[Collins] Art Collins and Collins Radio

[Glen Zook via Collins]

Building 402, when I came to work at Collins in April 1967, stood alone.  That is, there was no other building near it.  Then, in late summer of 1967, work was started on both Buildings 406 and 408 just west of Building 402.  There was, maybe, about 50-feet between 402 and 406 and then another about 50-feet between 406 and 408.  On the main floor of Building 402, most of the area was open an contained row, after row, of women doing assembly operations on all sorts of circuit boards.  The northwest corner was the photo lab.  Buildings 406 and 408, along with a portion of Buildings 401 and 402, belonged to Process Division.

My job title, at Collins Radio Company, was Senior Engineering Administrative Assistant Process Division E/B Dallas Region!  Basically, my job was as the liaison between the engineering personnel and the production department in the Process Division.  Process Division made the circuit boards, thin films, and thick films for the other divisions.  Collins hired me right out of Georgia Tech and my starting salary was what a number of the engineers were making with up to over 5-years experience.

Among my duties was formulating budgets for the entire Process Division Dallas Region.  These budgets were revised every 6-months for an 18-month time frame.  My secretary, as ordered by Harry Passman, the vice-president over Process Division, did a weekly summary of all expenditures that was presented to Harry Passman and the managers over all the groups in the Division every Friday morning.

About a year after I went to work at Collins, a "helper" was hired.  He had graduated from North Texas State University (now University of North Texas) over 2-years before I graduated from Georgia Tech and his starting salary was $200.00 a month less than my starting salary.

As for the Burroughs 5500 at Georgia Tech:  I am VERY familiar with that computer!  During the fall quarter of 1966, I had a required class in writing programs for the computer using Algol.  Before one could actually get a program to run on the computer, the program cards had to be run through a process called "syntax".  The card reader for that process like to play 52,000 pickup several times every night.  That is, the syntax reader would literally throw quite a number of cards into the air.  Of course, the cards would be hopelessly intermingled and the computer center staff would just put the cards into a waste basket.  As a result, one soon learned to make multiple copies of their cards.  There were like 6-each card punching machines at the computer center and students had to wait, sometimes, for several hours to get a "turn" at the machine.  Fortunately, my major had an additional 4-each card punching machines, located several buildings away
 from the computer center, that were available only to students with particular majors.  Often, there was absolutely no one waiting to use those machines.  As such, it was very easy to make like 10, or more, copies of the program cards.

The Process Division "Art" project was called "CCCS Marine".  This project involved building the "bridge" of a yacht which was capable of leaving Newport Beach, California, going down the west side of Mexico and Central America, making its way through the Panama Canal, then going up the east side of of the continent all the way to New York Harbor without the need of anyone "touching" the helm.  This was long before GPS.  The bridge was, after completion, to be shipped to the Collins facility at Newport Beach where the hull of the vessel was to be constructed.  Of course, after Art "sold out" to Rockwell International, this project was abandoned.

In 1973, during the time when I owned the Motorola reconditioned equipment center for the south-central United States, I was persuaded to purchase a 1958 Cessna 150 airplane, N5572E.  The "new" president of Collins / Rockwell was learning how to fly in that particular aircraft.  Because of this, the aircraft was allowed to be housed in the Collins hanger at Addison Airport.  It was in this hanger that the 3-Boeing 707 aircraft, used as "Air Force One", were housed to service, and update, the communications equipment at least twice a year.  There would be Air Force personnel, with loaded M-16 rifles, stationed surrounding the aircraft and the little, green, Cessna 150 sitting by the door.
 
Glen, K9STH


Website:  http://k9sth.com


On Saturday, July 5, 2014 11:10 PM, David Thompson <thompson at mindspring.com> wrote:
 


I remember seeing one of the Collins Computer Booklets while I was at LSU in 
about 1967 or 8.  It was used as a recruiting booklet by Collins.  At about 
this same time IBM replaced the old 7094's in the LSU computer lab with a 
IBM 360/65 which was Gene Amdahl's first in the 360 series of Enterprise 
Computers which ran from the 360 series through the later 370, and now 390 
series.

I went to work for Burroughs Corp which I found in a conflict between the 
old accounting machine type computers and the newer B series which competed 
head on with the IBM 360.  We installed a B2500 at a big Wire and Cable 
Company south of Atlanta.  The top of the B line was the B5000 which was 
installed at Georgia Tech as a B5500.  Then in 1971 Control Data Came along 
and installed the first of the Cyber Super Computer at Georgia Tech.  I met 
my wife who worked for Control Data in Wind Tunnel testing at Lockheed 
Georgia .

The advances of these companies wiped out Collins attempt in the Computer 
Market.  Only IBM is still a player in the market although Seymour Cray left 
Control Data to form his own Company
Cray Research and is still selling his big vector machines to DOD, NASA and 
the like and his competition is several Japanese Companies.

Dave K4JRB