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John Macdonald

Page history last edited by Alan Hartley-Smith 13 years, 3 months ago

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41 Robert Road, Princeton NJ 08540, USA Dec 5th, 2010.

 

To:- Alan Hartley-Smith, Alan Matthews & any other past Marconi acquaintances !!

 

Hi guys,

I was truly amazed to get your emails from my “Myriad” wiki entry, made at least a year ago. I was kinda disappointed that it didn’t trigger input from folks more knowledgeable than me. But I’m delighted to hear from you both, and appreciate your bringing me up-to-date with your careers since 1965 when I left Baddow. You’ve clearly had interesting and varied times. I’ve put this response in an attachment so that it’s easy to forward (or delete) to anyone else who might be interested in my intermediate wanderings. So here goes !!

 

Baddow was a fantastic place to start a career for the 20th century. Firstly the folks always made the work fun and interesting – and, with minimal exceptions, I’ve always been privileged to work for bosses who treat you like a super-star - until you proved otherwise! Ron with his “Have you got light-on yet?” was the perfect displays group boss. Ray Throstle, with all his eccentricities, produced that amazing sweep frequency generator that was 100% crucial to letting us produce stable analog circuits. I remember him telling Dr Eastwood “If you can’t see that, you must be dim” - not a sterling career-building comment. Frank Savill, Dennis Wanless, Barrie Moss, Harry Fancy et al !! What a great bunch to work with.

 

Anyway, in 1965 I got married to Yvonne, and somehow we felt that the prospect of life in the London area for the next 30-years might mean we were missing “something”. I’d worked in Canada and cruised around the US before Baddow, and always thought it had lots going. So when I saw an advert with gorgeous pix of the moon taken by the Ranger probes – just pre-impact – I wrote a short letter saying I was interested. Two days later, I got a call at work saying when could I come for an interview. Saturday we went up to London, had an interview with “RCA Astro-Electronics” – and after talking about what I did at Baddow – had a job offer. (I think the circuit tolerancing work we did in made an impact – we did lots of that for spacecraft). An all expenses vacation to Princeton NJ seemed like fun to me - Yvonne’s family had moved about 20-miles in 50-years, so she got to call the shots. Fortunately, she said “let’s do it”. I said “OK – we’ll give it a go for a couple of years – and then we’ll get back to civilization!” As they say, the rest is history.

 

Princeton is primarily a University town like Cambridge, with lots “happening”. Even better, Yvonne had amazing luck in finding a job. She’s a music teacher – so we brought a piano with us. RCA paid all our expenses for the 10-weeks it took us to find a house – my salary was the down payment!! Shortly after we moved in – with the piano visible from the back yard – we had a visit from 2 little kids from the local elementary school. “We see you have a piano – do you teach music? Our principal said if anyone can find a music teacher, have ‘em stop in”. So she did!! Again an interview – then teach a class – and she too had a job offer. It’s a state school – so nominally teachers have to be US citizens. The principal said “No problem – we’ll give you an emergency certificate”. So with time off to raise our 2 children, Yvonne taught in that school system – at several different levels – till 2001. How lucky can you get! Several of the “unemployed” wives found life less stimulating – and some recruited UK engineers eventually returned.

 

As it turned out, I just worked for 3-years at Astro. The work was exciting and interesting – but became kinda “routine”. It was all Govt/Military – and RCA had a limited view of computers for system test. So I got frustrated that they used outside consultants to build and program test gear. Also the military was very “conservative” – in that if anything worked on the last mission – “DON’T TOUCH A THING!!” So we spent weeks re-qualifying out-dated hardware. The sequence was bench-test with max-min everything, heat-cycle test, shake-table test, radiation test etc. Any “anomaly” any time – and it’s back to square one. Some of our projects had late-delivery penalties – like $10,000/day – so no-one questioned whether you needed overtime!! Sitting in a parka in a thermal chamber at –25oC at 2-a.m. – not fun! But lots of the work was great too. We did plenty proposals, brain-storming, and some neat circuit design stuff – I got heavily into phase-lock loops at one point. The main “hands-on” project I got into was the Transit NavSat – precursor to GPS. It was a Navy project, managed out of Johns Hopkins near Washington. Its goal was to provide accurate fixes for the nuclear sub fleet. The Navy had had miserable luck in establishing the necessary constellation – for many reasons – and at the same time RCA Astro had a 12 out of 12 success rate in launching TIROS weather satellites. An irate Admiral insisted the project go to RCA. Good move – we had virtually 100% success rate in launching some 18 “birds” – most of ‘em after I left. But I had “my box” – basically the CPU – and it behaved just fine! (So my initials are still up there – somewhere). RCA had minimal involvement in the Apollo program, but that didn’t stop us – and 250-million others - from being over the moon at Apollo XI. (Can’t help feeling it’s been downhill for the US since).

