Sales Catalog Page for Betalert 10 (NOT 10B!)

As I promised in my last blog entry on February 19, here is a copy of the page from the 1985 Beta Products sales catalog that shows the Betalert 10 (the predecessor of the Betalert 10B).

NOTE:  I am not the copyright holder of the sales catalog or of the image presented below.  It was originally published by Beta Products in the 1985 timeframe.  When Beta Products was bought by Hathaway Process Instrumentation a year or two later, the copyright transferred to them.  I'm not sure who bought Hathaway, but I'm reasonably certain that the copyrights have expired.

When I was given the charter to redesign the BL10 to make it less expensive to build, I quickly found out that there was not a lot of material cost that could be removed.  So, I concentrated my efforts on reducing the labor content.  But, being an enthusiastic young engineer, I didn’t want to just make it cheaper … I wanted to make it better.  So I set out to add some features to it wherever I could while still making it cheaper.

Below is a list of differences between the BL10 and the BL10B.

STANDARD SEQUENCES:  The BL10 only provided two ISA sequences (AFL and SFFL).  However, the BL10B provided 7 different ISA sequences (plus a “secret” eighth sequence which was never mentioned in any of the BL10B literature).  The eighth sequence was a three-color version of the AFM sequence, using tri-color LEDs.  However, tri-color LEDs were expensive and so I was ordered to remove the tri-color LEDs from the BOM and replace them with cheaper mono-color (red) LEDs.  Fortunately, both LEDs fit the same footprint, so the unit could be populated with either and would work just fine without any software changes.  I was always really disappointed that the tri-color option was never marketed.

TERMINAL BLOCK CONNECTIONS:  The BL10 used black, barrier-type terminal blocks that were so commonplace in the power generation industry.  However, the BL10B used green Phoenix-type pluggable terminal strips.  I caught A LOT of grief about that from sales and marketing back when I was designing the BL10B.  Phoenix connectors were new to the USA back then and marketing was certain that customers would not like them since everyone in the industry (said marketing) was accustomed to barrier type terminal blocks and would not cotton to these new-fangled terminals that were that ugly green color.  But I stood my ground and I insisted (rightly) that I could not get enough terminals on the back panel if I used the barrier blocks.  The Phoenix connectors allowed me a higher density of connections.

I eventually won the argument (it was about the ONLY argument I won) and we went with the Phoenix connectors.  It turned out that customers loved them and within a year or two, nearly all of our new annunciator products had Phoenix connectors on them.

The big savings here was in labor.  For the BL10, look at the picture of the BL10 in the picture above.  See that big honkin' wire harness sticking off of the PWB?  Each of the wires in that bundle had to be hand soldered onto the PWB.  They also had to have a connector pin crimped onto the other end.  And that pin had to be pushed into the nylon connector shell.  Then, on the rear panel, more wires had to be soldered to the barrier terminal strips, connector pins crimped on the opposite ends, and then pushed into the mating connector shell.  That was a lot of labor!  And, in talking to the ladies who actually built these things, they said it was nearly impossible to get those two nylon connectors pushed together when putting the units together.  It was hard for them to get their hands into the units to push them together.

Now compare that to the BL10B.  On the BL10B, the Phoenix connectors were wave-soldered directly onto the PWB during assembly and, when the assembled PWB was slid into the chassis, the Phoenix connectors stuck out through cut-outs in the rear panel.  There was no soldering of wires, crimping, or mating of connectors at all!  It was labor-free.  I was really proud of that change.

MICROPROCESSOR:  The processor on the BL10B was a Hitachi HD63A03, whereas the BL10 used, I think, a Motorola 6800 or some derivative of it.  The source code for the BL10 had long since been lost by the time I began work on the BL10B.  I believe it was somewhere in the back of the building on an 8-inch floppy disk (for which we had no disk drives).  The HD63A03 was actually a Motorola MC6303 that Motorola granted a license to Hitachi to manufacture using CMOS technology.  This meant that it drew less power.  It was also one of the very earliest examples of a “system on a chip” microprocessor.  It had a built-in UART, digital I/O, and some programmable timers and counters.  It was a pretty cool device in its day.  It’s pretty primitive nowadays, though.  Ahh, how I miss programming in assembly language!

LED DRIVERS:  The BL10 used discrete transistors to drive the LED and relays.  The BL10B used IC-type drivers that were an 8-bit wide logic latch that drove 8 open-collector output drivers.  I think I did that to save PWB real estate . . . or something.  I can’t remember.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, though in retrospect a 74HCT373 and 8 transistors probably would have been cheaper.  But I was young . . .   Or perhaps I just didn’t relish the idea of laying out 16 or so discrete transistors and their associated discrete components on a PWB using black tape on mylar.  I’d probably STLL be laying out that PWB!

