the possibility of getting your PCB-artwork lost or mangled by the USPS, companies would prefer to "play it safe" and have someone actually physically drive their artwork over to the PCB-fabricator. At the companies I had worked at, that person was usually "ME"!!!
As a result of this, certain personnel within this PCB-fabrication shop got to associate certain projects going through their shop with my name. After a period of maybe a couple of years, when I would call-in to the PCB-fabricator to check on the fabrication process of a board and the person at the PCB-shop would say something like, "I had a feeling that Project XYZ was one of your designs"!!! I would ask, "Why would you say that"? And, they would respond saying, "I figured that Project XYZ was one of your designs by the way the components were placed and by how it was routed. Other PCB-Designers don't take the care in routing as you do and it shows in your overall PCB-design"!!! Well, now.....comments like that certainly made me feel good back then when I was only 1/3rd the age that I am now.
[manual "tape and film" layout slowly gave way to computer/CAD layout systems] -- My very first PCB CAD-system was the RACAL-REDAC "Cadstar" System back in 1985. I even -- STILL HAVE -- a version of it loaded onto a '486 50-MHz computer that has around 5MB of RAM on it that is tucked away in a closet around here somewhere.
[this is a really good first try, or an experienced PCB designer] -- IMHO....I thought that this PCB-layout looked "pretty rough" to me. None of my PCB-layout projects from the 1970's ever looked like what this project looks like. Either that, or.....whomever soldered this PCB wasn't being very careful about it.
[the availability of incredibly powerful PCB layout tools] -- I have my own licenced copy of the most latest version of the CADENCE/OrCAD "PCB Editor" Release 22.1.005 installed here-at-home. In addition, in an attempt to -- blend in -- with most of the users on this forum, I also have KiCAD 7.0 installed as well.
[I recently consulted on supposedly custom 1977 vintage "API console"] -- Several years ago, some guy down in Florida had purchased an "original" 1974 "API" mixing console from someone else and his job was to completely restore the console. He had come across my name on this forum in some thread, so he contacted me requesting if I could completely "Reverse-Engineer" all of the PCB's within his "new/old" API console. I replied that I could, so he mailed me "one each" of each different PCB inside the console with the instructions that I was to "accurately and perfectly" recreate each PCB just exactly as they were originally designed!!! Even when I pointed out that by doing certain "little things" would improve the layout or make it less costly, this guy said "NO"!!! I am assuming that whatever layout errors and/or mistakes that were in the original layouts must have created the "API MOJO" that he was looking for and he didn't want any type of -- improvements -- that might diminish that magic. So.....I just did what he wanted and let it go at that.
[the capabilities and quality of independent designers or builders should never be underestimated] -- Quite often.....even as I review old photographs of "Professional Audio & Broadcast Equipment" from the 1940's to the 1970's.....I am often amazed at how those guys back then were able to design and have mass produced all of that equipment with only the basic and elementary technologies of their time!!! All of the people of -- TODAY -- really need to take a step back and truly appreciate both the engineering efforts and the manufacturing "magic" of those bygone decades, all of which has gotten us to where we are TODAY!!!
And.....you gotta remember.....it was -- slide rulers -- that got us to the Moon!!!
JBW
/
[achieving a "signature look" for each PCB layout engineer] -- During sometime in the late 70's, I was hired by an engineering company where I had lived at the time, to be their "Senior PCB Designer". As it turned out, in the same general part of town where I lived and where this engineering company was located at, there was also a local PCB-fabrication shop. Since PCB-fabrication was a relatively "new" thing back then, most all of the local electronics companies within our part of the state would all use this local PCB-fabricator for their fabrication needs. So.....because of the time-delay of mailing PCB-artwork to the PCB-fabricator and getting your finished boards back by UPS and/or the possibility of getting your PCB-artwork lost or mangled by the USPS, companies would prefer to "play it safe" and have someone actually physically drive their artwork over to the PCB-fabricator. At the companies I had worked at, that person was usually "ME"!!!
As a result of this, certain personnel within this PCB-fabrication shop got to associate certain projects going through their shop with my name. After a period of maybe a couple of years, when I would call-in to the PCB-fabricator to check on the fabrication process of a board and the person at the PCB-shop would say something like, "I had a feeling that Project XYZ was one of your designs"!!! I would ask, "Why would you say that"? And, they would respond saying, "I figured that Project XYZ was one of your designs by the way the components were placed and by how it was routed. Other PCB-Designers don't take the care in routing as you do and it shows in your overall PCB-design"!!! Well, now.....comments like that certainly made me feel good back then when I was only 1/3rd the age that I am now.
[manual "tape and film" layout slowly gave way to computer/CAD layout systems] -- My very first PCB CAD-system was the RACAL-REDAC "Cadstar" System back in 1985. I even -- STILL HAVE -- a version of it loaded onto a '486 50-MHz computer that has around 5MB of RAM on it that is tucked away in a closet around here somewhere.
[this is a really good first try, or an experienced PCB designer] -- IMHO....I thought that this PCB-layout looked "pretty rough" to me. None of my PCB-layout projects from the 1970's ever looked like what this project looks like. Either that, or.....whomever soldered this PCB wasn't being very careful about it.
[the availability of incredibly powerful PCB layout tools] -- I have my own licenced copy of the most latest version of the CADENCE/OrCAD "PCB Editor" Release 22.1.005 installed here-at-home. In addition, in an attempt to -- blend in -- with most of the users on this forum, I also have KiCAD 7.0 installed as well.
[I recently consulted on supposedly custom 1977 vintage "API console"] -- Several years ago, some guy down in Florida had purchased an "original" 1974 "API" mixing console from someone else and his job was to completely restore the console. He had come across my name on this forum in some thread, so he contacted me requesting if I could completely "Reverse-Engineer" all of the PCB's within his "new/old" API console. I replied that I could, so he mailed me "one each" of each different PCB inside the console with the instructions that I was to "accurately and perfectly" recreate each PCB just exactly as they were originally designed!!! Even when I pointed out that by doing certain "little things" would improve the layout or make it less costly, this guy said "NO"!!! I am assuming that whatever layout errors and/or mistakes that were in the original layouts must have created the "API MOJO" that he was looking for and he didn't want any type of -- improvements -- that might diminish that magic. So.....I just did what he wanted and let it go at that.
[the capabilities and quality of independent designers or builders should never be underestimated] -- Quite often.....even as I review old photographs of "Professional Audio & Broadcast Equipment" from the 1940's to the 1970's.....I am often amazed at how those guys back then were able to design and have mass produced all of that equipment with only the basic and elementary technologies of their time!!! All of the people of -- TODAY -- really need to take a step back and truly appreciate both the engineering efforts and the manufacturing "magic" of those bygone decades, all of which has gotten us to where we are TODAY!!!
And.....you gotta remember.....it was -- slide rulers -- that got us to the Moon!!!
JBW
/
