Anyone remember the Simpson 260 Analog Multi-meter?
Back in the 1970’s I remember it as the go to meter. I carried one for years back when I was an active Electronics Technician (now days they are called engineers though almost none of them have an engineering degree of any sort). It wasn’t until the early 1980’s that my Simpson was replaced with a Fluke 8100 series digital multi meter at the bench and a Fluke series 77 Digital multi-meter in the field.
I carried that Simpson everywhere; remote high sites, up 1200 foot towers, hanging from ship yard arms, crawling though bilges, and occasionally at the bench. At the time there were very few portable meters that could match its functionality and accuracy in the field. I would like to note that portability meant something different back in the day, than it does now.
Many people I knew then preferred and could not wait to switch to a digital meter. As accurate as it was, the analog meter suffered from a few inherit issues not present in a digital meter. One of which was parallax. You had to be looking at the meter needle and scale straight on. A little to the left or a little to the right and parallax error started to creep in. It was important enough to call out for anyone learning to use a meter.
Other inherit issues, it’s meter movement was mechanical, and was subject to vibration and movement. And the scale in some cases (like ohms) was logarithmic, and some never got the hang of using it.
The original 260 was introduced to the public in the 1930’s and has been with us ever since. You can still buy a version of one today.