Re: Question for Win Hill/ Athlon64

From: Kevin Aylward (salesEXTRACT_at_anasoft.co.uk)
Date: 01/02/05 

Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2005 09:30:20 GMT

BFoelsch wrote:
> "Guy Macon" <_see.web.page_@_www.guymacon.com_> wrote in message
> news:10te4cftn1shi41@corp.supernews.com...
>>
>> (Why are you crossposting text maeesages to
>> alt.binaries.schematics.electronic?)
>
> Dunno. Just hit "Reply to group" without looking. I'll behave next
> time......
>
>> 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.
>
> Or one engineer who has both experience and theoretical knowledge.
>
>>> 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.
>
> You are of course correct, but had the marketing department specified
> the desired light output you would certainly have been able to
> calculate the required circuit parameters.
>
> Again, my original post took the position of devil's advocate. A
> successful engineer must possess both theoretical and practical
> knowledge. I was just commenting on my observation that, in the case
> of many EE curricula, the pendulum has swung over 50 years from the
> "too little theory" side to the current "too little practice" side.

Not sure I can agree with that. Curriculum's have always been lots of
theory, but the theory is often irrelevant. Lets consider Maxwell's
Equations in their full glory. What actually % of EE's design wave
guides or antennas? 0.1%?

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

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