This review discusses nearly 30 years of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) work on high resolution imaging of numerous materials systems, giving a historical perspective on the field through the author's work. After a brief discussion of early STM and atomic force microscope (AFM) instrumentation development, the review discusses high resolution STM imaging on semiconductors, metals on semiconductors, Au(1 1 1), metal on metals including surface alloys, oxygen on metals, molecules adsorbed on metals, and AFM measurements of friction on graphite and mica.