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a two year associates degree put you ―ahead of the class‖. Unless you were fortunate
enough to have a job working for a big corporation, there didn‘t seem to be a big demand for
an education in computer repair at the beginning. But the 70‘s saw the home computer and
home game system take off and really explode in the 80‘s. On the job training was very
good also as I worked for the RCA Service Co. in Oklahoma City in the early 70‘s, and that
is where I really learned the intricacies of the ―business‖ of electronic service.
8. What programming skills did you need to know (e.g. FORTRAN, COBOL, and PASCAL)?
I never went into the heavy languages, just some simple machine language, DOS (I was
[proficient in this) and some ―basic‖. My interest lay in the ―nuts and bolts‖ of the new world
opening up. I studied chips, circuit design and basic controller operations of various CPU
chips. Acquiring the knowledge of ―basic‖ programming was fun and sociable. I would always call someone to come watch the little ―bouncing ball‖ that I had just programmed to
light up my screen. Even though I had bits and pieces of the main languages, I never ventured any further, leaving that up to my younger brother who has profited immensely from it.
“The Cosmac VIP, originally named VP-111, is a typical hobbyist "single-board" computer sold as a kit. You had to build it yourself! The system uses a RCA CDP-1802
microprocessor like the RCA Studio II video game system. In fact the Studio II is very
similar to the VIP and can be considered as its video-game version. But the VIP is
also somehow an improved version of the original Cosmac Elf board system, described in Popular Electronics magazine, august 76 and the following months. The
CDP-1802 CPU was also used as the heart of the Voyager, Viking and Galileo
probes! Until recently the 1802 was quite popular (for alarm systems for example)
thanks to its CMOS technology ideal for low power systems. RCA also sold Tiny Basic, a simple Basic interpreter, as a 4K ROM on an expansion board
(source: David Winter). .”
The VIP was my first computer moving on to the Texas Instruments and Commodore (64)
then to the IBM and knock-off computers until the last 15 years when the computer age happened and now there is no sign of it slowing down. We can only dream???!!!! Hey if you‘re
caught dreaming now-a-days, it‘s already happened and you‘re probably far behind……!!!
So up to that time there was not a real need to educate the masses except in basic electronics. And there were quite a few good schools that could do that. Also, engineering degrees
were offered at colleges and even some correspondence schools (e.g. the military).
7. How long was electronic schools back then that taught these skills? Factory schools,
mentors, on-the-job training, all were effective tools for education. Factory schools were
ideal as you were kept abreast of any new circuits and chips coming into the market. Associate degrees were your typical ―Tech school‖ offerings. If you did go all out for a Bachelor in
electronics it usually included Engineering and meant you weren‘t interested in just repairing
but conceiving and building as well. Although I had them all, the best education I received
was from a correspondence school that taught me in-depth theory about radio-TV-electronic
troubleshooting and skills, circuitry and service concepts. That took about two years.