Found in the Smithsonian online archives - an example of my bg meter from 1983.
I had been diagnosed T1 (well it was called “Juvenile Onset” back then) in summer 1982 (so I’m coming up on my 38th diaversary) and at first had done urine testing as taught by my local doc and hospital.
But shortly afterward I got introduced to home blood testing at the state university hospital and started on Chemstrip’s and this meter. Wow, home blood testing was way better!
I rarely used the meter because for the next decade+ I would cut up the Chemstrips to make 3 or more strips out of 1, and while I could visually read them that way the meter could not read them that way. The pediatric endo staff showed me and my family this trick.
I got very good over the next decade+ cutting up test strips into narrow slivers to save money!
Occasionally in the early 80’s Chemstrips would be out of stock and the pharmacy would have a very different Ames bg test strip that was fuzzy and had to be washed by water as part of development. If anyone knows of pictures of this Ames strip please let me know.
Full Smithsonian link:https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_738655 . If you go there and follow through the pictures you come across several pages from an advertising brochure from the early 80’s.