(26) Design draftsman’s job (6/6).

As soon as JB Camira was released a new model arrived on our desks, a VL Commodore. It was yet another completely new car, with new body, new chassis, and a new 3-litre engine with 4-speed automatic transmission. Both the engine and transmission were made in Japan by Nissan: 

Both the engine and the transmission were electronically controlled, which compelled me to start learning this, for me, an entirely new field. Our wiring contained multitude of new components, especially sockets and plugs, which was just as well, for the American Packard components were becoming hopelessly antiquated and certainly unsuitable for largely electronic system (for instance they had no moisture ingress protection).The work was fairly interesting, and I managed to bring it to the "first prototype" stage...

        One day my boss announced that as from the next day I was transferred to the computer section. My objections that I am completely ignorant of anything called computer were dismissed, "we all were in the same boat", as he put it (the year was 1983).

        The computer in question was a brand-new monster called Applicon, with 10 screens, which almost ground to a halt when all screens were being used at the same time

My general briefing was that I should concentrate on electrical design, and perhaps develop something of use for the electrical drafting and engineering sections.

After the 2-months long course I began to work on one of the 10 screens. I was given a couple of months practice before something meaningful would be expected of me. What that “meaningful” meant I was not sure, nor was anybody else. I decided to convert my hand-sketched electrical scheme into a computerised drawing. The colleagues and the bosses who came stickybeaking were told it was something I found inside the computer’s memory.

After a few months I read about a computer called Apple Macintosh 512 and went to a shop to take a look. It had a fairly small black-and-white screen, but it was unbelievably fast, and it contained a few programs which were to me very interesting. One of the programs was called MacDraft, and it was doing everything our GM graphic computer was doing, and much much more.

I left GM, bought the Macintosh, and began to work as a contract engineer. Nearly immediately I landed a contract with a small company called Fred Small and Sons, which was preparing a semi-automatic line for testing Camira engines produced by – my old GM. Subsequently I became known, and won a contract to design electrical system for Nissan Pulsar/GM Astra vehicles, after that similar contract for Toyota Camry/GM Apollo vehicles, then TD2000, Toyota again, Mitsubishi, Kenworth, Toyota… In between these automotive contracts I was working on electrical system for a line of robots for Ford, electrical switchboards – too numerous to list here, and to these I may devote a separate blog.

I spent 14 years at GM. Having come from a “communist” country I could still smell the “communist” practices, especially in the way of putting into positions of some responsibility people with no knowledge, qualification or interest in the work. Why it was thus I never enquired, only suspected that there was some degree of corruption, certainly nepotism, and all mixed with a bit of incompetence on the part of high management. That high management was probably churned the same way as us below – and good luck to them, company run like that cannot last for very long. Thank you, GM, and good bye, and vale, forever.