Visiting Home: Lasers, Computers, & Sweatshirts

I spent the last two weeks visiting my mother in my childhood home. It's been a long time since I've spent that much time here. Tonight, as I was packing up, I came across a few things from decades ago.

NAPS

The first thing I came across was my prep school sweatshirt from NAPS. At a quarter of a century old it still looks as good as new.

Naval Academy Prep School

TRS-80

After seeing my old sweatshirt, it piqued my interest to take a peek in the attic. I found my first two personal computers. A TRS-80 Model I and a Model III. I spent many hours writing BASIC and Z-80 assembly on these machines. Without a doubt, these two computers formed the foundation of my career. The Model I was first manufactured in 1977 and the Model III shipped about three years later. The year 1977 was the defining moment for the personal computer industry; it's the year that the first personal computers shipped with a keyboard, monitor, and tape deck for persistent storage. It's the year of the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET. Out of the gate, Apple set the standard for a personal computer with upper and lower case text and color. I gravitated to the TRS-80 simply because they were sold in Radio Shack computer centers which were easily accessible to me via a two mile bike ride. The only store that carried the Apple II was twice that distance. 

Wrapped up TRS-80 Model I on the left, Model III on the right.

Metrologic He-Ne Lasers

Last, but not least, I came across my two helium-neon lasers that I purchased in junior high school to make holograms in my basement. The process of making my holograms was fairly simple. The most important thing was that there could be no movement more than a half-wavelength of light, otherwise the hologram would be ruined. I wrote about my first hologram a half dozen years ago.

I unboxed my two lasers, tonight, and I was astonished that, after more than 30 years, they both still worked. In the 1980s, laser diode technology was nonexistent for consumers – there were no laser pointers. Helium-neon lasers cost a few hundred dollars and they were the least expensive lasers that I could buy that could be used to make holograms. I spent many months delivering Pennysavers and newspapers to earn enough money to buy the two lasers.

I doubt I'll be using them to make holograms anytime soon. But, who knows?

More than 30 years later, my two He-Ne lasers still lase. 

Easter Nostalgia

Last weekend was one of the first times, in a long time, that I've been back to where I grew up for a holiday weekend.

It was a beautiful Easter weekend as Laura and I flew from Morristown to Farmingdale's Republic Airport. While it was a little breezy, there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

My sister had been asking to go up for a ride in my plane; so she came down to the airport and snapped some great photos as we flew over Huntington and the Long Island Sound.

On Easter Sunday, I went to church with my mother and sister. The last time I was at this church was on Valentine's Day (our wedding anniversary) in 2007 as I stood on the church altar to deliver my father's eulogy during an ice storm that made the headlines. The offering hymn was one of my favorites, Lord of the Dance, which most any Marine, who's gone through boot camp on Parris Island, could never forget.

One thing that I had completely forgotten about was the holography lab that I had set up in my childhood basement when I was in junior high school. The solid basement foundation was ideal for making holograms since any movement more than a few hundred nanometers, during the 6-12 second exposure, would ruin it.

On the wall of my holography lab, I had painted a diagram of a ruby laser, which was the first type of laser invented in 1960. (Ironically, you can't make a hologram without a laser, yet the hologram was invented about a dozen years before the laser.)

As an early teen, my budget was rather limited. It had taken me many months to save up enough money to buy my first two lasers. In the early 1980s, diode lasers did not exist as consumer devices, like they do today, and I had to buy much larger and more expensive helium-neon lasers.

Since my budget as a 13-14 year old was limited, I didn't have enough money to buy all of the metal letters which I had started to use to label the parts of my ruby laser drawing.

My ruby laser diagram may look like a cave painting in ruins, but it's actually never been completed. I doubt it every will.

He-Ne @ 632.8 nm

Click to enlarge

My First Laser & Holography Kit

When I was in 8th grade (1981) I took a trip to Bellmawr, NJ (not far from Edmund Scientifics) to buy my first laser from Metrologic Instruments. Back then, laser diodes didn't put out much power so helium neon was the only practical option I could afford from delivering Pennysavers and newspapers.

The laser in this photo is a modulated laser which means that you could plug in a crystal microphone and talk over the beam of laser light. I purchased this one, and a few months later I purchased polarized laser, to make holograms in my basement.

Originally, I intended to build a sandbox to make the holograms but I found a clearance holography kit at Edmund Scientifics. The kit was basically 2' x 2' piece of black Plexiglass on black foam with some screw holes to hold an optical diffuser (not a lens), front surface mirror, and film holder.

My first hologram was my best because I didn't know that you shouldn't recycle photographic developer chemicals. It was a hologram of Boggle cubes (dies with letters on each side) that misspelled Hologram. (I originally spelled it correctly, but when I moved the holography kit to the darkroom lab I hastily set up the cubes incorrectly.)

I was definitely the only kid in school who owned a laser... actually two lasers.