PING: John Larkin

What did it contain, his ego?

(Before you laugh, realize this joke works just as well if I said "your ego"...)

;-)

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs, LLC Electrical Engineering Consultation and Contract Design Website:

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

"Seven Transistor Labs"? Is seven transistors the most you can manage? I suspect so >:-}

That's a joke, isn't it? ...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson | mens | | Analog Innovations | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

| 1962 |

I'm looking for work... see my website.

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Works for me.

I mean, it's not particularly funny (maybe I should've gone with a more humerous constant like three, or thirteen), but the permutation space offered by just seven transistors is... enormous. Not Turing complete by any stretch*, but still a vast number of things that can be done there.

You'd be surprised what you can accomplish in a restricted-parts exercise. >:-}

*Geesh... actually, I wonder how a proof of that would go. It might not even be the case. It may well be that an arbitrary passive (linear) network provides enough storage for just a couple of transistors to "operate" in some manner of speaking.

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC 
Electrical Engineering Consultation and Contract Design 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com

Drink it in moderation, please. Alcohol is bad for the liver.

The sales rep for our Universal pick-and-place machine also owns Frogs's Tooth Winery in Murphys. He dropped in a few weeks ago and gave me two cases, one Fume Blanc and one Viognier. Both are really tasty.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

I've thought of teaching a course with, say, 10 parts.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

I'm forced to be "moderate" right now... still recovering from the Xeloda (chemo) side-effects which makes my stomach sensitive to alcohol :-(

I look forward to trying it... Thanks! ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

Pray tell us what YOUR gift contained.

Isn't it all about elegance? If you can not solve the problem using SEVEN transistors or less, then you need to think (and re-design).

Barrie Gilbert wrote a chapter in one of Jim Williams's books. IIRC it's ca lled "Where Do The Little Circuits Come From?" and is an excellent read. He comes at it by enumerating all the useful two-transistor circuits, then mo ves on to a selection of the fairly vast number with three or four. He fini shes up by imagining the untold wealth of seven or eight transistors.

I do a lot of things that wouldn't work without large discrete sections, so I found myself nodding my head a lot while reading it.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

You can make anything out of TL431s!

Beginners need to understand electricity, so should start out with a

9-volt battery and an LED and two resistors. That's 4 parts already. Then maybe an NPN transistor, a mosfet, and a capacitor. That's only 7 so far.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

+1

Well, sometimes you need four billion.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

At some point, they're free so just keep going.

Hrrm, kids like encouraging scenarios. The 9V Battery should be in or connected to a thingibop with a dial that limits the current so if wires touch that shouldn't success is still a possibility.

Werner

The training kit should certainly include a DVM and an oscilloscope, so the process is quantitative all along. But if they blow up an LED or a transistor, they can get another one somehow, after some consternation.

Blowing things up, or not blowing things up, is fundamental to electronic design. I often blow things up on purpose.

--

John Larkin   Highland Technology, Inc   trk 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

[snip]

That's the nice thing about simulators... "blown up" parts don't need replacing ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142    Skype: skypeanalog |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 

             I'm looking for work... see my website. 

Thinking outside the box...producing elegant & economic solutions.

But Spice, and Spice models, tell you nothing about blowing up parts.

I often push parts into regions that data sheets don't allow, or that data sheets don't even mention, or that Spice models get wrong.

It's fun and educational to blow up parts.

--

John Larkin   Highland Technology, Inc   trk 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com