OT: Howland Current Source/Pump

Umm, its here.... at the Apexmicrotech site.

This is the 'improved Howland current pump' so Not sure if its what your looking for.

Cheers

Hello Jim,

I'd ask Win. IIRC Professor Howland published it in the late 50's (1959?) and he was at MIT at that time. Hey, didn't you graduate from there?

Regards, Joerg

looking for.

[snip]

I'm looking for B. Howland's original paper.

(The link you reference blows up my Acrobat 4.0)

...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 | |

| 1962 | It's what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

All I've been able to track down is his name, B.Howland, and he was at MIT Lincoln Labs, which is _miles_ from the MIT campus.

Sometimes Google ISN'T your friend ;-)

...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     |
             
     It\'s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

--- Er..mm... If you can't afford an upgrade, there's a newer, free reader available at:

but, since you say you've got me plonked, you'll never read this.

Maybe somebody else with help your sorry ass out, maybe not.

-- John Fields Professional Circuit Designer

Hello Jim,

But maybe they can help you in obtaining a copy.

A lot of the older stuff hasn't ever been 'electronified' so it isn't searchable. In 1959 they used type-setting machines and then it was off to the presses. With some luck your local university library in might have the table of contents of the major journals from that year. That is how I once found a paper about Q-multipliers from the days of tubes.

Regards, Joerg

ere?

Google Scholar, on the other hand, produced this

"A Novel AC Current Source for Capacitance-Based Displacement Measurements - group of 2 =BB R Nerino, A Sosso, GB Picotto - IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT IM, 1997 - ieeexplore.ieee.org .=2E. d) Instability arising in Howland-type current source appli- cations ... values and was found to be negligible compared with those described in b). f) Very ... "

in response to "B. Howland" + "current source".

The 1997 paper will be accessible - I've probably got a copy on micro-fiche, not that there would be any point in finding it for Jim , since he's got me permanently plonked - and itshould contain a reference to the original Howland paper.

This approach, of working backwards towards a frequently cited paper, is familiar to anybody who has done any significant literature searching.

Google Scholar is a lot more accessible, and cheaper, than Citation Index.

--=20 Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Why bother to even try? He claims to know everything, so let him prove it.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Hello Bill,

Hmm, I have no plonk file. Wouldn't even know off the top of my head how to do that. So, can someone be unplonked?

Sometimes that works. However, when things go back to before the mid

60's I rarely had luck with backward reference searching. Except for pointers to some classics like engineering handbooks. If people didn't have a hardcopy of a paper they usually wouldn't reference it at all. I remember that even in the 80's and early 90's I received a lot of requests for offprints every time I published. That was because these folks had no other way to obtain a copy at reasonable cost, meaning without having to sign a one year subscription to the tune over a few hundred Dollars.

And I wish they'd lower the price on IEEE Explore.

Regards, Joerg

Walt Jung might have published something with that sort of information in it.

--
Tony Williams.

Unfortunately not; the reference is to an article (probably a Design Idea), "Tame those Versatile Current Source Circuits", in the Oct 15, 1992 issue of Electronic Design magazine.

It is Bradford Howland at MIT Research Laboratory for Electronics

Bradford Howland published many papers, all co-authored, in a wide variety of the technical literature from biophysics to instrumentation systems to cybernetics. It is most likely that the VCCS disclosure is buried in a biophysics paper as an example circuit realizing a higher accomplishment or report, and you may not find a paper of the type "Novel OA Current Source..." etc. Let us know how it turns out. J. Graeme was interested in them- check his books.

there?

Oh, well. Google Scholar threw up a lot more references. I checked out all the HTML references, and none of them came up with anything useful, although if Fred Bloggs is right, it may be buried in one of the biophysics papers, and I skipped them as useless.

--=20 Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

I seem to recall that Bob Pease has mentioned these in one of his books. He was contemporaneous with Howland at MIT, perhaps he knows. You should be able to contact him through Electronic Design magazine - sorry, none handy here so I don't have his address.

