A good digital oscilloscope?

Multiplex. Typically there are several ADCs, like four, that are ganged all together to provide 4x the sample rate. When you turn on two channels only two each are ganged and the max available sample rate drops to half. It's quite normal.

I would have to guess the the ratio of how often people damaged or ruined their starter or gearbox from trying to start without the clutch all the way in to how often someone ended up with a stalled car on railroad tracks is perhaps about a million to one? :-)

Apparently what makes new automatics as efficient or even a little more so than manuals is hitting the optimal shift points better than your average human does.

I keep hoping that one of these days an inexpensive and reliable continuously variable transmission finds its way into cars.

---Joel

Come on, Joerg, Get a life. Unless you're into jackrabbit starts, automatic trannies beat manual hands-down... check out Consumer Reports automobile reviews. You're still thinking 19th Century ;-) ...Jim Thompson

AFAIK you can't easily ruin the gear box even with the clutch released and in gear. The starter, yes, but even that will take a while if it's a good quality one.

Not sure, since the automatic can't see a slope or a curve coming up. Maybe some day it can and it's all GPS-linked. And then the computer goes on the fritz ;-)

Would be nice but I am quite happy with the manual transmission in my car. Does the job and contains no electronics that could fry.

Have you ever used a TDS5xx series scope?

You need to do better than that -> link?

So far every review I've read listed the automatic version of the same vehicle as slightly higher to quite a lot higher in consumption. So, got a link?

Well, many years ago I had a 1972 or so Ford Econoline 100 van, and the clutch linkage failed while I was on the road. There was no connection at all from the pedal to the clutch itself. I drove it that way for the rest of the day. Find the right RPM so there's no force on the gears, drop it into neutral, coast to a stop. Turn off the motor, put it in first, and crank the motor 'til it kicks in, and you're driving. Then shifting without a clutch wasn't bad; just feather the throttle to get the RPM at a coast, drop it into neutral, and idle down to the right RPM for the next gear, and drop it into the next gear. I took out the broken piece of linkage at home, and carried it in to work - luckily, I had a "spare" car (a $50.00 winter beater) to get to work in, and I gas-brazed the piece of linkage back together - it was shaped like a tall integral:

_ | | | | | | | | _|

and one of the elbows had opened up.

Slapped it back in when I got home, and the van was none the worse for wear. :-)

I got laid in that car[1] probably more than most men deserve. ;-P

Cheers! Rich [1] It was a van, but I called it my "tall car". ;-) No rear windows, but it had been tricked out with carpeting and sort of a restaurant-booth arrangement that folded down into a bed. I miss that van. I had vanity plates: "RITCH". ;-)

The Toyota Corolla gets 26/35MPG (city/highway) with a manual and 27/35 with an automatic. The Nissan Sentra is more impressive at 24/31 (manual) and

From here:

See my prevous post. ;-) It's been my experience that Fords will run forever if you keep the oil topped up. :-) (at service station: "Fill up the oil and check the gas.") ;-)

Cheers! Rich

My MGs had horribly unreliable hydraulic clutches. I got pretty good at clutchless driving, which involves starting the car in first gear.

That's been the ME's Holy Grail for decades now. They have no equivalent to a switching regulator; they are still tap switching!

John

Here's what the Car Talk guys have to say:

Tom: So there's no longer any good economic argument for driving a standard transmission...especially when you factor in the inevitable clutch job or two you'll need. It's purely a matter of preference these days. If you like shifting, then get a stick shift.

Ray: But if you have better things to do with your right hand and left foot while you drive, get an automatic, and don't worry about the mileage difference.

(There's more discussion about how these things work -- they're targeting a rather non-technical audience, of course -- here:

---Joel

Or even a not-so-good quality one. Had the clutch cable break on a Renault once upon a time. Speed-match shifting isn't so bad but there were a few places where I just had to stop. So, stop. When it was time to go, hit the starter and baby the throttle a bit. Luckily (hah) there were no up-hill starts required. Since that car also ate speedometer cables and ECUs, had a brake line split, and the alternator fall off, I'd not wager that the starter was within throwing distance of "good quality." ;-)

On a sunny day (Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:10:15 -0800) it happened Joerg wrote in :

I do not use drugs either. Those scopes do not even have radio and TV, let alone terrestial DTV.

On a sunny day (Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:25:08 -0800) it happened "Joel Koltner" wrote in :

Manual should be outlawed.

Then it also has to account for what is going on in the front and in the back, how is the weather and zillion of other factors.

Agreed. There is only one inconvenience with manual: when you have to eat while driving through a city.

VLV

Actually my wife has a Corolla. When working in a town 20 miles away I used it at times and yeah, I got 35mpg highway but only with very careful driving (I am pretty good with eco-driving). With stick shift Corollas I can get close to 40mpg.

One thing you absolutely must have (and many manuals don't) is overdrive. Automatics usually do and if the manual doesn't, yes, then they can win. But that would be comparing apples to oranges. My big Audi in Germany had overdrive and I regularly got 35mpg out of that rather fat full-size station wagon. My Mitsubishi doesn't have that and I can't get it above 28mpg because it runs around 3000rpm at 65mph, too much.

Then you don't even know what you've missed :-)

Seriously, those things were rather good in runt pulse triggering. If I didn't already have the Instek and Joseph wouldn't have had first dibs I'd have sent a check for $800 to JW. Or if it's Jim Weir I'd have hopped into the car and driven up there.

Cool! I thought they also had to be "charged" with light.

robert

That's integesting. I need to check, but I think in Germany "Spritus" is just alcohol plus some non-toxic but extremely bitter-tasting additives. OK, the German Wikipedia confirms this. No Methanol.

robert