Most of the many stories which are told about the legendary analogue designer Bob Widlar, relate to his epic capacity for the sauce.
Not all, however. After he'd retired from National, having taken it to the No.1 slot in analogue, just as he'd previously done for Fairchild, Widlar retired to Mexico.
He frequently visited California, and the Mexican border guards got very exercised about his frequent cross-border comings and goings.
What principally fussed them was that when they asked him what work he did, Widlar replied "I don't work".
When Widlar told his pal, the great PR man Regis McKenna, about his problem, the two of them devised a solution.
It took the form of a business card from a company called 'Morgan Associates', named after the famous pirate Henry Morgan, underneath which were the words 'Bob Widlar, Highwayman'.
It did the trick. The border guards never bothered Widlar again. They assumed that the legendary designer of the 709 was a road-worker employed to maintain the highway.
TOMORROW: TEN SEMICONDUCTOR BREAKTHROUGHS
Hi David -- Ran across your website while researching Bob Widlar (recently inducted into Nat'l Inventors Hall of Fame --> http://tinyurl.com/boyayt). I met him at TRW in the '60s (where he was pitching the LM100), I moved to Ball Aerospace in Boulder where he'd worked before that, heard all the stories about him, quite an eccentric guy, but a genius in current mirrors and differential stage design. I designed hundreds of space ckts and systems b4 I retired, the Hubble fix, tons of space cameras and ACS systems. Now, I like to solve the world's problems, see www.ideasforourfuture.com, see what you think. I love it that you have so many interesting things to read, I'll be reading them all. Thanks for all the great work! -- Lee
Lee, thanks for your very kind remarks. I loved your ideas for our future. I'm sure you're absolutely right on how to solve the Middle East problem. I don't know enough about the US education system and fast breeder reactors to comment on those and the Baja scheme is beyond my competence to judge, though the last line of it is a great idea.
I hope your ideas get a wide currency in the world. If I can help in any way in promoting them, I will.
Incidentally a couple of years back I had some email exchanges with Bob Widlar's brother who has, by the sound of it, a lot of interesting Widlar memorabilia.
Thanks for writing and best wishes, David