Hey Gums, remember back in the 80's when we were happy the autopilot even worked most of the time in the old 737 100's and 200's. We got a chime and light when it clicked off and fixing the problem was easy, hand fly until it engages again, no big deal. Had to fly one round trip flight in a 737 from LAS to MSP as a new captain with a first month FO in an airplane with engines we hadn't flown before because it was new with no autopilot so were reading the manual to see how high we could fly and max landing weights enroute.
The company expected us to be able to do it and we did. It doesn't happen much any more.