In the seventh (7th about 1962) grade I won a Science Fair for building a transistorized one octave organ. It used a 2N404 that I got from my Dad who worked for RCA Satellite Division. I also wrote an a paper describing how transistors worked which unaccompanied the project itself.

Some time later maybe High School, my Dad wangled me into the NASA soldering school at RCA in Hightstown. This is where I really learned to solder. And you have to keep it up, it's a skill.

After a stint in the US Air Force, I went to work for a small computer company in Ocean Port, New Jersey called Interdata. I worked in the Final Test lab, where I worked on all of the current computers 5/16, 7/16, 7/32, 8/16, and lastly the 8/32. We delivered the First 8/32 to Murray Hill (Bell Labs), which became the first non-DEC port of UNIX!

The call of my hometown, was too much for me and I got a job at WANG (770 Lexington Ave) doing Feild Service, which required to shelp around midtown servicing their computers. Hind Site is 20-20 I shuold have taken the job with Datapoint.

After leaving WANG I ended up in Pennington Nj, I went back to college where I work on my double minors, Computer Science, and Electronics. I lived with my long time fried Claude Kagan. you can see this IEE page as well., I got a summer gig with IBM in East Fishkill, doing some work in the FAB, which was unreliable, as the communication between the robots, was by RS-485, and since there where motors there well you get the idea. So I suggested that we use some plastic fiber made by HP. (which worked like a champ!) NY,

I moved to Los Angles, on a whim as there where more jobs there than on the east coast. After a while I got a job at Garret AiResearch on Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance in the special test department. Later near Christmas, I got caught in a lay-off, oh, well.

I later got a job at Hughes Aircraft, Satellite Div, as a temp through Romar Engineering. I started in Test Equipment Repair Center, and I got to go to the High Bay and see equipment in the field so to speak. This is where Hughes tested the satellites. I loved the job and the pay was great. One Day my boss walk in and said "I have some good news, and bad news", I asked for the good news, I really didn't need a bad news. He told me that I knew my job was a temp, and well my time was as they say 'up', But Joe Carrier wants you to work with him up stairs in Engineering.
So the next day I reported to Joe, and he put me on as a Sustaining Engineering on the SATE, or Satellite Automated Test Equipment. My part was the Power Input/Distribution box. This came in handy when somebody asked me to look at one of the SATEs. When I got there I opened the cabinet's read doors, and saw a jungle of jumper wires going to the frame, and me being stupid, I unhooked one an promptly got knocked on my well ass. I pulled out the plug to the SATE and went upstairs to confer will Joe, who was out but the other boss was there and he told me to lock it up, and fix it.
So I stuck a lockout in the receptacle and figured out that in fact the RFI device had one leg shorted to ground! I order the crane to pick up the SATE and found the problem the RFI was before the Breaker, it should have been after. Needless to say I did not make any points with that Launch Director. LOL

Later I got another gig with Hughes around the corner on PCH, It was a blast, I worked on two birds, in the same lab, I found out that the test console was miss-wired. It took a long weekend, my boss OKy'd, but my current LD looked in look at my lab and not only was the console, torn apart, but the sticks model was on the floor along with the prints! Before he could open his mouth I say no worries be back on line by Monday. While leaving he muttered something to the effect "It better be!!"

I started working for my pall Bob and he said sell, sell, sell, anything in the warehouse. His pal was visiting from New Orleans, So he wanted to hire me. On to the Big Easy! sold a bunch of aircraft spares, that he would buy from the gov auctions, this meant quite a bit of travel. after a few years we had a falling out. I thought I would move to Albuquerque the surplus center of the world. Just before the move I did a deal with AFM (Anything for Money), with some use photo film for the silver. Peter called me one day out the blue and he asked me what do you know about aircraft. I told him my background and the next thing I know I'm on a jet heading for the Big D! (Dallas, Texas) I have been here ever since. I formed Phoenix Trading, and then Phoenix Communications an ISP that I still run, but now instead of an office its back in my apartment I have 1-Gig bleed from AT&T

So now I write software, mostly in C, and Perl, but I am starting to learn JAVA, and Blog heavily on Element 14. I am also working on my Cockpit Simulator NexGen_© I use lots of Arduino boards. So I am constantly using my trusty Metcal soldering system, and a ton of Wire-Wrap_®. Before writing any code or build anything I first write a document about it.