Whether or not it's favorable is contentious, but the facts remain I have personally experienced a good amount of the changes in our profession over the last 50 years.
When I started surveying in '68-'69 we literally used equipment from the previous century. And excluding advancements in optics, we pretty much operated with field procedures that Egyptian pyramid builders or Roman aqueduct masons would readily recognize. If it ain't broke, don't fix it someone once said...
As a young man I remember dreaming of saving time and labor with not-yet-invented contraptions. After EDMs came along I thought of a radio-controlled "robot" along the lines of a radio-controlled model car I had given my son for Christmas. The robot could be directed to a corner location, and with the aid of an on-board pneumatic gun, fire an iron pin or a hub into the ground at an exact location. All this could be accomplished comfortably behind the instrument.
Of course this was just a muse and never came to fruition. But what really fascinates me is how far reality has surpassed my youthful pipe dreams of the "ultimate" surveying tools.
I remember tackling multi-section boundaries armed with just chain & transit. Line clearing was a common factor in the process of locating traverse stations. Some boundaries literally took a crew weeks to complete. One man can easily complete the same survey today in a matter or hours.
I remember tagging along with my father one day to his jobsite along the south face of a couple of mountains we called "Buffalo Peaks" in Chaffee Co., CO. This was during the construction of the Homestake water line from the divide down into South Park. It was early summer 1964 and some hot-shot "scientific" surveyors were checking base-line control with contraptions called Electrotapes.
At the time my father was far more fascinated than I was with the ability to calculate a slope distance electronically. It looked like a lot of trouble to me but I guess their results were irrefutable. My father was correct with his prediction that equipment like the Electrotapes would change my world, but probably not his too much.
Little did I know that ten short years later I would be using an HP3800 in much the same fashion. And yes, it still boggles my mind. Like Marty McFly I'm stupefied with all the advancements we have here in the "future".
We've come a long way in our profession. And watching a metamorphosis of micro-chips blossoming from compass needles has been fascinating. I'm glad I got to see it.
