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November 1966 Popular Electronics
 Table of Contents
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles
from
Popular Electronics,
published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.
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The "Woz"
Long-time RF Cafe visitor Bob D. sent the following after reading
another installment of this series: In the 1990's, I heard in a Sam's Club in Kenner,
LA, a lady who was perplexed by the cordless phone selection in front of her. A
young man came to her aid (not me) and suggested: "Get the 2.4 GHz Phone and not
the 900 MHz phone. 2.4 GHz is faster." I remained silent.
You just never know what names you will find in vintage electronics magazines.
Incredibly - assuming of course that this is who it likely is - I ran across Steve
Wozniak (aka "Woz"), later to be co−founder of Apple Computer, in this November
1966 issue of Popular Electronics. "Woz" first met Steve Jobs five years
later in 1971 while working at Hewlett Packard. If this is
THE "Woz," he, having been
born in 1950, would have been a 16 year-old high schooler when his entry was published.
The article does not specify who is responsible for which quote. Woz was a Ham radio
guy, so maybe one of the Off the Air comments was from him. My favorite implausible
comment from Sequel 2 is this one: "Don't waste money on 5 amp fuses - buy
15 or 20 amp fuses - they cost the same and you get more fuse for your money."
BTW, I have to say that to some extent the comment about the meter with the longer
needle being more accurate does have some validity. Assuming equal sensitivity and
accuracy of each meter movement, a longer needle would allow a more precise interpolation
along a more spread out scale.
See also the
first installment,
sequel 1,
sequel 2,
sequel 3, and
sequel 4.
Electronics Implausible Remarks
 Since our last report in the September issue
(page 81), we have received about 600 additional entries for the contest on nonsensical
remarks about electronics. If you have not been following this contest, Popular
Electronics is sending a soldering gun to every reader who submits a publishable
"quote" that he or she has overheard. The "quote" must be a wild, inane, or implausible
explanation of something electronic. Entries should, be addressed to: "Gun Contest,"
Popular Electronics, One Park Avenue, New York, N. Y, 10016. Postmarks will determine
the winners of duplicate entries.
Back to the Store
One reader writes that he overheard a little old lady explain to a clerk what
was the matter with her defunct AM receiver in this way, "There's nothing too much
wrong with it - if you plug it in, you'll see that the motor is still humming loudly,
but the set won't talk."
Another reader stood silently by while a dumbfounded clerk heard a customer tell
his friend, "Don't waste money on 5 amp fuses - buy 15 or 20 amp fuses - they cost
the same and you get more fuse for your money."
In a hi-fi salon, a wife who expressed interest in a transistorized FM receiver
but was perplexed by the term "solid state" was told by her husband, "Oh, that's
the latest name those manufacturers are using for high fidelity."
Off the Air
Hams and CB'ers have a lot of fun telling tales on one another. Last summer two
CB'ers were comparing signal strength reports and one told the other, "Okay, your
meter is probably right - a 3-inch meter is always better than a 2-inch meter because
the needle is longer." And one prospective ham exclaimed on hearing his first SSB
signal, "How in the world do they learn to talk like that?"
The son of the father who made the following prize remark was probably left speechless
by the irrefutable logic of "If that VOM reads infinity at full scale, then half-scale
must be half of infinity."
Winners
This month soldering guns went to Ralph Burbank, Tom Garrard, G. Linwood, Philip
Taylor, and Steve Wozniak. More "quotes" and a new list of soldering gun winners
next month.
Posted November 16, 2023
(updated from original
post on 4/6/2018)
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