Real Plastic Money
Kirt's Cogitations™ #39

RF Cafe University "Factoids," "Kirt's Cogitations," and "Tech Topics Smorgasbord" are all manifestations of my ranting on various subjects relevant (usually) to the overall RF Cafe theme. All may be accessed on these pages:

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Real Plastic Money

"Will you be paying for that with plastic or plastic," might be what you will hear coming from store cashiers in the not-too-distant future if Treasuries around the world have their way. Australia claims to have had a resounding success circulating bills fabricated out of thin plastic material. The ability to create transparent regions within the colorful bills supposedly makes counterfeiting all but impossible, and the plastic lasts years longer than paper bills. Canada might be the next country to make the switch.

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...