Shopsmith Forums

I was just thinking about how when I went to work at Bell Labs I was working on the 4ESS and we had just turned over the Chicago 7 office and were now working on turning over the one in Kansas City. The last 4E was turned over in 1999, a total at the time of 145 of them, the last I heard there were still 100 of them in operation. Hard to imagine that the switch was designed to have a down time of less then 2 hours in 40 years, and now it has been 40 years.

The over time I got paid for (yes in those years I still got paid overtime) I used to get my first shopsmith. This summer my shopsmith will be 40 years old but a lot of it is newer then that. It has the 520 upgrade, the dual tilt upgrade, the powerpro upgrade, and the new casters and well its not quite the same machine as it was 40 years ago.

The same can be said for me. I'm not like I was back then....... I just finished my lab work for my Doctor visit next week and I'm hoping nothing new and bad shows up. I have a feeling the electronic is holding up better then I am but it too is getting old. We designed it for 40 years and well it starting to get to that age. I'm not sure how long I was designed for but I'm glad I don't have an expiration date stamped on me... well I don't think I do but some places are pretty hard to see.

Ed

reible wrote:I was just thinking about how when I went to work at Bell Labs I was working on the 4ESS and we had just turned over the Chicago 7 office and were now working on turning over the one in Kansas City. The last 4E was turned over in 1999, a total at the time of 145 of them, the last I heard there were still 100 of them in operation. Hard to imagine that the switch was designed to have a down time of less then 2 hours in 40 years, and now it has been 40 years.

The over time I got paid for (yes in those years I still got paid overtime) I used to get my first shopsmith. This summer my shopsmith will be 40 years old but a lot of it is newer then that. It has the 520 upgrade, the dual tilt upgrade, the powerpro upgrade, and the new casters and well its not quite the same machine as it was 40 years ago.

The same can be said for me. I'm not like I was back then....... I just finished my lab work for my Doctor visit next week and I'm hoping nothing new and bad shows up. I have a feeling the electronic is holding up better then I am but it too is getting old. We designed it for 40 years and well it starting to get to that age. I'm not sure how long I was designed for but I'm glad I don't have an expiration date stamped on me... well I don't think I do but some places are pretty hard to see.

Ed

Where were you in January 1990?

I left the 4E project about 1983 or so and moved to exploratory development. By 1990 we were working on some packet related switching project. We were working on things that were from 10 to 15 years in the future. Doing testing at various places with prototype hardware and trade shows. Those were the days my friend. I had a lot of good assignments and only a year at one I didn't like. Well no job is perfect but mine was close.

Ed

reible wrote:I left the 4E project about 1983 or so and moved to exploratory development. By 1990 we were working on some packet related switching project. We were working on things that were from 10 to 15 years in the future. Doing testing at various places with prototype hardware and trade shows. Those were the days my friend. I had a lot of good assignments and only a year at one I didn't like. Well no job is perfect but mine was close.

Ed

You DO know why I asked about Jan 90???

JPG wrote:

reible wrote:I left the 4E project about 1983 or so and moved to exploratory development. By 1990 we were working on some packet related switching project. We were working on things that were from 10 to 15 years in the future. Doing testing at various places with prototype hardware and trade shows. Those were the days my friend. I had a lot of good assignments and only a year at one I didn't like. Well no job is perfect but mine was close.

Ed

You DO know why I asked about Jan 90???

I have assume that is when the big outage happened?

BTW that was a software problem not hardware...... and in the controlling processor not the same project but had the effect of messing up the network pretty bad. I wasn't involved so they can't blame me.

We did have some interesting problems like the office in Des Moines office where a TV tower next door would get hit by lighting and take out the clock, all four redundant units, which would take down the office. We had set up field meters good for 12000 volts per meter and a strike took out the meters...... Sometimes stuff just happens.

Ed

reible wrote:

JPG wrote:

reible wrote:I left the 4E project about 1983 or so and moved to exploratory development. By 1990 we were working on some packet related switching project. We were working on things that were from 10 to 15 years in the future. Doing testing at various places with prototype hardware and trade shows. Those were the days my friend. I had a lot of good assignments and only a year at one I didn't like. Well no job is perfect but mine was close.

Ed

You DO know why I asked about Jan 90???

I have assume that is when the big outage happened?

BTW that was a software problem not hardware...... and in the controlling processor not the same project but had the effect of messing up the network pretty bad. I wasn't involved so they can't blame me.

We did have some interesting problems like the office in Des Moines office where a TV tower next door would get hit by lighting and take out the clock, all four redundant units, which would take down the office. We had set up field meters good for 12000 volts per meter and a strike took out the meters...... Sometimes stuff just happens.

Ed

Big outage due to software update was Jan 15, 1990.

And yes it is not nice to fool around with mother nature!