Electronics-Themed Comics
October 1963 & September 1966 Radio-Electronics

Here are four more electronics-themed comics to help get your work week started on a happy note. They all appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine in the 1960s. The page 107 comic conjures up a bit of a nostalgic memory in me, remembering earlier days sitting at a workbench and troubleshooting a piece of electronics gear. I never heated a coffee pot on a chassis, but definitely remember cases with vacuum tubes operating inside that were hot enough to do so. Some of those buggers could melt flesh. I've told the tale before how whilst in the USAF tuning up our air traffic control radar system, I (and fellow techs) would open an access door on the front (not intended to admit passage of a human hand) and blindly "walking" my tuning wand-carrying fingers across the tops of piping hot tubes to get to a potentiometer, trimmer capacitor, or adjustable coupling transformer to peak a target "blip" or align a CRT display sweep. We quickly learned which tubes to avoid. The "official" procedure was to turn off the radar, pull out the chassis and connect to it with patch cables, make the adjustments, then replace the chassis and hoe the system would come back up in at least as good condition as before making the improvement. Turning complex vacuum tube equipment off and then on again can itself cause many problems. I never faced live fire while serving, but definitely put myself in compromised situations for my fellow Americans ;-)  I colorized the comics, so if they look weird, blame it on me.

Electronics-Themed Comics

October 1963 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

"And fix it right this time! I don't want to be calling you back in 5 or 6 years!"
Page 41, October 1963

"On the contrary, we have a very large tube inventory. However..."
Page 74, October 1963

Page 107, October 1963

September 1966 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

"My remote control unit keeps tuning on my neighbor's garbage disposal."
Page 26, September 1966