Jedi Masters of Electronics

Electronics is very artsy to me.. I've found so many creative ways to dodge...the math! Why solve a bunch of simultaneous equations when the ballpark guesses are good enough.. :P

My circuit boards are the ones with all the extra pads for the 'tweeker parts'. :)

D from BC myrealaddress(at)comic(dot)com BC, Canada Posted to usenet sci.electronics.design

This is true. My mentor [who oddly enough was a physicist I worked for building electronic stuff as a student, who switched for some unknown reason from nuclear physics (the hot area at the time) to acoustics (about as dead an area as there was at the time). His name was Dr. A. H. Benade. His books on musical acoustics are still classics long after his death.] told stories about how during WWII Engineers were not like the profession is today. They were largely radio guys who designed out of handbooks and had little background in electromagnetic physics. So when the gummint got interested in radar and high frequency devices all the engineers were completely lost. So they brought in physicists to help with the advanced device design like magnetrons. At times with considerable friction developing between "scientists" and "engineers". Today, an engineering education is far more math and science based wherein device development tends to be pretty much spread around both physics and engineering as the backgrounds in both are now such at either can do the job if they choose to so specialize. And supposedly this change came right of the magnetron thing of WWII.

PS. How is it that you worked at the Company that made all the money building magnetrons and yet never learned how to spell it? :)

On a sunny day (Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:54:30 -0800) it happened D from BC wrote in :

Right, I got six month full time in the school banks from the national broadcasting entity here, required me to sign up for 2 years or so IIRC. That was on top of the required electronic education. From a class of 6, I think 2 or 3 dropped out. In that case you had to pay back something. For me it was nice, a natural, I think some got their brain fried... And I got full pay those 6 month. There was an exam at the end though :-) And you had no say where they were going to place you.

The advantage was, that you knew all technical stuff (a rather wide area from semiconductors to video to audio), got familiar with the inners of all equipment used, and the company's philosophy so to speak.

Was a very nice time.

On a sunny day (Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:27:17 -0800) it happened Hattori Hanzo wrote in :

How to make a profit again :-)

I also worked for Holley Carberator company one summer too :-)

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

Did your MS require writing a thesis, Jim? If so, what was the topic?

---Joel

Yep (even my BSEE at M.I.T. required a thesis).

BSEE Thesis: "Thermistors as Blood Flow-Rate Transducers", MIT, June

1962 (with cooperation of the faculty and staff at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

MSEE Thesis: "A High Performance Operational Amplifier Utilizing Field Effect Input Devices Compatible with Integrated Circuit Fabrication Techniques", ASU, June 1968 (in other words the _very_first_ BiFET OpAmp design :-)

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

            If I'm talking, you should be taking notes.

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

Thanks for the info, Jim.

They probably never made it into PDF format, I take it?

I built a heartbeat detector for an optics lab "final project" as an undergraduate (using IR reflected from your fingertip), and while it actually wasn't a great design (it required high gain, and the DC offset would tend to drift a lot), it did work well enough for a demo. The TA dinged me a bit because "it didn't have a digital readout of the heartbeat rate" (it just had a big red LED and beeper that would go off on each beat). @#$*(@#$!@# This was the early '90s though, where digital had pretty much taken over the University system...

Nice.

---Joel

Before PDF existed. Whether the universities have converted them or not, I don't know. Most universities keep such theses forever in their libraries, so PDF may exist.

Done for an exercise machine in the mid '70's, written up for SED in

1995/1999:

has DC restoration, etc.

If everyone promises not to laugh... some of the things I did in my

20's I have second thoughts about now... I'll PDF the two theses.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

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

More robust than what I did... although I *think* I used an LM324 as well. The box is probably sitting around in the basement at my parents house somewhere!

I'd certainly be interested... and promise not to laugh. :-)

---Joel

Er, there's an outfit that does that.

General Motors.

Not a good role model.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

You have missed and dissed my point. Similar to leading a horse to water; you can lead students to knowledge, but you cannot *MAKE* 'em think. Internalizing the information and methods is purely up to the student to do, it cannot be done by any other for the student. Intrinsically done by the student and no other:: thus solo. QED

Schools, including universities, are places of convenience to share and try to propagate knowledge. Also usually repositories of stored knowledge. There is not yet any technology to imprint students with what someone might wish them to believe, and doing so has serious ethical drawbacks.

Maybe you can't. I can.

Internalizing the information and methods is purely up to the

CRAP

Making them good at electronic design is not an ethical drawback.

John

Kodak did that. I once gave a seminar there (Rochester campus). I don't know if they do now.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
 I love to cook with wine     Sometimes I even put it in the food

In that case i have some "students" to send you. Names and addresses on request.

After you have "taught" my example students to think, i will consider your position.

I have a pretty cageful handy for you, all fairly local. All BSEE or better. You turn them into engineers and i will be your fan and student as well.

I'm not an educator; I'm in business. I need every employee to generate more revenue than he or she costs. So I pick only people with talent and potential and the right personalities, and I teach them to be as good as they can be. And I learn from them, which helps *me* be more valuable than I cost.

If you have someone that might meet those needs, have them send me a resume. If you have a load of duds on your hands, keep them. I could teach them some things, but at the level we're working, it's unlikely I could ever make them valuable.

But in this industry today, the complexities of both the technology and the business (and the engineering is half business) are so extreme that nobody is going to get far by teaching themselves. We learn together.

John

Scan of Master's now posted at...

The bachelor's will take awhile. Original typed on ordinary typewriter paper... seriously yellowed :-(

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn\'t be called research...
                    -- Albert Einstein

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

Thanks Jim!

Ooh, an opamp with V+, V- and *ground*. Blast from the past!

Given the date, that was at least as good as anything you could buy back then.

It says you've been working on a Masters since 1962. How's that coming along?

John