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28 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2021 holes. Most non-printed circuit, point-to- point soldering techniques were converted to plated through-holes. Within six months, in the middle of 1962, printed circuits were the dominant process and the company no longer required potential new hires to take a company sponsored week-long soldering class as a pre- requisite for employment. e product manager who demanded I be fired never did apologize, and the engineers who had pushed improved eyelet processes never mentioned it again. In addition, 21 eye- let machine operators were reassigned to more interesting jobs. When I finally saw Gene Weiner again at NEPCON in the 1980s, I was able to thank him for riding to the rescue and making my career in printed circuits possible. A lot has changed since the 1960s, but it's difficult to believe that our industry was so close to embracing brass eyelets over plated through-holes. I was fortunate to be a driver of HP's move into PTHs, and I appreciate Gene's help in making that process a reality. DESIGN007 Clyde Coombs joined Hewlett- Packard in 1959, where he developed the through-hole process that was the basis of PCB fabrication at HP for over 40 years. He is the editor of all seven editions of the Printed Circuit Handbook, with Happy Holden joining him as co-editor of the seventh edition. my meeting with Packard, I had not yet devel- oped a tin-lead plating process to be used as an etch resist on the traces aer copper plating. I used gold, which, although expensive, solved the short-term problem in developing the cop- per plating step. Solder would get its turn. So, the boards Packard saw were gold-plated, but I had a schedule to show our goal of replacing it with solder. However, before I got to that item on my agenda (but aer he had had the boards in hand for some time), he asked me how much gold was on the board (remember that this was 1961 and gold cost $35 an ounce). I told him, and before I could bring up the solder (tin- lead) plate plan, he commented that that didn't seem too much, and it gave the board a look of quality. Packard said, "When you buy HP products you should get quality and it should look like quality." I never did learn to plate solder. And HP boards became famous (or notorious) for the use of gold for years to come. When the two instruments with plated through-holes went into production, not only did they have double-sided capabilities, but eliminated all the problems of eyelets such as insertion of the eyelets, touch-up and repair of discontinuities at the eyelet, and resilience to repair in the field, and passed all stress tests without one board-related issue. e result was a complete reversal of opinion among prod- uct managers and a stampede to use plated through-holes in all new products and to con- vert single-sided boards to plated through-