30 Jan
2014
30 Jan
'14
10:57 a.m.
On 01/30/2014 09:49 AM, Chris Elmquist wrote:
Indeed. Pretty formative years for me. We try to keep
that history
and memories of that experience alive around here. The annual reunion
of the ETA shutdown doesn't happen anymore although this year will be
the 25th anniversary so maybe something will come together.
I still have lunch on a regular basis with many of the guys I worked
with then. A lot of us were hams and so we have that in common too.
I can still say I have never worked for a better place, with a better
bunch of people than I did those years from '83 to '89.
A small environment where everyone's not working at cross purposes can
be very rewarding, particularly when you're given an opportunity to find
your own way. I have some fond memories from my CDC days--and remember
that the shutdown of SVLOPS (I had departed long before that) took some
people pretty hard--many of those affected were middle-aged to near
retirement. A friend of mine who decided to stick it out until the end
failed at finding employment and committed suicide.
But the years following the IBM settlement were great--CDC was flush and
looking for ways to creatively spend the money. A lot of very
interesting stuff happened.
The reason I asked about Fairchild is that they were a huge problem in
the original STAR-100 construction. I recall that the hangup was the
fab for the register file. I don't remember the details, only that it
almost never happened. Different logic family than the ETA boxes, however.
--Chuck