HUMOR: How long have you been in this business?

[jdbrandt]

As some of us start to mark the decades (versus years) we've been in this business, there comes a time when we say: "It sure seems like I've been doing this for a while."

Well, here is a short test:

You've been in the automation business too long if:
..you still can remember the difference between a 9 pin and a 25 pin connector...and you prefer the 25!
..you still think in bytes and words, and you think that 16 bits is just about as perfect as a data structure gets.
..you think in decimal, but compute in octal and binary. You probably think that hexidecimal could have stayed away from automation, and we would have all been just fine. Bonus points if you can explain why there's no leading zeros in IP addresses!
..you can remember logging on to CompuServe with a 110 baud modem to check out the bulletin boards for job leads... and thinking, man, it just doesn't get any better than this!
..you can remember the project you were working on during the Challenger Shuttle disaster. Bonus points for you if the place is still open, and the project you were working on is still running.
..you've bid on a project to upgrade or ripout a project you originally installed 'years ago'. Bonus points if the owner didn't know that you were involved originally.

Perhaps there are some equally good tests of longevity..??

 

[BobB]

Ah dear. Many apply quite frankly.

you still can remember the difference between a 9 pin and a 25 pin connector

Still using them on some jobs and now starting to use USB into some PLCs. Also using Bluetooth serial connectors - I now have 4 of them. They are great as one can hook into several PLCs at once (up to 7 on a Bluetooth dongle), no cables for people to fall over and no one has any idea what you are doing in the "other" room. Much my preferred method of communications - have not had a laptop hit the deck because some clumsy footed idiot dragged my cable since I started using them.

you still think in bytes

Siemens still do. Nothing wrong with words though.

but compute in octal

Have never been there but the others apply.

you can remember the project you were working on during the Challenger Shuttle disaster. Bonus points for you if the place is still open, and the project you were working on is still running.

5-6 jobs all still running.

you've bid on a project to upgrade or ripout a project you originally installed 'years ago'. Bonus points if the owner didn't know that you were involved originally.

Several right now and the owners had no idea who did the jobs originally - they cannot read drawings obviously or the drawings have been lost.

Other tests for longevity
Hand held programmers as software was not available.
EPROM burners.
Step controllers.
Huge back up batteries before Lithium etc.
Having to work out ways to alter programs to free up memory for some more steps to be added.
No analogues available in smaller PLCs.
Very expensive comms adaptors required to communicate with the PLCs.

It goes on and on.

 

[Norml]

I wrote my first PLC program at 59 and I haven't looked back since.

 

[mellis]

..you still can remember the difference between a 9 pin and a 25 pin connector...and you prefer the 25!

I've personally wired a lot more 25 pins than 9 pins but since it was usually just 3 wires anyway, I don't prefer one over the other. Actually my preference is to not use RS232 if possible. I can make it work, but ethernet is so much nicer.

..you still think in bytes and words, and you think that 16 bits is just about as perfect as a data structure gets.

I don't mind being referred to as a "bithead" but 32 bit data is just fine by me. I like ControlLogix. <g>

..you think in decimal, but compute in octal and binary. You probably think that hexidecimal could have stayed away from automation, and we would have all been just fine. Bonus points if you can explain why there's no leading zeros in IP addresses!

I learned binary, octal and hex at the same time. Hex has always seemed obvious to me. After all, it's a notation intended to let humans handle binary numbers easier. I had a friend that taught me 6502 assembly programming. He could add and subtract hex in his head as fast as I could in decimal. He could mulitply and divide too, but he had to stop and concentrate for that. Me, I bought a hex calculator (TI36 solar, still use it). Octal is a tad peculiar and if it hadn't been for PLC-5s I doubt I ever would have used it.

..you can remember logging on to CompuServe with a 110 baud modem to check out the bulletin boards for job leads... and thinking, man, it just doesn't get any better than this!

It was '81 and I had an odd 300 baud modem on my Atari 800. It plugged in between the phone handset and the base. At $6.00/hr off peak and $20.00/hr peak I certainly don't remember thinking much more than "this is freakin expensive!"

