I was working on a car the other day, and while looking through the old tool box, I came across a tool that I had completely forgotten about. At one time this tool was considered a high-tech machine. My brother and I both remember using it on our cars as we were growing up–many, many years ago, and for the next 20-minutes or so after finding it, the focus changed from the car I was working on to the long line of cars we that have both owned over the years. This long-forgotten machine was one of our dad’s old gadgets, and it was used to zero-in that perfect timing adjustment to make sure that your engine could run at peak performance.

When it was new, it was an expensive machine, and there was not a shop or garage worth a grain of salt that didn’t have one. The machine that no one could live without “back in the day” was this brand new contraption for properly setting the points in your car’s distributor. That’s right, I said points! There are not many guys left that actually know what this machine is, how to actually use it, or the myriad of functions it was/is capable of completing. To use it, you simply connected the two wires from the machine to your car’s ignition, and you could check everything like point dwell and engine rpm—and that was on four, six, and eight cylinder engines. Ok, maybe that’s not a “myriad” of functions, but when this tool was new, it was $29.95, and a definite must have. Finding this little box of mystery got me to thinking about technology, and where it was, is, and might be going.

When the Accurate Instrument Co. came out with this wiz-bang tool (this one in 1967), a reliable electronic ignition was only an idea; everything from the 1940 Chevrolet sedan to the then current 396-powered Chevelle was using a point-style ignition. But, things changed, and this once must-have tool suddenly became obsolete.

Once a reliable electronic ignition did finally come around, point distributors were quickly phased out, and a new means of ignition testing was needed. The Accurate Instrument Co.’s AT 162 dwell meter was woefully relegated to collect dust in the bottom of dad’s old toll box. It was a new era, and the electronic ignition was here to stay. But, that meant a new testing procedure—and tool was required. Relatively speaking, the electronic ignition distributor as many of us know it, only lived a relatively short life. It didn’t take long before the distributor was completely eliminated, and computer-controlled ignitions took their place. This meant that another tool was now required.

Enter the commercial engine-diagnostic computer. No longer was the shade tree mechanic able to diagnose ignition problems with any certainty. If he didn’t own a machine that cost several thousands of dollars, a dead ignition system was just that, dead. Since this distributorless ignition is still the ignition that many cars utilize to this day, one might think that a bad thing for the guy that likes to work on his own cars.

For the most part, it usually is. But, there are many trouble code readers and laptops that can be programmed to help diagnose an issue that your car might be having. What’s more, you can have one of these “code readers” for less than $100. So maybe the ignition isn’t as easy to adjust or tune as it used to be, but the next generation is probably looking at the Accurate Instrument Co.’s dwell meter in much the same way that you are looking at his computer—with glazed eyes.