When I started working for the Stock Exchange in 1969, all the services we worked on were new, as was the workshop, which had to be fitted out with the latest in Anglepoise lamps - fluorescent ones!
Working on 19" and 23" TVs for much of the time it was easiest to work standing up. Reaching or leaning across the bench for anything invariable resulted in a head to lamp contact and, as the edges (and corners!) of the hefty metal tube/reflector housing were damned sharp it was usually $#@!$& painful!
True, if you needed to sit down to perform some delicate, intricate task they were very useful but, for the vast majority of the time they were relegated to the very end of the bench, standing smartly to attention with the tubes rotated to the vertical position. They did a very good job of illuminating the entire bench but that wasn't really what they were intended for!
Interestingly, a Google image search brings up lots of conventional Anglepoise designs. Adding fluorescent into the search brings up some CFL lamps and LEDs. Anything remotely like ours are pivoted at one end so the heads are obviously quite light and probably LED, like the lamp on my desk at the moment but nothing remotely resembles the hefty twin tube brutes I remember.
They may have been 'state of the art' in 1969 but that didn't make them very popular, it would seem.
EDIT Just spotted Gary's comments. We obviously share the same opinion of these lamps!
Working on 19" and 23" TVs for much of the time it was easiest to work standing up. Reaching or leaning across the bench for anything invariable resulted in a head to lamp contact and, as the edges (and corners!) of the hefty metal tube/reflector housing were damned sharp it was usually $#@!$& painful!
True, if you needed to sit down to perform some delicate, intricate task they were very useful but, for the vast majority of the time they were relegated to the very end of the bench, standing smartly to attention with the tubes rotated to the vertical position. They did a very good job of illuminating the entire bench but that wasn't really what they were intended for!
Interestingly, a Google image search brings up lots of conventional Anglepoise designs. Adding fluorescent into the search brings up some CFL lamps and LEDs. Anything remotely like ours are pivoted at one end so the heads are obviously quite light and probably LED, like the lamp on my desk at the moment but nothing remotely resembles the hefty twin tube brutes I remember.
They may have been 'state of the art' in 1969 but that didn't make them very popular, it would seem.
EDIT Just spotted Gary's comments. We obviously share the same opinion of these lamps!