 

So how could I leave this fun-filled area? In a word “GRAPHICS”! I got wind of a Bell System (BT equivalent) unit starting a computer graphics research group near Princeton. Again the Marconi background was key – I worked on the Marconi graphic displays for UKAEA etc, and had pix of our reactor simulation displays etc. Again, great interviews all based on Marconi work – and I was working for Western Electric/ AT&T/Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies – all in the same building – retiring in 2001 after 33-years. I had about 15-years in computer graphics – brazenly recreating Marconi technology. We initially used DEC PDP-15s – 18-bits is perfect for graphics. I used the analog vector generator we patented at Marconi – with some digital enhancements. We even used P38 phosphors – but doped with IR to drive – what else – a light-pen!! We churned out applications that got used all over the country at Bell facilities – including AT&T’s huge Tech Pubs shop in North Carolina. This system was sold to Boeing to do manuals and tech pubs for the 757/767 programs. It worked so well they moved their whole documentation world to that platform. We did lots of software development – our own OS – and applications galore. Eventually, as outside systems matured, we cut down our efforts – and I joined a machine vision group, putting systems into factories all over the country. Then having developed relationships with the factories, I spent the last few years on manufacturing systems engineering – product design for manufacture/test/installation, logistics, etc.

 

So that was the work side. Our two children, Michele and Ian, still live in NJ – and we have 3-grandchildren. Michele went to college in North Carolina, and is an artist – actually make a living as a muralist. Ian, the smartest member of the family by far, has yet to find a wholly stable niche. He’s been a musician, outward-bound instructor, office manager, chef, superb auto mechanic (actually knows what’s going on in computers in cars), organic farmer, and is currently in construction!! We await future developments. Otherwise we found all kinds of activities to keep us busy.  I played soccer for years – and then coached as rec-leagues sprang up over NJ. I used to run for Chelmsford AC – still run (ultra-geezer) track, and coach at a local middle school. We were horrified to find virtually no New Orleans Jazz – so I turned to guitar and folk music – now mostly mando in contra-dance bands. We also have “English dancing” which is much more sedate and formal, with music from medieval to modern. Sounds like it would fit in with your activities, Alan H-S!! Yvonne still directs kids choirs at our Church – and I play clarinet etc – when needed. I also took up flying – it helped to live 2-doors away from the Editor of Flying magazine, Richard Collins. I got my ticket in 1978, and have been flying ever since. It’s quite an experience flying in one of the most “congested” airspaces in the world, but the air-traffic-control services are great – and free!!! Transponders are required, and if you “check-in”, traffic info is available full-time. Eyeballs help too. I often wonder how it is in the UK. I have a nephew in Scotland who I infected with the flying bug, and I’ve flown with him there – but in the Highlands – not much traffic to worry about.

 

So – enough already!! We usually visit the UK annually, as all our families are there. We missed this year, so we hope to make it in 2011. It would be great to meet up with the MOGS group. Let’s keep in touch. I’ve looked briefly at the website – it looks really interesting. In the New Year I’ll explore it in more detail.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

John Macdonald.

P.S. It’s depressing to note that all the Companies I’ve worked for seem headed for oblivion! Marconi &     Lucent played the wrong cards in the dot-com game – RCA just disappeared. Is there a common factor?

 

 

 

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Ian Gillis said

at 5:39 pm on Feb 11, 2016

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