Art of Electronics 3rd edition? (probably the billionth time this has been asked here)

Good points John -- and I'd keep in mind that you're definitely what I'd consider a "high end" practioneer of electrical engineering these days... and you still do plenty of analog design as well; a great number of EEs end up doing nothing more challenging that, e.g., designing almost-all-digital single-board computers to function as WebTVs or similar...

Well, there is that complex math issue, and mapping the time domain onto the frequency domain and all that. Being only a tech, I never learned about Bode Plots, and Poles and Zeros and stuff, except vaguely, by osmosis, so to speak.

And imaginary exponents give me nightmares. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Yabbut, can you solder? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Not sure about that. Much of this business has gone to Outsourcia and they now turn around every penny. Especially since several Asian companies have begun eating their lunches.

If a scope had such bells and whistles I'd be real suspicious about performance :-)

On a sunny day (Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:38:42 -0700) it happened Joerg wrote in :

A scope should at least have TV:

You're right about that...

The complex math/phasor stuff is actually quite straightforward (at least if you found high school algebra OK) -- I think it's a bit of a disservice that techs aren't taught it as the "bang for the buck" is quite high.

The Fourier/Laplace domain bits is a bit trickier when going through the math, although the results are actually pretty straightforward (although perhaps a bit overly abstract if you haven't seen at least some of the math). It's actually kinda comical in that you spend one semester doing all these integrals to derive various Fourier/Laplace transforms, and the next semester you instead largely spend your time using a time of well-known transforms and properties of them (e.g., how the transforms changes with a shift in time or phase or similar) and forget about all those derivations from first principles.

As someone else mentioned, it's really more the way they're introduced to students than what they really "are" that makes them scary.

---Joel

I occasionally tutor grandchildren and neighbor kids. MOST math problems are fear-induced, rather than real. Get a kid turned around to "math is fun" and off they go like a rocket. ...Jim Thompson

And it should show the time so you don't miss dinner while in the lab:

Is that the Milka cow from the chocolate commercial in the 2nd scope screen picture?

Well, the cheapest FET probe at Tek these days -- P6243, 1GHz -- is $966. The cheapest passive probe -- P2221, 200MHz -- is $113.

A year or so ago I bought 4 replacement probes for a 2465B, getting Probemaster 5905-1RA's for $189/ea

So I think there's still some pretty healthy margins there!

Oh, Tek and similar already have you on their blacklist of "won't buy any new scopes" anyway. :-)

---Joel

On a sunny day (Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:57:23 -0700) it happened Joerg wrote in :

That is actually a very nice display. IIRC J Larkin had a BASIC program some time ago to draw characters like that.

Na, it is from some free DVD I got with a DVD player long time ago.

My LCD PIC scope has time like that: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/lcd_rclock_img_2016.jpg

It also has a psychedelic FFT mode: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/strange_waveform_img_1885.jpg

That is from this project, singe chip storage oscilloscope: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/strange_waveform_img_1885.jpg

Oh, and games, it should have games...

Sure looks like it. With lab gear I do the same as before a car purchase, I check the cost of parts that commonly break. When I looked at Instek a complete probe with all the trimmings could be bought for around $25, AFAIR.

Oh, I would. But only if they catch up to the price/performance ratio of their new Asian rivals.

Yes. Every Dutch electronics piece should have at least Yahtzee on there, for those long shopping bus tours into Germany :-)

When I buy a car I look for one that regularly goes >170K (~10 years) miles without needing any repairs other than battery, brakes and tires (and only lube/oil changes) ;-)

Nissan/Infiniti has served me well since the mid-'70's ...Jim Thompson

Which puts you ahead of the game. *Way* ahead.

Ed

It's much better for your health to not let _anything_ chew on your psyche.

But the rules of life are actually quite simple... it only takes two:

(1) Your wife is always right (2) When your wife is wrong, apply Rule #1 :-) ...Jim Thompson

My wife went to BU and waited tables in Cambridge. The waitresses made fun of the MIT geeks hunched over their food, hiding behind their books. They were mostly too shy to say anything.

We didn't have problems like that at Tulane. I think we got the Playboy award one year for the best party school. Tulane prectically invented the "gentleman's C": pay your tuition, show up for exams, don't get the dean's daughter pregnant, and get a diploma.

John

Yup. I learned to solder when I was three years old, and still do it almost daily. I need my Mantis and my Metcal to do the tiny stuff.

I solder more often than I Spice!

John

One pretty clear separator between techs and engineers is the ability to stabilize control loops. Jim Williams' work screams "technician" because he just adds huge caps somewhere until things stop oscillating.

I can explain basic, practical control theory in about 20 minutes on a whiteboard. It's surprising how many people don't know this. Economists, for instance.

John

Well, I guess you also ought to change the timing belt with this kind of mileage. That's one pricey repair job.

My old Audi continues to amaze me. It's still driving around, long haul Germany-Sweden. It'll celebrate its 24th birthday pretty soon :-)

No major repairs so far. Other than some body work after a big frozen foods truck backed into it.