Lateral thinking

Back in 1973 I was attending trade school, being taught the fine art of repairing consumer electronics. You can't even begin to imagine how much things have changed in the intervening 32 years unless you've lived through them. The TV set of the era was based on technology that was pretty much the same as that used in the late 1920's when the new fangled wireless was making its way into the world.

One of my courses covered TV repair. Theory and practice where the practice was provided on the first pre-production run of the Astor SJ chassis from 1955/56. Astor, having got the bugs out of their production line, donated the entire run to RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) for their trade school and RMIT were still using those ancient sets 17 or so years later. At the time it made little difference; a 1972 model TV set was pretty much the same as a 1956 model.

So one week we'd be discussing the audio chain, the next week the vertical deflection, the following week EHT and so on and the prac class involved us leaving the classroom long enough for the instructor to simulate various faults in the area of interest. Simulation involved unsoldering a good part and substituting a known bad part. Upon our return to the classroom we had to diagnose the symptoms and point at the offending component.

It didn't take us long to realise that it was far quicker, given that we already knew which area of operation was being taught, to quickly examine each solder joint looking for that 'new' look that indicated a recent reheat. I reckon we got a better than 90% hit rate within the first minute. Of course, we merely used that knowledge as a hint :-)

One of our instructors struck one, at first, as a strange customer. He seemed totally focussed on the technology to the total exclusion of everything else. Quite the martinet at first aquaintance! After the first week of his teaching we concluded, rather harshly, that he probably made love to an 807[^]. He also had an obsession with the Hewlett Packard HP45 Scientific Calculator. We later learned, through another instructor, the tragedy of that mans life. His wife passed away on the day they were married and he was never the same afterward. We never did find out how she died but I do know that it changed our feelings toward him. I remember his name well but won't mention it. Let this be a lesson to all of us not to make harsh judgements.

My other instructor was a great guy. I wish I could remember his name; I have a vague idea his first name was Jack. He was particularly proud of the fact that he was born on the day the Titanic sank. My class was the last he taught; he retired at the end of that year. We'd got pretty chummy with him, my little group of friends and I, and we'd occasionally call in on him at his apartment in St Kilda after night school in 1974. We seemed to be always welcome; we'd sit and drink a beer and talk about technology and he and his wife would insist that we eat something. He and his wife made that little snack into both a pleasure and something of a solemn ritual; you really felt as if you were doing something special.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn he's still kicking at 93 - he always struck me as the kind of man who had so many interests in life (Classical Music, Internal Combustion Engines, Computers, History, Geography, Travelling, Teaching, Reading, Beer, Food, yada yada) that he'd never let a little thing like retirement get in his way.

Geeze, if he really is still kicking he's only 42 years older than I am! There's a sobering thought :-)