"Shop Security" by Steve Adams

"Shop Security" by Steve Adams

I attended university in the mid to late 1980s.  One of our assignments was writing Fortran code using punch cards which would run on the school’s Digital DEC10 mainframe. One day, I noticed a worker entering the computer lab by inserting their badge into a slot on the wall.

I was fascinated by how that room was protected. When Christmas break rolled around, I didn't just head home to rest—I went to the barn to see if I could build my own badge reader.  This served TWO purposes.  First was the challenge to see if I could actually build one. Second, it served as a safety device to keep my nosey younger sister OUT of my shop!

While the old shop is long since abandoned and filled with relics of a bygone age, I am fairly sure that if power was applied to the scanner, it would still work today with the old badges.

So much of modern society is centered around instant gratification, but, to me, there's no substitute for a solution you've built yourself.
Sponsored by the Caylor Financial Planning Group in Lynchburg, Virginia.

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