Engineers were laid off by the thousands and while the Dow took a dive to under 620, the conventional wisdom was that even though the industry was going through troubled times the long-term prospects looked very good and the short-term outlook held promise (translated, we have reached the bottom). Sound familiar?

In January 1971 Digital Equipment ads featured the PDP-11; Motorola was advertising MECL III logic. Intel was introducing the MOS ROM, Amperex was touting its audio amplifier IC and Fairchild was pushing the low-power TTL family. Meanwhile Hewlett-Packard was advertising its function generator; Tektronix was pushing the 90-MHz oscilloscope with digital multimeter and counter plug-ins; Systron Donner highlighted its dc-to-3-GHz counter; Fluke featured the systems DVM, and Eldororado let folks know they invented microwave-sampling counter techniques. The Corning ads talked about tin-oxide resistors and glass capacitors, Sprague focused on solid-electrolyte Tantalex capacitors while Potter & Brumfield hyped solid-state hybrid relays and Dale Electronics paraded its industrial wirewound resistors.

Now, 31 years later, many of the hotshot companies of 1971 are gone and a new generation of engineers has created products beyond what we would have ever imagined back then. What will the industry look like 31 years and five downturns from now? Should be an interesting ride.

When Frank isn't trying to decipher Bob Widlar's notes on applications for the uA709 op amp, he can be reached at fburge@cmp.com.