The first electronics company I worked for, was also my first job.  It was a very young and unknown company at the time, and when I would tell people where I worked, they usually didn’t know much more than before they asked. It was all in one building at the time, and all of Production was in one room. I was employee #140 in the company.

I started out building base plates for the one computer they made at the time. When someone from the PC Board department would get enough boards made and tested, they’d bring them over.  I learned how to mount them to the base plates, then get some housings which someone else had been mounting keyboards on, plug the keyboard into the motherboard, and screw the whole system together.  I did just about every aspect of assembly at one time or another.  Then, they went to others for testing before packing.

In those days, when someone mentioned computers, people automatically thought of machines that were large banks up against a wall, which were fed cards with a pattern of holes in them.  These were small machines that looked a bit like a typewriter. Much different image!

By the time I left that company, about 5 years later, their name was a household word.  The employee numbers went into the 3000s and have grown from there on.  And, they make a lot more than just computers! Several models of computers have followed that little one I built, as well as tablets, music players and cellphones.