PROGRAMMABLE FEATURES:  The BL10 used gold-plated Cambion jumpers to select various programmable features.  The BL10B used DIP switches.  I think I went that route for PWB real estate reasons.  Plus everyone in the factory that did final assembly or test hated Cambion jumpers.  You needed needlenose pliers to install or remove them and more often than not they would pop out of the pliers and go flying.  They looked like golden staples  … and were just as sharp.

LED INSTALLATION:  The BL10 had LEDs that were mounted to the front panel and were then connected to the main PWB via discrete wires.  For the BL10B, Tom (our draftsman, but essentially a mechanical engineer), and I found a way to ingeniously install the LEDs on the back side and on the edge of the PWB such that they protruded at just the right spot in the front panel.  That saved assembly cost (i.e. labor).  Unfortunately, it required us to drill a cutout for the LEDs on one end of the engraved legend plates in order to make it work.  But no one ever complained about these non-standard legend plates.

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That’s about all I can remember, though I’m sure there were other differences.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

While cleaning up my home office a few months ago, I came across an old sales catalog from Beta Products.  Per a notice on the back page, it was copyrighted in 1985.  This was actually a year or so before the Betalert 10B came out, so there is no mention of the Betalert 10B in it (obviously).  There was a page for the Betalert 10 (the predecessor of the Betalert 10B).  See the next blog entry for that.

Finding this catalog was definitely a trip down memory lane for me since it has some pictures in it of the factory at the time, so I thought I’d share some snippets of it with you.

NOTE:  I am not the copyright holder of the sales catalog or any of the images presented below.  They were originally published by Beta Products in the 1985 timeframe.  When Beta Products was bought by Hathaway Process Instrumentation a year or two later, the copyright transferred to them.  I'm not sure who bought Hathaway, but I'm reasonably certain that the copyrights have expired.

THE BUILDING

Above is a picture of the Beta Products building in Carrollton, Texas as it was in 1985.  I loved that building.  It was humongous (at least to me).  It was a relatively new building then and was clean and neat and well lit.  It was heaven to me. 

The front quarter of the building was split into two floors and was the office area.  This consisted of engineering, drafting, document control, sales, marketing, accounting, personnel (it wasn’t called HR back then), production control, etc.  The back three quarters of the building was “open” (i.e. a single floor that was two stories tall) which contained inventory, printed circuit board assembly, product assembly, product testing, quality assurance, systems staging, packing, and shipping.

We only remained in that building for about 2 years after I joined the company.  Around that time we were bought by Hathaway Process Instrumentation and it was decided we would move a mile or so away to a cheaper facility.  The former owner of Beta Products also owned the building above and, after the sale, water-cooler rumor had it that he was asking an outrageous monthly lease figure.  So we moved.

The building in the picture above is still there, but it was bought by a church not long after we moved out and is still a church today.  I’ll try to drive over there and get a picture of it someday and post it.

The Reception Area

This was our lobby area.  The receptionist was named Chris and was the sweetest and classiest lady you could ever hope to meet.  As the first impression people had of Beta Products, she definitely put a great face and a wonderful voice to the company.  They don’t make ‘em like her anymore!

That chair there to the right is where I sat when I walked in off the street (literally) to apply for a job after college.  I didn’t have a car (or much of anything, really).  I just “cold called” in there for a job one day.  Chris told me years later that she and a few of the other ladies that worked there had watched me walk out the door after my interview and begin walking down Beltline Road (a relatively desolate highway back then).  I walked the two miles (approximately) to nearby Coppell where I was staying with an old college buddy of mine until I could find a job.

I can’t remember if that palm tree next to the chair was real or fake.

Sales and Marketing

This was our sales and marketing area.  It was located directly above the lobby in the previous picture.  Being a lowly engineer, I didn’t get to go up there very often.  The one person in the picture whose name I remember is the woman sitting at the word processor.  (I only remember her because I had a crush on her for the longest time, though she was probably ten years older than I was).  She was extremely sweet and personable.  I thought she was the bee’s knees.  Unfortunately for me, she was happily married.

In the foreground, get a load of that gigantic IBM Selectric typewriter!  It was a beast.  I think it was one of the ones with the extra wide carriages in it for funky-sized legal documents and whatnot.

Notice, too, the PC-looking thing that she is staring into.  That wasn’t a PC.  It was a dedicated word processor.  It ran “Symphony”.  I had to use it once for something and it was very clunky and unintuitive.  She would usually step in and rescue us poor engineering lunks and offer to do the typing for us.  She knew the system inside and out and could type like blue blazes.

Other equipment from the period:  the Rolodex, the Telex, green-bar paper.

