Dennis,
We are all glad that you are well, aside, of course, from the depression, and we look forward to reading you entertaining entries on the group (this one being no exception, well written and amusing).
Depression is a hell of a thing. It contrives to make you think that the pathological way you feel is entirely justified and rational, and even when you KNOW that you suffer from depression, the lies it tells you are still damn convincing.
Depression is a big part of why I wound up on TekScopes. I too have suffered from it most of my life (ever since adolescence) and it was really getting the better of me about half way through the pandemic lock down. It was keeping me up all night, and in an attempt to deal with the sadness I started digging through my father's effects. Almost the first thing I found was Motorola 6809 single board computer that my father had purchased in the late 70s and used to teach himself about microcomputers. In order to debug this ancient bit of technology, I dragged out my father's oscilloscopes (a 475 and a 2213) and began poking around the CPU bus to see what was what.
Everything was going swimmingly for a few weeks until one day the 475 lost it's horizontal sweep. While researching how to repair the sweep circuit on the 475 I discovered the TekScopes group, and the rest is a tale of almost entirely unalloyed joy. However, I have gone through several bouts of depression since joining he group last year, often coinciding with a failure to repair one or another instrument I have acquired since joining TekScopes. There was one bout that was precipitated by a scope that was destroyed in shipping, and another by my failure to make progress repairing the 7623A. I don't actually believe that the depression is the result of these failures and setbacks, but that it latches onto them and amplifies the feelings of disappointment and inadequacy, and things can rapidly spiral out of control from there.
It's good that you have found medication that works, but I have also found that a little positive human contact works wonders as well. We do appreciate all that you do for this community. I also appreciate your writing, which has a delightful blend of expertise and humor, and look forward to finding each new post by you in the group.
-- Jeff Dutky
