A Look Back – 40 Years of EP&T

EP&T is proud to be celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, recognizing the official launch of this magazine during the summer of 1979. Throughout the year, we will pay homage to our history with a regular column space in each print issue through 2019. 

A Look Back will focus on where our industry stood during the emergence of the 1980s, which heralded the computer age and many of the most popular consumer products, that are still around today. For many, the technology that we use and take for granted today would have been unimaginable when EP&T first appeared.

For some, A Look Back may elicit a chuckle at how far technology has leaped after four decades of chasing Moore’s Law. Or, maybe you will shed a tear over how dramatically the tech landscape has been altered, losing familiar names as vendors, OEMs and industry personnel. Prior to the world-beating rise of Research in Motion (aka: BlackBerry) in the mid-eighties, there was Mitel Networks and Nortel representing the pre-eminent anchors of the electronics ecosystem in Canada.

Opening address from EP&T’s charter issue

Looking back at the opening address from our charter issue delivered by Cliff Hand, publisher and editorial director of the magazine at that time, “Designing an editorial programme to meet the needs of a broad spectrum of electronic product designers, manufacturers and end-users has been an exciting challenge to the editors of EP&T.” Thus, it remains – given its broad and diverse scope of readers within the electronics design sphere, EP&T is committed to maintain and exceeding this challenge today.

One thing is for sure, electronics remains one of the world’s fastest growing business sectors, and it has a major effect on other industries because of the products it produces, which can increase productivity, change cost structures and make possible new products and services. Today, we are witnessing a tech revolution of sorts, as emerging sectors such as IoT, wearables and robotics continue to disrupt traditional models across the country and around the world. Many upstart Canadian companies have been reseponsible for unveiling the latest transformative technologies that will redefine industries, improve lives and solve some of today’s most pressing global challenges.

To finish up with the closing statement from our early pioneer, Cliff Hand:

“The editors and staff of EP&T are determined to make this the best electronics magazine in Canada. Your continuing feedback, coupled with a receptive ear on our part, will go a long way to ensuring that this will happen.”

So keep reading, and who knows where we will end up in the next 40 years from now?