@John R Retired: I just "celebrated" my 81st birthday on June 25, 2025. I was forced to retire in December 2014 when the company that hired me to maintain and operate their particle accelerator decided they needed the floor space for office cubby-holes. This was after we had completed some very nice tasks for Homeland Security's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). By then I was seventy years old, collecting social security income, and working part-time. I had been working full-time for this company since 1996, but that didn't make any difference. Ohio is one of those states where employees are hired and fired at will, no reason necessary. I got a nice letter saying it wasn't my fault, that I could apply for unemployment compensation while I sought new employment. Riiiight!
There would probably be a line around the block at Wally World for retired engineers who want to work as greeters, if only WalMart paid greeters the same pay as they would pay engineers. That's not gonna happen. So, I cashed out my company stock, converted my TIAA-CREF contributions from a previous job to a life annuity with a guaranteed term and right of survivorship for me and my wife, and settled into retirement. A few years later my wife and I moved to Venice FL. Well, she moved; I was allowed to follow. Three months after we got here I had another massive heart attack followed by several hours of open-heart surgery while doctors placed two coronary artery bypass grafts around my "widowmaker" heart artery.
After surviving that, I had to give up a part-time job at Staples, where I worked as a cashier for minimum wages, in order to recover from the surgery. That job eventually was too much for me, so I quit. The additional income was supposed to fund my amateur radio hobby, which I had resumed in 2013 after a forty-six year "off-the-air" hiatus because my non-renewable Novice license had expired. My wife also collects social security income, as does her mother who is living with us now. Among the three of us we manage to "get by" every month, but sooner or later one (or more) of us will die and Uncle Sam will quit sending automatic deposits. Life's a bitch. And then you die.
I don't know how old you are, John, but it sounds like you are not the type of person who sits on the front porch in a rocking chair waiting for the Grim Reaper to stop by. There is a wonderful institution that you should look into to keep abreast of things: public libraries. Get a library card and visit a local branch. Check out some self-help books. Join an amateur radio club and get a Technician license. Make friends with fellow hams. You may find one or two who you can go into business with, making niche market items that you can sell for profit. And, yes, learn as much as you can about microprocessors (µPs). The Arduino is a good place to start, but it is just a start. I like to use Microchip PIC processors in projects, and one version of these is available with a BASIC interpreter already built in. You will need to learn about "glue" logic that surrounds the µP as well as learning about all sorts of peripherals that allow the µP to interact with the real world. None of this requires any advanced math, but it does require some (a LOT) of study. I more or less abandoned discrete logic late in the 20th century in favor of doing logic in software instead of with hardware. This is not always possible, and it appears things have come full circle again: you can now purchase PICs that have programmable logic elements for fast, real-time, operations that exceed the computational speed of the µP.
Electronics will continue to advance and become more "integrated" as technology improves. You have to learn to "go with the flow" to keep up. The Internet is a huge help for those who know how to use it. But nothing beats a rainy Saturday, spent in a large public library, for the depth of knowledge that you can choose to explore.
I would not worry too much about the math right now. And I would not be looking to work for someone else either. You might have noticed that successful companies employ people who work for the owners. The owners may have started out working for others, but somewhere along the way they discovered that hiring other people to do the work is more profitable than doing it themselves. You need to discover this yourself. It helps to surround yourself with like-minded people, entrepreneurs and go-getters who are not willing to accept the status quo but who always seek something better. While at the library, look into some "self help" books for ideas. And don't be afraid to "work for free" to gain experience.
The employee who is satisfied to work a "nine to five" job is never going to rise above being just an employee. Spend some time, even if it's unpaid time, to learn more about the job. Then take that knowledge to your next gig. Maybe decide to become an entrepreneur and start your own company. Find something you enjoy doing and become an expert at it. Expect to fail. Expect to get up and try again. Wash, rinse, repeat until you succeed or die trying. Good luck.
github.com
