Horowitz-Hill: Serious scholarly query

H&H need not attribute the idea to Workman because it predates him by a decade or two.

John

Of course there's nothing didactical about AoE; electronic design is an art.

John

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Hewlett-Packard published a version of the circuit in the Hewlett-Packard Journal in the early 1970s. I used it to as the basis for a one-off for a friend of mine in the late 1970's. AoE mentions the National Semiconductor IC - the MM5437 - which was a single chip implementation of the same idea, so it doesn't sound as if HP had a patent, which suggests they didn't invent it.

Workman's implementation is obviously not "prior art" and EDN is not in any sense a referreed journal - I myself have had the experience of seeing an equation published in EDN Design Ideas that I'd published in Measurement Science and Technology a few years earlier (November 1996)

- admittedly Measurement Science and Technology is a British jurnal (published by the British Institute of Physics

) and thus not read by Americans.

If you want to raise issues of priority, you really should quote publication dates ....

-------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

I'm sorry Max, I received neither of those emails you mention, nor did I see the post you refer to. My long-standing home email address has not been functional for about a year now, and my work email should be used instead, edit this: hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu

I do try to answer all my mail. However, at work I receive about 10x more spams than real mail, more than about 300 messages/day (at home this number exceeded 2000/day and actually reached 10000 one weekend). Now my email is automatically screened with a Bayesian filter before I see it. This makes living with spam more bearable, only a 2x ratio to go through, but it also means some legitimate mail may be rejected.

Hmm, another email I don't recall receiving. I'd be interested in seeing a copy, to see how you phrased your complaint to me. Perhaps it was more along the line of suggestions? :>)

All I can say for our book is we worked hard on it, and it has to stand on its own. We're making major modifications for the third edition, and are happy to hear suggestions, however it's not likely we will become a Tietze-Schenk look-alike. That's because our attitude and approach is completely different - for example, we prefer to talk about parts and part numbers along with theory, more along the lines of what your completed drawings will look like when ready for your technician to make. We're trying to teach you how to think about your circuit, live inside it, the art of the design, so to speak, rather than simply the dry theory.

One complaint that's grown in my mind is that we've gone too far in this direction, often spelling out a design thought-by-thought, without simply writing down the equations. So we're adding those into the third edition, and tightening the text in places. We're also adding a set of concisely- written dense advanced "X" chapters, where we can pour more good stuff. It'll continue to be presenting electronic circuit design as we see it.

We think if you could only have one electronics book, ours wouldn't be a bad choice, but we also think you should absolutely not own just one book. Along these lines, I have one suggestion for Ban, get hold of a copy of Peter Dunn's book, "Gateways into Electronics," ISBN 0-471-25448-7.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

As I mentioned before, I didn't receive your email. However, we can address your concern here if you like.

I remember working with Paul on that drawing, which would have to have been sometime in 1977 or 1978. The inspiration for our design was an HP instrument which came out probably in the early 70s. This instrument fully laid out the technique, although it was more complex than our design, and I thought we could devise a more simple version. I don't recall the Workman article in ED, although I may have seen it - could you send me a copy? It would be interesting to compare and consider the differences.

If you examine our book, you'll see that we have very few references. We did not write, nor did we claim to write a scholarly book. Early in the writing process we were overwhelmed by the mass and scope of what we hoped to accomplish, and it was clear we could not take the time to find good or accurate references for everything we were presenting, and therefore we didn't even try. Here and there an idea struck us as being so inspired or clever that we mentioned its source, such as the "atta-boy" we bestowed on HP for an RF detector circuit, but such mentions are few and far between.

While our lack of references does make it hard for interested readers to explore more (and has sometimes even made it hard for us to tell someone now where to research an issue, for example we haven't been able to find the issue of the HP Journal in which the RF detector appeared), it was a necessary part of our effort, allowing us to finish without burning out.

