Mr. Barlow once headed a high-school for rebels. It was called Mayfield. Then he headed a rebel classroom in my junior high school. It was like a surplus store. Sometimes he'd take us nerds over to his scrap heap in the Mayfield High basement. He gave us anything scientific that we wanted. The place was huge and stuffed with high-teck gear. We always loaded up. He'd warmly recieve anyone. And he had the coolest projects.
Mr. Barlow's classroom had a digital study alcove. Its walls were "papered" with flip-flops and gates. Each flip-flop board had three transistors; status indicaton; and pins for J, K, Q, Qnot, reset, and set. Four input and and or gate boards looked similar to one-another, both sporting two transistors and four diodes. Mini clip-leads allowed one to do various digital projects.
But Mr. Barlow wanted more. So he had me making and assembling the boards. He had me rig a makeshift drying oven for the photoresist.I did transparency layout; cut and coated blank boards; baked the photoresist; masked and exposed coated blanks; did the wash, etch, soldering, etc. I wasn't technically in his class. But he had me doing mass production of printed circuit boards--in junior high school! You've got to love the guy. |
