MSc in Elctronics Circuits Design

Hello Jim,

Man, I wish I had that when I was young. An account, wow. OTOH it instilled a bit of cost discipline when you looked at the kitty and realized that the (then pretty new) SN7474 was a bit too pricey. I built a lot of those from transistors that came out of discarded electronics. I got pretty good at "mass unsoldering".

Yeah, but c'mon, I bet you read electronics magazines, ham radio literature or a book from the library. I bought my copy of AoE around

1990 when the 2nd edition came out.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Keep in mind that my father had a radio and TV repair shop.

The only "SN" is my vocabulary at that age was a 6SN7. Transistors didn't really get into the commercial market until about 1955-56, and I/C's around 1960.

I did a lot of that, too.

Sure. My bible was the "Radiotron Designers Handbook". And the ARRL publications. And I bought "Hunter" when I was 16.

...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     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Geeze Jim, you started late!

I had my own workshop well before I hit 10 :-D

Dave :)

No. I was going to go into architecture, and still have a love for it.

I only delved into tubes so I could build my own stereo.

But I got bit by transistors in 1956, and changed direction.

...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     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

the

I had to share Dad's workshop, but i was successfully calculating BJT bias when i was 10. I was building every kit i got my hands on too.

--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
--Schiller

There weren't BJT's until I was ~15 ;-)

...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     |
             
I love to cook with wine.      Sometimes I even put it in the food.

I didn't see my first BJT until I was 12, but I could sure as hell draw you the load line of an 807 (actually, the 12 volt filament version, 1625) when I was 10.

Jim

Um, there must be a few, just by accident. My friend Dan teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi, and he's a good circuit designer.

For some occasional fun, if you have a few spare minutes in a library, look at some of the circuit designs in The Review Of Scientific Instruments.

John

Montana State University has some real electro-optical design folks--they regularly turn out grads who know which end of a soldering iron to hold, and can (*gasp*) explain how their circuit works without pointing to a simulation. They even do their own algebra!

Amazing, considering how good the skiing is around Bozeman.

Cheers,

Phil

Learning to ski taught me a lot, about commitment and calibrated risk taking and going flat out when it's required and minimal use of energy when it's not.

John

[snip]

I don't believe "design" can be taught, even by a designer. All he can do is demonstrate some of his designs, but I don't think he can ever convey his actual thought processes.

...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 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Well, it doesn't work very well in a classroom, but I don't think that your "demonstrate" thing works all that well either. You don't teach someone to play tennis by demonstrating, but by playing tennis with them.

I think you can teach someone to design electronics (assuming they have the talent and temperament) by designing actual, non-trivial products with them. It's hard, because at least at first, you're 10x as good as they are, but you have to let them have a go at it and make some of their own mistakes and sort of gently steer them, but not humiliate them, so that they get better and don't get too discouraged.

John

Of course design can be taught, just like anything else. All you have to do is come up with the coursework. Of course, the student has to _want_ to learn it.

It reminds me of a write-up of some sales training seminar, where the lecturer said, "Who believes that to be a salesman, you have to be a born salesman? OK, now, how many of you believe that to be a surgeon, you have to be a born surgeon?"

Or maybe what I'm thinking of isn't "design" - maybe that's reserved for the inner circle and shrouded in arcana - I'm just assuming that it's like, define the goal, find out what you have now, and figure out how to arrange things such that your final product meets the spec.

I guess you could spend anywhere from a week to some years to teach it, like anything else.

And, I firmly believe that anyone who _is_ unteachable in a particular field wouldn't be too interested in it in the first place. :-)[1]

Thanks! Rich [1] Kinda like, when people say, "We need affirmative action because the percentage of Blacks in the fire department isn't the same as the percentage of Blacks in the overall community!" I want to ask them, "So, how many Blacks have applied for the job?"

