[time-nuts] time-nuts Digest, Vol 22, Issue 20

[John Day]

At 05:06 AM 5/18/2006, you wrote:
>Hey Bill - now you're really rubbing it in!!
>If it wasn't for the few thousand miles of pacific between us I'd be
>in like flint (hell --there I go, showing my age again!)
>But a half decent jpg (if there is such a thing) would be fine.
>
>Very few of the early electronic counters ever made ot out
>here-earliest I recall was a nixie display unit (fairly sure non-HP)I
>saw way back in the early 1960s at a US Navy expose' at the local
>airport, Harewood, which has been the jumping off point for most air
>travel to the Antarctic for over 50 years. 5243Ls and the like came on
>the local scene a few years later but even then only for the
>well-heeled, such as govt depts etc.
>
>Cheers
>DaveB,
>Christchurch
>New Zealand

Dave, these counters were not cheap no matter where you were!

I can't recall now how much I paid for my 5345A when they first came 
out (was it 1973 or 1974?) but I know that in 1979 when we bought two 
for a lab I was working in they were over $5,500 US each - without 
plug-ins. In that same period we bought our first 5370A's, as I 
recall they were around $7,500 US! Now what was the average income then?

In the 80's, I bought a 5061A Caesium standard with option 4. I can 
remember almost chewing my finger nails worrying about how we would 
make calibrations pay for the thing! It cost around $US 50,000 at the 
time as I recall.

If it hadn't been for the levels of US military activity and the 
space programme, we would not have the chance to buy now what we see 
on the surplus market. Such things as new HP counters have always 
been for the well heeled.

John