Oldtimer

It must have been around 1988 when we met for the first time. Sitting on my desk, you were big, impressive. When I switched you on, I could hear the heavy sound of your fan and all your yellow LEDs started to blink. You had an impressive number of keys on your front side. After the picture tube with only two colors had warmed up, I could see your noisy trace appearing.

You are an HP 4195, a DC-500 MHz vector network analyzer that the university bought, and I was the first to actually use you. During my PhD studies, you were the one that I could rely on. You showed me that my first integrated 100 MHz filter in 3-micron technology worked exactly as expected.