[Elecraft] OT: High school drafting class, ~1975

[Mike Short]

I recently broke out my Dietzgen Stellar drafting set. Using it to layout
features for my steam engine project.

On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 00:11 Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com> wrote:

> OK, I've really dated myself now.
>
> Anyone remember "drafting"? A favorite class in high school: blueprints,
> mechanical drawings, schematics, straight edges, hand lettering,
> projections and elevations. We invented things to draw that weren't real,
> but looked like they should be. Did all the math by hand -- on a slide
> rule, if necessary. Day-dreamed about what we might one day build.
>
> 45 years later, we're using tools we couldn't have imagined. Modeling
> circuits and objects with millions of parameters and vectors, realizing
> them in virtual space, manipulating them in real time. Testing finished
> products before they're even assembled.
>
> The transformation is mind boggling. Yet the best part now, as it was
> then, is the occasional burst of creative energy that propels an idea
> forward. The feeling of pieces falling into place. Or forcing them into
> place out of sheer necessity.
>
> Most of the time, we think of our new tools and techniques as advances in
> the state of the art. Things we can't live without. But those same defining
> moments happened just as often in simpler times.
>
> Case in point -- my first real project, a rendition of W7ZOI's
> Micro-mountaineer. Carefully documenting it took several sheets of
> 4-squares-per-inch grid paper, which may still be in my cellar, beneath a
> lifetime of such drawings. With the schematic, I took a lot of pride in
> making the circuits look well-organized, as if that would somehow improve
> my odds. On the PC board, I drew large traces and pads with the etch-resist
> pen, as if that would somehow appease the electrons.
>
> I etched the PCB, soldered two dozen parts, and connected a 12 V lantern
> battery. Thanks to my paranoia about what would happen if I did it wrong,
> I'd taken my time and done it right.
>
> I was rewarded with a hiss of band noise and a few CW signals on 40 meters.
>
> Here's to those moments, and to that timeless pursuit: turning
> abstractions into reality.
>
> 73,
> Wayne
> N6KR
>
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