Technical Beginnings.
When I was about 6 the boy’s next door had this old radio that had been given to them to dissect. They came around to show me it stripped down. It had all these brightly coloured bits with wires attached.
We moved house soon after and it was not until I was 9 that I went in to a small Radio & TV shop and asked if they had any old radio’s that had these things that were red and looked like a ‘Pillar Box’ (Mail Box). A puzzled look from the owner was soon resolved it was a ‘Resistor’, the body was all red and had coloured dots.
I built my first crystal set and moved to valves soon after, avidly collecting old TV’s and Radios to strip down to all the component parts. At 12 a Saturday job in local Rental TV shop where I quickly learnt how to diagnose and repair same.
I was now 17 an apprentice Electrician with Kodak UK. The word got around that Tony could fix Radio’s & TV’s. Soon I was making more fixing things than my apprenticeship payed. The novelty soon wore off as I now had a regular girl friend which was more rewarding than fixing things 🙂
At 22 I joined a new British Computer company (Computer Technology Ltd) as a project leader and quickly migrated to circuit design.
Over the years until retirement I travelled the world on a number of embryonic projects where I mainly took a prototype product from the designers and turned it into a working solution delivered to the customer to give them what they wanted not what the sales person sold them. This involved Hardware, Software and Mechanics. So I was an all rounder and specialised in High Speed sorting of Bank Notes for the major issuing banks of the world working for De La Rue. When I came to Australia in 1986 I switched from Paper Money to Plastic or more correctly Processing and Switching of EFTPOS transactions being the technical consultant for a network of 26,000 terminals.
Retirement, still trying to define that? For some it’s the end of the road. For me I am still settling after 9 years of not having to commute and “Follow the Rules”, “We don’t Do That Here” etc. I am very busy keeping up with my technical hobbies and when it’s winter here I head north to the Tropics of Far North Queensland. As I write this I am approaching 66 but like a lot of the ‘Baby Boomers’ I feel like 17 until I look in the mirror, not so bad if I leave my glasses off.
Oldtimer.