..you can remember the project you were working on during the Challenger Shuttle disaster. Bonus points for you if the place is still open, and the project you were working on is still running.

Of course I remember where I was, doesn't everyone? I even remember where I was when JFK got shot and that was in 3rd grade <g>.

..you've bid on a project to upgrade or ripout a project you originally installed 'years ago'. Bonus points if the owner didn't know that you were involved originally.

Happens occasionally. I'm still in the same area, so I get to revisit plants. I'd say it's rarer that the owner is the same when I see the system again. Even if it's the same company, the personnel are all different. Most of the drawings I did back in the day have long since been converted to CAD by the companies that keep their documentation. The ones that don't lost them. It's been a while but I can recall incidents where someone asked if I was related to the guy that drew this, and it was one of my drawings. <g>

 

[jdbrandt]

I thought of another one....
..you open up a program written by somebody else, and you find that the programmer copied some of your conventions unique to you...dedicated bits, dedicated program names, stuff like that. (Spooky when that happens...you say: "Did I write this, and then forget it?")

 

[TConnolly]

Your first programs were on punch cards.

You have ever worked with a DEC PDP8A

You thought a 10" floppy disk was the coolest thing ever.

You ever used a cassette tape recorder to save/load a PLC program.

 

[jstolaruk]

Typed NC program tapes by hand on a teletype.

Didn't dare move or even breath on that DEC PDP-8 or (wow) PDP-11 because it was a bear to get running again.

A macro assembler was absolutely awesome to code with.

You knew the pinout of most of the 7400 series of TTL chips by heart.

You had one, maybe two, taping mistakes on your 2 layer PCBs that you did by hand.

Cam switches were very common.

Ahh, the good ole days.

 

[godfrey]

I remember feeling like a hot-shot when I traded one of the two floppy drives in my XT for a 10 meg hard drive.

 

[bernie_carlton]

Some go back too far for me. Though 'Kennedy' was in 7th grade. My first computer was a TRS-80. It's the first (and last) where I knew the purpose of every signal on every chip. I modified it with soldering iron and wire-wrap wire. What a learning experience. Not to many opportunities like that for the 'young-uns' coming up now.

Have used hand-held programmers and tape mass storage.

 

[danw]

- You've booted a mini computer by setting all the front panel octal switches to point to the octal start address.
- 'hand'coded 4 bit or 8 bit code and keyed it into RAM with the 0-9, A-F keypad and you were grateful it wasn't octal bit switches.
- entered NO & NC & coils with a nmemonic handheld programmers
- EEPROM UV erasers and the ozone smell when left running all night.
- owned the smulti-volume set of the orange-yellow covered Texas Instrument TTL guides.
- used a battery powered cold junction compensator in the thermocouple circuit.
- buried a thermcouple 'cold' junction 12' 8" below grade to attain a constant 52.6°F temperature and then added the temperature equivalent to the mV reading to get temperature units.
- cleaned out the nozzle on a pneumatic PID controller.
- if you know why integral action in PID has the common name 'reset'.
- you know why Simpson and Triplett meters have mirrored scales
- you know what the ohms/volt legend on a Simpson/Triplett meter means.
- you've filled capillary recorder pen resevoirs with ink
- thought the newest 'rechargeable' NiCads were nifty.
- coated a copper penny with the mercury in the calibration manometer, or from the broken thermometer
- knew you could adjust the linkage in 4" process gauge to adjust for temperature offset.
- carried a zero/span tweaker screwdriver in your pocket protector and used it 3x/day.

 

[Norml]

Writing programs in Fortran IV and banging out punch cards. Results available the next day. Everybody gets teed off when you sent the IBM into an endless loop.

 

[TConnolly]

You ever found a pencil eraser to be an indispensible troubleshooting tool.

You know why the pencil eraser was an indispensible troubleshooting tool.

 

[consys]

I was originally going to say "Your first Programming station" was on a CPM based machine but then I remembered that Siemens only dropped CPM Operating Systems in mid 80's. (with much kicking an dscreaming)

 

[bbopn]

Hey... I still use these! The pink gritty ones are the best.

