Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
Get a cup of tea and a couple of digestive biscuits, sit yourself comfortably, and then click here to see to see just how much the electronics industry has changed since September 1960, and how much it hasn’t changed.
Please leave any thoughts or comments below.
ICT 1301 computer (from 1962) still exists. Weight 5 tons. From Stuart, who took up computing because it was supposed to be logical. See how computers work, and how an historic example was preserved: https://wwwyoutubecom/watch?v=ZLpUyU2boAM
That’s great! Things have got smaller and cleverer for sure, though one can miss the ‘hands-on’ feel of big boxes, not to mention the reliable clunk of a TV turret-tuner.
I joined EW’s editorial staff in 1964 as a rookie subeditor, at its Fleet Street location, under the tutelage of editor Roger Woolnough. Had to learn how not to upset wordy correspondents with my blue pencil. Yes, actually used that. Recall thrill of swanning around Farnborough Air Show, reporting on a new back-scattering electron microscope, marvelling at the IBM 360.
There was much debate about which TV colour system the Soviets would go for. I headlined “Russians May Pick SECAM” – wotta lotta letters that brought in!
Once the paper had been seen off at the press (QB Colchester) there was always time for a good browse in the IPC library. Favourite was New Scientist which I read to this day. Later I moved to BBC mobile sound recording, lugging around the excellent Nagra 4: another big and charming box now utterly superseded.
This brought back many happy childhood memories. Our first TV built from old radar set components sourced in Lile Street, Soho – one side housed surplus electronics shops and the other a rather older profession. My career in electronics started 12 years later at Racal, another name like so many mentioned here and now gone. Thank you.
Wow, what a treasure. I enjoyed it very much. It would be great to have other copies scanned.
Yup. Swallowed up and gutted by Weinstock’s GEC.
But never mind, back then you could buy a 17″ crt for a mere 10 guineas.
Bargain.
An amazing look back on an industry I have been part of since 1963. How far it has come…lots of the companies mentioned no longer exist or have been swallowed up….and here we are… wondering how the next 60 years will turn out……. I will not be here..but some of the youngest will be.. look after OUR Industry.