Can you teach, "teaching"? ;-) I've found over the years that it takes some self-control to not get impatient with people who don't already know it all, but I think that might be more about being a grown-up. ;-)

(nowadays I get impatient with peple who DO know it all, and won't shut up about it! ;-D )

Cheers! Rich

"Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@doubleclick.net...

I'd protest that this isn't a valid comparison -- the first question tends to imply "a *really good* salesman" whereas the later question implies "any old surgeon." Part of this is due to the fact that everyone knows it's a lot harder for *anyone* to become a surgeon than a salesman. It would be fairer to ask, "Who believes that to be a *really good* salesman, you have to be born that way?" and "Who believes to be a *really good* surgeon, you have to be born that way?" Or perhaps better still, "Who believes that to be a *rather mediocre* salesman, you have to be born that way?" and "Who believes to be a

*rather mediocre* surgeon, you have to be born that way?"

Well, technically, "born that way" is on kind of a different axis than the spectrum of the original question: "Can design be taught?"

I think yes, if the person is born with a predisposition for it. ;-)

Of course, you know, I'm saying that with a lot of my tongue in my cheek, but wouldn't that be what it boils down to? I'd think electronics people would be REAL GOOD at grasping two- (or more-) dimensional questions.

Thanks! Rich

You can "teach" design, but I do believe that person has to have at least some degree of predisposition or talent, call it what you will. Being "taught" design does not mean you'll be a *good* designer though. There is a massive difference between a top designer and someone who can just do basic design.

Also, experience does not automatically make an average designer a top designer, they can certainly remain average for ever more.

It's no different to anything else really. I *know* that even if I spend the next 50 years leaning chess from the best, I still won't be able to beat Garry Kaparov, even if I'm taught by Garry himself.

Dave :)

Even worse are the people who THINK they know it all and won't keep quiet about it.

We have a field tech like that. When some control or other goes flaky (per operator complaint[1]) he's all over it, measuring all the wrong stuff and reaching all the wrong conclusions. Then he'll call me up, "Hey, can you check out the programming for such-and-such, looks like the PLC's gone out of kilter"?

So I break out the laptop and my own field gear and go about measuring it all over again until I find the loose wire, flaky sensor, open tank drain or whatever. I used to be a field tech myself until migrating to the higher level stuff so I know the ropes.

All the while he's dogging me in the background, yapping away, questioning everything I do. "I already measured that, the reading must be right" (it's not), "prove that sensor's wrong, I'm telling you it's the control program". You get the idea.

So I just sort of disable my auditory centers and go about my business while he tags along, increasingly frustrated. The readouts from the PLC tell me what to look for and in a while I have the fault isolated.

That's when I get back to being Mr. Nice Guy. Tell him what was really wrong and how I found it, hoping some of my wisdom will rub off. It never does. Next time it'll be the same thing all over again.

He's actually a rather nice guy but he get's easily flustered and has never learned to reason over what's actually going on. He's OK for routine field maintenance but once in a while there's something that goes way over his head but he won't admit it.

[1] The operators only know what they see on the screen. When a reading's wrong they're all over themselves blaming the computer. Actually getting off their asses and look at the real tank level never crosses their minds.

- YD.

--
Remove HAT if replying by mail.

There's a few choice quotes about designers, but one of the marks of a good designer is they know they might be wrong - after all, no-one knows it all although some know much more than others :)

I've been in design reviews where a designer took criticism of the design as a personal affront. I will say I have joked about acquiring asbestos underwear for design reviews, though ;)

As others have mentioned, there has to be a certain degree of aptitude for design in the first place. I think someone can be guided but not directly 'taught' to be a designer. We all approach our designs in our own way, of course and 10 designers will come up with 20 ways of solving a particular problem, none of which is necessarily 'better' or 'worse' - it depends on the various goals of the design. I have long believed that design is where art meets technology.

If you have person who believes there can only be 'one true way' to do a design, they're going to struggle, if indeed they survive as a designer, imo.

Cheers

PeteS