We didn't often copy material directly in the book, but if we did, such as drawings or photographs, we were careful to get and print the permission.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

Max, I made the same experience. After buying AoE I was disappointed with it and wrote an Email to Win about his claim to teach electronic design with this book. In contrary to Tietze-Schenk AoE represents an unconcise collection of circuits from different sources, but missing is the red thread going through. It might be of value for the average hobbyist, but there is no didactical value IMHO.

There was no reaction to this mail as well.

--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

Not at all. It is indeed a "science". The issue here is that many haven't really given much thought to just how they design. They usually waffle on about how nebulous it was to come up with an actual design, but the bottom line is that design are always just a matter of the Darwinian axioms, i.e. replication, random variation and selection.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Analysis is science; invention is art.

That's not the way I do it; that would take *way* too long, and miss the really revolutionary ideas.

John

No, but it improves with practice, and I can teach it. Just like, say, tennis (which I can't teach.)

Design is holographic, massively parallel. I think that's the way a brain has to work, given an unlimited supply of slow gates.

Schitzophrenia is correlated with creativity. I think of both as being a breakdown in boundaries between things usually kept apart.

In my experience, there's only a modest correlation between serious analytical skills and the ability to invent new ideas and architectures. That's why AoE is a good book... it breaks away from the rigidity of theory (which one certainly should have as a baseline) and plays with ideas.

If electronic design were all equations, you might as well be an accountant.

John

Where do you get the student manual?

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

The HP instrument I referred to was the 3722A. It's not in my 1967 HP catalog, but it appears in 1969 with a broad 4-page entry (they also had a 8057A digital pink-noise generator in that catalog).

I scanned and posted the four 3722A pages to a.b.s.e. You'll see the cost of the 3722A was $2650, which I circled back then, while drooling. The last appearance I see was in my 1980 HP catalog, when it cost $4185.

--
 Thanks,
    - Win

But you've said you don't know how you do it. ;-) However, even if one assumes that random variations and that most of the selection is done subconciously, I suspect that truly random variations would lead to FAR too many dead ends, and it has more to do with pattern fitting, visual and structural metaphors if you will, perhaps from unrelated previously experienced patterns. That would also go some way to explaining the apparent connection between genius and insanity- more like the parameters being somewhat out of whack than a defect in the mechanism.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

I understand about the references, and I concur with the policy. AoE is a lore book rather than an analytical textbook--it's like having RoboWin at your elbow to answer questions. Lore books are rare (and precious) in most fields, but electronics is unusually rich in them, a style probably rooted in the hobbyist tradition of early radio. I consciously adopted this approach (including the attaboy-style references) in writing about electro-optics. (Optics isn't the very last bastion of Edwardian stuffiness, but it's close.) A bit more mathematical rigour and especially physical insight in spots (e.g. putting the Transistor Man in concrete galoshes, and explaining why I_s has a huge positive tempco) would be useful. It's great that you seem to be heading that way.

I'm looking forward to AoE 3rd very much. (Don't take up skydiving until after you send back the galleys.)

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

The underlying theory is rather old, almost 175 years, see "Evariste Galois".

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

[...]

[...]

Win,

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I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill wrote (in ) about 'Horowitz-Hill: Serious scholarly query', on Thu, 23 Dec 2004:

I agree, if you buy the student manual as well. Without it, the largely non-mathematical approach can be frustrating for those who can cope with maths.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only. 
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill wrote (in ) about 'Horowitz-Hill: Serious scholarly query', on Thu, 23 Dec 2004:

I understand your problem. I suggest you include that (suitably edited) statement in the next edition.

--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only. 
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

Last time I checked there were no actual axioms in Darwinism as it's still just a theory. What are you saying here Kevin - that design is random or accidental?

Regards, Mike.

If they can cope with the math then they won't be frustrated by the lack thereof but relish the challenge to produce their own calculation. Who the hell wants the insult of having everything spelled out for them? The whole idea of that book is to develop insight into circuit operation without getting bogged down in the distraction of minute mathematical detail of unnecessary precision.