Engineering Memory of the Month

Monitor mischief

Alumnus Daniel Joffe (MS 1979 EE) sent this memory about how electrical engineering students used to amuse themselves during rare breaks in the academic action of the classroom.

"As tough as it may be to believe, sometimes the lecture material in an electrical engineering class got a bit tedious. Thank heavens for the old-style analog TV sets in the lecture rooms. They were used to display the professor’s pad on the overhead camera, as well as his smiling face as the lectures were televised around the valley. One monitor sat between every two students. When things got slow, we could always play a round of ‘adjust the monitor.’ The first player turns away while the second fiddles the brightness, contrast, vertical and horizontal hold knobs every which way. The second player then races to adjust the monitor back to a satisfactory picture while being timed by the second player. The players then reverse the roles and repeat. Fastest time wins. The process is repeated until the professor says or writes something interesting. Thankfully, we didn’t have to play that often!"

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