You ever found a pencil eraser to be an indispensible troubleshooting tool.

You know why the pencil eraser was an indispensible troubleshooting tool.

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

I am getting old ( ancient).

You thought a 10" floppy disk was the coolest thing ever.

You mean 8 inch floppies don't you? I really learned how to program writing the bios for my CP/M-80, CP/M-86 systems in assembly language. One of the more difficult parts was the floppy disk driver. There was no one to tell me how to do that. After that STL or and PLC programming is easy.

I wrote my first basic program in 68 and 69. My senior year of high school I was an assistant helping others. I learned assembly language programming on a PDP-8 in college. Wrote a pong game and learned about interrupts. Paper tape and tty sucks.

I was one of the first around the Oregon area to get a 8080 working. ( 1974-1975 ) There was no one that could tell me how to do that either. I can remember being in a siminar by National Instruments and when a group of about 300 engineers was asked if they had designed a microcontroller system ( 256 bytes, swithches and LEDs ), only my lab partner and I could raise our hand. That was the last hardware I ever did.

Octal is awful. I progrgammed HP1000 for 2.5 years. Yuk.

The data width should be 32 bit minimum but 64 bits is prefered. I can represent a chess board with 64 bits representing sets of pieces. I used to write othello and chess programs for a hobby. I came in 7th in the world first international computer and human Othello tournament ( 1980). No one help me there either. I had to read between the lines to figure the search, evalution and hash table routines.

Bonus points if you can explain why there's no leading zeros in IP addresses!

It is a C thing. Numbers with leading zeros are mistaken for octal numbers.

.you can remember logging on to CompuServe with a 110 baud modem to check out the bulletin boards for job leads... and thinking, man, it just doesn't get any better than this!

My hayes modems were 110-300. I soon upgraded to 600 baud and then Telebit 1920 baud. Wow that was fast. We had computer club meeting at a pizza place. Chuck Forsberg, the guy who wrote z-modem, would keep us updated on the fastest modems and the latest improvements to z-modem. We all had to be z modem fans.

..you can remember the project you were working on during the Challenger Shuttle disaster. Bonus points for you if the place is still open, and the project you were working on is still running.

I had the flu that day. I can still remember watching the TV when the disaster occured. I will never forget that. Delta was making mostly french fry processing machines at that time. The french fry machines are still working but they have been upgraded. They will be upgraded again. My business partner and I did the design. No one told us how to do it. At that time we were just ramping up our motion controllers. I know there are plenty of old motion controllers still running but I am almost embarassed to admit I made them. Technology and my knowledge has changed so much.
Those TMC controllers for the TI505 were still our best sellers up to about 1999 or 2000.

..you've bid on a project to upgrade or ripout a project you originally installed 'years ago'. Bonus points if the owner didn't know that you were involved originally.

Actually, the customer for the french fry machine was just here today to talk about the upgrades. Delta has had a 25 year relationship with this company. I would think this is a good thing when the customer keeps coming back after 25 years.Can anybody claim something similar? A french fry machine scans french fries before they are cooked. At that point they are called strips. We scan the strips every 1/16th of an inch and can determine if there is rot, chlorophyl, skin or high sugar content. We can then cut the defects out. This is where the motion control will come into play. We make these machines for the largest french fry supplier in the US. Think of us when you have your next french fry.

Basically, I have been doing controls ever since I graduated from college in '75. My first job was the US Navy. ( I must have been crazy and I hated it ). I was RCO ( reactor controls officer ) on a nuclear submarine. I had a division that was responsible for the instrumentation and controls for a nuclear reactor. I meet, was interviewed by, Adm Rickover twice. That was in 74. I was later told my group was one of the last he interviewed.

Back in the dark ages, before plcs.net, there was anybody to tell you how to do things. The old pharts had to figure it out themselves.

I am getting old ( experienced ), but it is better than the alternative. I think it is the quality of the experience that has made a big difference.