| Richard Ziskowski |
| Richard was working in the shipyards in Poland when the solidarity movement crystalized. Many credit Ronald Reagan for toppling the iron curtain. Richard and the other shipyard workers sacrificed everything, standing together against tyrany. These are the real heros. The people who did say no. Richard's warmth makes everyone feel like family. He has a magnified sense of value for things we take for granted or don't appreciate. He bonds at a deep level and loves people thoroughly. He loves the support he gets. He is loyal like a puppy. His vote of confidence for the American way is one of few I respect. He's nobody's patsy and he'd never roll over on a friend. Richard has ambition because he sees great promise. Optimism I wish we could all have makes him determined. These are normal attributes you tell me. I don't think so. This is tested mettle. These attributes are bigger than life. I believe they are signature to triumph over deeply troubling circumstances. He beat long odds. Now it's a Polish immigrant that carries the torch, championing the American ideal. While I, the American, am trying to comprehend it. It's an odd twist indeed. |
| Bud Bedford expected socket terminals to withstand short circuiting to one-another, softly, before he'd put a tube in the socket. He discovered the brutality of our solid-state grid modulator that way. Nobody else would have shorted it with the foil. It blew big holes. Pulse overcurrent tripped. But pulse-overcurrent just inhibits the pulse, forcing the only other alternative, substitution of bias: which will still drive an arc discharge. Those FET's were too stiff. Switch-tubes had been our bastion of softness. Tube guys will tell you bias is the most important supply in the system. A tube rated 1% duty might start chugging down 100 times too much power on loosing bias. As such, we tend not to interrupt bias. Richard went from 100 ohms to 330 on the output resistor. He went from 80 to 20 microfarad electrolytics in rail-bypass cap banks. He got it soft. Bud was after one amp peak, and the 330 volt resistive loss rendered the rail voltage irrelevant. We needed peak voltage metering. And that's a huge hassle. But Bud had specified peak grid current readback for the computer interface. Richard cut the ground lead to the pulse top volt meter and ran it to the wiper of a pot across the A/D convertor input for peak grid current readback. One cut, one wire, one pot: by subtracting proportional to current--we already had peak pulse-top volt metering--we just never knew it. Richard's meter circuit is better than the traditional peak-reading voltmeter: you always see the supply voltage, pulsing or not, so you can preset it. Sample and hold circuits hibernate below a certain pulsewidth. The traditional circuit leaves you clueless or misled below that. With Richard's method, failover reverts you back to "only clueless about IR losses." You can still view the current and calculate actual pulse-top voltage. Richard decreased net cluelesness, across an entire industry; because Bud foil-tested the grid box. The parts of this aren't as important as the flow Richard maintains. Natural trials and tribulations thwart many. Add to that Bud, with his high and lowlines gag! And that full load no load thing! Shorting everything in sight with foil! There are going to be setbacks. But the flow, the rapid clip, when attainable, becomes pure exhilleration. It's Maslow's self-actualization: through total subordination of one's self to the higher calling, we cast aside all inhibition to explore creativity that knows no limit. Richard looses himself in dispatching obstacles, meeting spec's, and filling in blanks on acceptance tests. It's as though he becomes transparent, like a window through which destiny shines. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. |
| Ten years later, Richard's metering philosophy was my "ace in the hole." In our darkest hour, I think it saved the company. Logically extended, known error sources can be characterized and compensated for, catering impeccability to whole metering systems. Installed and calibrated, my boss said "rip it out, they waived that spec." So we burned an EPROM without the feature. He thought he could dupe the customer. He omitted that line of the specification while translating it to the acceptance test procedure (ATP) format. His duty was to substitute "is" wherever "shall" appeared in the specification, to form the ATP checklist. The specification stated "all meetering shall be done at the tube terminals." Thus, peak reading volt metering was specified everywhere. It was one of ten spec's I deemed impossible to meet. But with time, I'd remembered Richard's method. So I modeled system resistances, and translated them to algorythms for the programmer. He incorporated the calculations and menu option. It checked out fine. Pulling it out was easy, I changed the EPROM. Four days before Chrismas, we'd finished on-site acceptance testing. Ron Carter, representing the Navy, was doing spot checks of performance in practical applications. Government waste was making all the headlines, it was the rage of the day. Our "million dollar tube tester" bore the earmarks of a scandal in the making. Ron might have been duped a hundred times in a row before I got there. Success rates in our industry were abysmal. This was his first big-ticket purchase. He was rightly petrified. He'd signed off on the ATP. It was uneasyness in the pit of his stomach we were working to quell. I was uneasy too, catastrophic loss strikes without warning. Then he caught us: blatant non-compliance on one output. To his horror, all the terminals were afflicted. Payment would not be fourthcoming. Ron discovered a huge error on the grid pulse-top volt meter under load. He knew how hard peak voltage metering was when he specified it. We had to be within .3V. It was 10V off with only 10% rated load. It would be 100V off at rated load. My baby was just another exploding cigar. Ron had been played for a patsy while trusting me. Richard's method was there and calibrated. So I offered him the other firmware. And what a relief that was. Simultaneously, all our supplies came into compliance. Two days before Christmas I was back at the plant. Our tradition usually had us urgently shipping everything in sight in December. One December we'd shipped 13 units. Chuck busted ass too that year. But this year, people seemed sleepy. Chuck looked agitated. The FDIC forclosed our bank and recalled our credit line, a year earlier (it was an S&L-scandal related colapse). Corporate income garnished, we were out of time. We always each got a card with a $100 bill, for a Christmas bonus. I figured chuck was struggling to come up with the $10,000 cash. Like the rest, I looked and felt sleepy too. He came at me and I feared he'd start blasting me with rage. But he said timidly "they paid." I couldn't make out what he'd said. I sat frozen, quizzical. "They gave me the remaining $875,000 bucks." I could only barely hear him. He was in shock. He only knew the other way, endless scorn, protracted disputes, and that nothing had ever been good enough for this customer. Childlike wonder and amazement filled his eyes. He, just like Richard, was delivered to me, from the brink of being broken. The thanks in his eyes was my bonus. Thank you Richard! You delivered! |