Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1381013
JUNE 2021 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 11 I guarantee that when Martin Cooper made the world's first cellphone call on the Motor- ola DynaTAC 8000X in 1973, he was thinking, "How soon until we can shrink these down into the size of Kirk's communicator?" So, this month, we're helping Shatner cel- ebrate his 90 th birthday with an issue devoted to Star Trek. In this issue, our Trekkie con- tributors delve into the technological marvels introduced on the show, and take a look at how far PCB design and manufacturing technology has come since that first episode, "e Man Trap," debuted in 1966, winning its time slot in the Nielsen ratings. We've even rewritten the show's preamble, which forms a theme for this special issue: Space and trace, the final frontier. ese are the voyages of the PCB designer. Their ongoing mission: To explore strange new vias... To seek out land patterns... And new base materials. To boldly go... where no PCB designer has gone before! In this issue, we bring you a variety of arti- cles and columns that pay homage to Star Trek, written by expert contributors Happy Holden, Clyde Coombs, Cherie Litson, Dana Korf, Joe Fjelstad, Alun Morgan, Alex Bele- lovsky, John Talbot, and Matt Stevenson. We also have columns from our regular contribu- tors Barry Olney, John Watson, John Coonrod, Kelly Dack, Tara Dunn, Vern Solberg, Patrick Crawford, and Jade Bridges. And this month, we introduce a new series by Anaya Vardya, DFM 101. Summer is here, and it looks like we're get- ting back to some semblance of normalcy. Let's hope! See you next month. DESIGN007 Andy Shaughnessy is managing editor of Design007 Magazine. He has been covering PCB design for 20 years. He can be reached by clicking here. group of crew members. Unlike my dad, Kirk always wore a cool uniform, not a pocket pro- tector. Kirk was (almost) always in control, whether flying through space at warp speed or exploring some alien planet that just happened to have the same oxygen makeup as Earth. Star Trek taught us a lot of life lessons. For many of us, it was our first glimpse of what it's like working in a team environment. Each episode taught us about cooperation, putting the group's needs above that of the individual, and knowing when it's time to put everything on the line. And with the red-shirted crewmen, we learned that sometimes bad things happen to good people. But by far, the best thing about Star Trek was the technology. One day, I told my dad, "e transporter on Star Trek made a guy dis- appear! Can we get a transporter?" My dad broke the bad news. "It's just a TV show. We can't really do that, and we probably never will. And don't try to build a transporter or hit bullets with a hammer." And then there was the communicator, the coolest walkie talkie ever, and certainly the best handheld prop on the show. When you bought your first clamshell phone 20 years ago, didn't you try to flip it open like Captain Kirk? Andy as a toddler roughhousing with his dad.