Steve

I found the "tamed" one also, but still no cite to the original paper, if there was one... I'm beginning to wonder.

...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     |
             
     It\'s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

Not all were co-authored. A search in IEEEexplore turned up a paper titled, "A Figure of Merit for the Design of Inductance Coils Having Low Distributed Capacitance", published in the IRE Transactions on Component Parts, September 1962. He was the sole author and this was the only paper of his found by IEEEexplore.

Found references:

Electronics for cosmic-ray experiments Howland, B.; Schroeder, C.A.; Shipman, J.D., Jr. Source: Review of Scientific Instruments, v 18, Aug. 1947, p 551-556

Recombination spectrum and electron density measurements in neon afterglows Holt, R.B.; Richardson, J.M.; Howland, B.; McClure, B.T. Source: Physical Review, v 77, 15 Jan. 1950, p 239-241

Footnotes on a headstage Lettvin, J.Y.; Howland, B.; Gesteland, R.C. Source: Institute of Radio Engineers Transactions on Medical Electronics, n PGME-10, March 1958, p

26-28

Bridge for measuring impedance of metal microelectrodes Gesteland, R.C.; Howland, B. Source: Review of Scientific Instruments, v

30, n 4, Apr, 1959, p 262-264

Comments on microelectrodes Gesteland, R.C.; Howland, B.; Lettvin, J.Y.; Pitts, W.H. Source: Institute of Radio Engineers -- Proceedings, v 47, n 11, Nov, 1959, p 1856-1862

Half cycle resonant delay circuit Howland, B. Source: Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, v 47, n 5, May 1959, p 993-994

Bridge for measuring the impedance of metal microelectrodes Gesteland, R.C.; Howland, B. Source: Review of Scientific Instruments, v

30, n 4, April 1959, p 262-264

Improved square wave inductance bridge Howland, B. Source: Review of Scientific Instruments, v 31, n 7, July,

1960, p 763-768

Design of wide-band shielded toroidal R.F. transformers Berg, R.S.; Howland, B. Source: Review of Scientific Instruments, v 32, n

7, July 1961, p 864-865

Figure of merit for design of inductance coils having low distributed capacitance Howland, B. Source: IRE -- Transactions on Component Parts, v CP-9, n 3, Sept, 1962, p 102-105

------------------------------------------------------------ And a bunch of Optics related papers by perhaps another B Howland, although this first one still has the author at MIT.

New test patterns for camera lens evaluation Howland, B. (Res. Lab. of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA) Source: Applied Optics, v 22, n 12, 15 June 1983, p 1792-3

Improved light diffuser based on the Kalliroscope effect Howland, B. (MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA) Source: Applied Optics, v 17, n 9, 1 May 1978, p 1307-8

A subjective method for the measurement of monochromatic aberrations of the eye Howland, H.C. (Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA); Howland, B. Source: Journal of the Optical Society of America, v 67, n 11, Nov. 1977, p 1508-18

Subjective measurement of high-order aberrations of the eye Howland, B. (MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA); Howland, H.C. Source: Science, v

193, n 4253, 13 Aug. 1976, p 580-2

Fiber optical proximity probe of novel design Howland, B. Source: Quarterly Progress Report, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, n 101, 15 April 1971, p 265-8

Use of crossed cylinder lens in photographic lens evaluation Howland, B. Source: Applied Optics, v 7, n 8, Aug. 1968, p 1587-99

Generation of third-order spherical and coma aberrations by use of radially symmetrical fourth-order lenses Lopez-Gil, N. (Sect. of Neurobiol. & Behaviour, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA); Howland, H.C.; Howland, B.; Charman, N.; Applegate, R. Source: Journal of the Optical Society of America A (Optics, Image Science and Vision), v 15, n 9, Sept. 1998, p 2563-71

But none on the current source. I found many of these, but doubt that most have anything to do with the Howland current pump. Many dates don't jibe with "contemporary of Pease". _I_ was a "contemporary of Pease", he graduated from MIT in 1961, I in 1962.

...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     |
             
     It\'s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.