My first engineering job after college was with the local power company. I had used multimeters way before this time being in Ham Radio since I was 13. At the power company a multimeter, primarily the Simpson 260, was known as a "Goldberg". There was a reason for that name. The story as it was told to me dates back to just after World War II.

While the multimeter dates back into the 20's apparently they were not very common prior to WWII. Meters at that time were dedicated to a specific task such as measuring AC voltage. A different meter was used for DC voltage, etc. The meters were in nice wooden cases. Service men that were trained during the war in electronics used a multimeter. After the war they returned home and many went into jobs such as TV and radio repair. One of the first pieces of test equipment they obtained was a multimeter such as the Simpson 260. You bring your new meter home and take it out of the box. What do you do with it? You find something to measure. Looking around the room you spy the nearest electrical socket. On the Simson 260 you turn the dial to a range that can measure 120 volts (in the USA). That would be the 250 volt range. Stick the probes into the wall socket and what do you get? Nominal voltage in the US after WWII was 117 volts. The value varies somewhat depending on where you are. Some as low as 110 volts at that time. The person taking the measurement makes some assumption of what the voltage should be. There is a second problem. What is the accuracy specification of the instrument? For the 260 for AC measurements it is +/- 5% of the full scale reading. For any given instrument a reading could vary as much as + or - 5% of 250 volts (full scale range in this case). That is + or - 12.5 volts. If your actual voltage is 117 volts the meter could read between 104.5 to 129.5 and still be within specification. If the person making the measurement has a meter that reads on the high side, so 129 volts. Oh my! I have high voltage. So they turn in a complaint to the power company.

Voltage complaints get directed to the Test Department. The manager of the test department was a man named J. Oliver Lang. Mr Lang was concerned because of all the voltage complaints that started to come into his office. One of his technicians came to him and said he had discovered the cause of all the complaints. He handed Mr. Lang a Simson 260. Mr. Lang looked over the meter and said "what kind of Rube Goldberg device is this?". The name stuck. So at Dayton Power and Light if you want a VOM you ask for a Goldberg. It has been over 30 years since I worked for that company so I have to wonder if the people working there today still call a VOM a Goldberg.

I have three Simson 260's but mine date back to the 60's. I believe this is a picture of the original from the 40's