Thunderhill Raceway, exit of Turn 11E

Opening throttle at the end of the ess, entering back straightaway behind the pits.

Photo by Oliver Yu

When I re-entered civilian life, "Silicon Valley" was the place to work in electronics, and still is today.

My first employer was Intel, and one of my first jobs was building memory systems. Intel was then a leader in NMOS dynamic RAM and bipolar static RAM production, and we built large add-on memory systems for minicomputers from DEC and Data General, and mainframes from IBM and Amdahl.

Later at Intel, I transferred to Microcomputer Systems Division, supporting microprocessor development systems and in-circuit emulators. I was most impressed by the 8051 microcomputer with on-chip program and data memories. This was truly a "system on a chip". By that experience, I was convinced that my future was in embedded microprocessor design.

When microprocessors were not fast enough for an application, I used programmable logic to build finite state machines and bit-slice processors. Finite state machines are still my favorite software architecture, today.

In the Navy, I installed, maintained, tested, repaired, and operated radio, navigation, radar, electronic warfare, and digital cryptographic equipment on P-3 Orion anti-submarine warfare patrol aircraft and the USS Reasoner (FF-1063). Basically, I worked on every electronic gizmo on these platforms except fire-control and sonar equipment.

When everything was running well, I studied electronic design by correspondence to supplement Navy technical schools and "On the Job Training" (OJT).

At McDowell High School in Millcreek, Pennsylvania, I took every Industrial Electricity and Electronics course available, and built my own test equipment and audio gear from kits. One summer at the Erie County Technical School, I learned to write COBOL programs on a mainframe computer. I spent hours laboriously hand coding on paper forms, keying in the code on punch cards, rewiring the plug boards of various card sorters and calculators.

However, what really captivated me was the repair work when the field service engineer came to fix our Honeywell 200. He plugged in a portable oscilloscope, opened a briefcase full of tools, and paged through a huge stack of schematics and computer printouts as he probed the guts of the machines.

As a boy, I was fascinated by electronics. I was more interested in the circuits inside of the television set than the images displayed on the front. My father stimulated my interest by building a shortwave radio receiver to entertain the family on those long winter nights in the mountains of far northeast corner of California. Also, he bought me a book on electricity which had a number of simple projects. I kept myself awake past my bedtime sending Morse code with flashes of light across the room to my brother.

I knew then I wanted to work in electronics. I had plenty of other interests, but I always knew the answer to the question: "What do you want to do for a living when you grow up?" One could say I have "The Knack."