Re: Question for Win Hill/ Athlon64

From: Guy Macon (_see.web.page__at__www.guymacon.com_)
Date: 01/01/05 

Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:09:01 +0000

(Why are you crossposting text maeesages to
alt.binaries.schematics.electronic?)

BFoelsch wrote:

>A whole generation of what I will call "Radio Engineers" grew up, who could
>use tables to slap together a resonant circuit, figure out its Q, make
>allowances for external effects and move on to the next problem. There was
>really no "engineering" involved, just patching together bits and pieces of
>what had been done before. These people absolutely, positively had the
>"hands on" experience that seems to be missing today, but I am ill at ease
>to call them engineers. Think about how much of the consumer electronics
>stuff of the 1950's worked "by accident," changing lead dress would throw it
>into oscillation, etc. Hell, think about all the truly rotten test equipment
>of the 1950's. This stuff was largely designed by the aforementioned "radio
>engineers." All experience and intuition, no real analysis or synthesis.
>
>Today we are at the opposite end, largely due to the fact that simulation
>lets us instantaneously perform calculations that were impossible years ago.
>The student doesn't develop a sense for component values and functions
>because exact calculations are painless and instantaneous, no estimates or
>guesstimates are necessary. It's hard to force one's self to learn a hard or
>inaccurate way when the exact way is at you fingertip, and that is where we
>are today; hands-on is the hard inaccurate way, simulation is the (arguably)
>exact way.

To my way of thinking, having one of each kind of engineer is an
ideal solution.

>Think about the chatter here a while back about the "decade boxes' being
>offered by another poster. A perfect tool for gaining experience, a lousy
>way to do engineering.

I disagree. For example, I recently had to deal with a marketing
department that wanted to have a series of meetings about product
color, pacaging - and the brightness of the front-panel LEDs.
Whether we like it or not, letting them see different brightnesses
is just as much a part of engineering as giving them proposed
box designs is part of graphics design.

I rather suspect that any attempt to use simulation to decide
how much current to send through those LEDs would have failed.