Assembly Line

Here is a shot out on the assembly line.  Most of what went on here was wiring up the chassis for various products.  The annunciators we built back then contained a LOT of wiring.  The lamps that illuminated the annunciator windows fit into sockets, which were connected with discrete wires to card-edge connectors into which the logic cards were plugged.  The logic cards contained the circuits that performed the various ISA flash sequences.  Also hand-wired were the auxiliary relays, power, pushbuttons, etc.  So, for a typical 48-window annunciator with two light bulbs in each window, this amounted to a LOT of wiring.  Those racks and shelves against the wall to the right in the picture were basically nothing but spools of wire of different gauges and colors and insulation materials.  You can also see the “crimping” machines, that automatically stripped an eighth inch or so of insulation off of the wire and then crimped connector pins onto them.

Away far in the back of the picture, though it’s hard to see, was the mechanical assembly area.  This was manned by a lone, elderly man (I forgot his name, sadly) who put together all of the chassis for all of our products.  Sheet metal parts (sides, tops, fronts, backs, brackets, etc.) would come out of our sheet metal shop and he would screw, bolt, and rivet them all together to make the annuciator “box”.  It would then make its way up to the tables where it was wired.

I have forgotten nearly all of these ladies’ names.  The main one I remember is on the front table at the far right of the picture.  She and I actually became very close friends, though I lost contact with her about 15 years ago.  She worked her way up from the line, to running the stock room, to eventually becoming the purchaser.  We were quite the daring duo by the time she was purchaser.  By then I was the engineering manager (much more impressive-sounding than it actually was) and when vendors would invite her to free lunches or give her free tickets to go see the Texas Rangers or something, she'd invite me along with them.  Those were the boom-town days in electrical gadgetry.  Parts vendors were constantly providing all sorts of nice freebies (dinners, lunches, game tickets, etc.)  Good times.

(By the way, the two white circles in the photo above are from the holes in the sales catalog for three-ring binders.)

Wave solder machine

This was our wave solder machine.  All of our printed wiring boards were for through-hole parts back then, since surface mount technology was still in its infancy and generally only used in high volume products.   We had a half-dozen or so ladies who stuffed parts into PWBs all day long.  When they had a big enough batch of them, they would be taken over to the wave solder machine and ran over a sort of “waterfall” of molten solder.  This would solder all the parts to the board.  They then went to QA and then on to test.  The lady above, at the time I worked there, was the person that had been with the company the longest; something like 30 years or so.  She retired at some point while I was there, towards the end of my tenure.  She was really nice.

Metal Shop

This was our metal shop.  Most everything we built was made out of sheet aluminum.  For most products, exposed but generally unseen aluminum surfaces (e.g. the backs of units) were brushed aluminum.  The front panels were unfinished (i.e. smooth) aluminum or steel and were painted black.  We had all kinds of equipment:  NC punches, bending equipment, shearing equipment, etc.  It was pretty cool to watch.  I can’t remember the gentleman’s name shown in the picture above, but he was a very good machinist (or whatever they were called).

Packing and Shipping

When a product or system had passed test and went through QA for sell-off, it went to the packaging and shipping department.  This was a one-man operation for the most part.  I can’t remember the gentleman’s name above, but he was a very nice, very decent man.  His daughter worked in various positions in the company over time (engraving, document control).  The main thing I remember about the man above is that he absolutely loved Old Spice aftershave and so you could always tell where he had been throughout the building.  But for him, it worked.  It wasn't obnoxious.

There was some cool equipment in the packing department.  There was this machine that was loaded with a large spool of paper packing tape (you can kind of see it in the picture between the man’s desk and the loop of hoses).  The tape was made out of brown paper and was about four inches wide.  It had some sort of threads (nylon maybe?) that ran the length of the spool and were embedded into a sort of non-sticky adhesive, about four or five threads spaced equally across the width of the tape.  On the machine you could punch a length (say, 36 inches) and it would feed that length of the tape across a reservoir of water, activating the adhesive on the backside.  That tape came out plenty fast, so you could get a really nasty paper cut on it if you weren't careful.  It would then cut it off to the desired length.  You then took the tape and used it to seal the boxes.You can see some in the picture above, forming a cross on the tops of the boxes in the foreground.

Another cool device was the spray foam machine.  You can see the hoses for it off to the right in the photo.  Once you got the product wrapped in plastic and set into the shipping box, you would spray liquid foam into the box and it would expand to fill the box.  It was really cool to watch!  This was the precursor to the foam insulation we use in houses nowadays.  I remember the foam in liquid form was super hot.  If you got any on your skin it would burn the bejeebers out of you.  And if you got any of the liquid foam on your clothes, you pretty much had to throw them away, because it would become an integral part of the weave of the cloth.  (Don’t ask me how I know these things … lol!)

Also, as you can tell from the photo, it was about ten minutes to ten o’clock.  Or possible ten to 4:00.  It’s hard to tell in that grainy picture.

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Anyway, that was my trip down memory lane.  Those were wonderful years at Beta Products and I really miss them and I miss all of the people.  For that very brief moment in time, we were a family.