Today, I had the misfortune

Are you back yet from your UK vacation? Or are you doing work while on vacation?

I'm back from vacation (I live in the UK nowadays :) - I was trying to deal with something a cow-orker hosed up.

I went to the highlands and sampled many a fine malt - now I'm wishing I was still doing it ;)

Cheers

PeteS

The last time I visited a Morrisons they stocked a pretty decent selection of malts. No need to go to the highlands for that.....

Meindert

Buying a malt at Morrisons vs tasting it at the distillery is rather like the difference between buying a fish at Morrisons and getting it at the dock off the boat.

Cheers

PeteS

Late at night, by candle light, PeteS penned this immortal opus:

For older parts I always check

first. Often enough it's the original mfr's datasheet without the hassle.

- YD.

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Remove HAT if replying by mail.

If you mean the 'front door', then yes - but I've bookmark the usefull pages, and go straight to those. The search in philips/nxp works quite well, and I like their 'similar parts' link ideas.

I did find they broke the philips/nxp website under netscape, with badly aligned pages - smacks of poor testing, but it does render OK under Firefox.

Well, OnSemi drives me nuts with their poorly filtered lists. I want to do much more than re-order the columns, so I gave up and use Fairchild's search instead.

I tried disable of javascript and their search and links seemed to work, with much simpler (but usable) rendered page view. I typed BC857W into the search window, and disabled javascript.

The Philips datasheets themsleves I find quite good, and the search usually gets pretty straight to them, IF you know the part number. Where they could improve things, is device search.

eg suppose I _know_ that I want a SMD MOSFET, Rds < 5mOhms, 20-40V, I should be abe to tell their web that, and get a quick short list.

-jg

Not long now until the most Northerly Scotch is ready for consumption - late this year for the three year old and late 2008 for the 5 year old. Check out

for details. It's pretty dear to pre-order and the taxman will want another cut on delivery but it would be good to have a few bottles of the first run (which might become a good investment - how much would a bottle of the first Talisker go for?)

I grew up in Shetland so I must declare an interest in plugging the local booze. I can also recommend White Wife and Simmer Dim real ales

as worth a try if you come across them.

What is wrong with that? Can't you selectively enable those for this site?

I really like the feature to download all relevant literature nicely zipped up, so everything is together and the file is named as the part number. It is also smaller if you are on dial-up.

You should learn how to come fastest to the desired docs, which is typing the part no into google. I never visit those home pages, go directly to the product folder.

Actually it is one of my favourite sites. No registration, pretty fast, good search, no nasty renaming of datasheets with cryptic names (this bothers me much more than JS). IMHO you seem anyway not to specify hardware parts, rather being a complainer like this Jorg. Maybe you should apply for a job there.

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ciao Ban
Apricale, Italy

3 year old whiskey is going to be pretty rough - that's the minimum age it has to be before you can even legally call it whiskey. There are very few self-respecting malts that are less than 8 years old.

I know and it worried me somewhat, especially considering what they are charging. However, I think there must be some 8yo due for an appearance because I dimly remember them beginning to mature the whisky quite a while ago (and it's been easily three years since I was last on the island).

Still it's darn cold up there and a bit of rough whisky would be welcome to warm the cockles ;-)

Hello Pete,

Wouldn't have said it quite that drastically but I agree. It is a classic example of how not to set up a web site.

Tried that with Philips Semi (rest in peace...), Infineon and ST. In a very friendly tone and to the top brass. Got ignored but that didn't surprise me.

Absolutamente. There are numerous reasons why some semi mfgs are struggling, to the point where they must auction off their biz. Poor web design is one but by far the predominant reason is a poor (or non-existent?) sampling process. Try to get a few BSP297. Been there, spent almost 2hrs on the phone, told them we'd pay whatever it takes, was promised numerous times that they'd now really be on the way, became frustrated, designed them out. That is "the" method to lose business. Problem is, because of their lack in listening skills they'll never know how much of their business is going to competitors on a regular basis.

I haven't put any company on my blacklist yet except those that are notorious for vaporware (we all know those...). But like you I first go to mfgs with a proper web site and when I find 2-3 sources within budget I might never venture to the ones with inefficient web sites.

Well, some things need to be rubbed in. Hoping someone wakes up at the big mfgs. Probably they won't.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

I prefer the Fairchild datasheets, especially for transistors. Where most semi manufacturers provide an ambiguous could-be-either-top-or-bottom-view diagram, Fairchild include a 3D view of the component, with pins labelled. Usually saves me a little confusion when breadboarding, anyway.

--
Phil.                         |  (\\_/)  This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny
usenet06@philpem.me.uk        | (=\'.\'=) into your signature to help him gain
http://www.philpem.me.uk/     | (")_(") world domination.
If mail bounces, replace "06" with the last two digits of the current year.

After mmy experiences today I would agree and go furtehr that is is a push site, with no feedback routes that work. Even supposedly setting up a 'My...' (how I hate that usage), is supposed to email a password, which never arrives.

Unless you are a company buying millions of their highest priced item they like ALL big organisations do not care.

Don't talk to me about samples/small qauntity purchasing!!

Close to being on my blacklist.

Doubt they will, but just be surprised when things go wrong down the line and make out there was nothing they could do to stop it. The board having got huge payouts along the way.

-- Paul Carpenter | snipped-for-privacy@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk PC Services GNU H8 & mailing list info For those web sites you hate

I was raised a little to the south of you (in Wick), and my great grandfather worked in the local distillery. After he retired, the workers would bring him a bottle of 'white whisky' once a week, and a bottle of the good stuff (marked as failing to meet standard, but that was just a ruse) every fortnight.

It's cold there too - went there last week to catch up with family.

Cheers

PeteS

Hello Paul,

Somehow that does not surprise me with this company. The sad part is that it was Philips that brought me into electronics. My parents got me an EE20 experimenters kit for Christmas when I was a kid. While in Europe their semi part were made and distributed by Valvo in Hamburg. They became part of Philips and the support was absolutely top notch. Back then I would not have dreamed that this could deteriorate so far and so fast.

Same with Siemens BTW. After it became Infineon it went downhill IMHO, and fast.

Plenty of examples how to do it right: Analog Devices, National, TI, and on and on. Hey Europe: Wake up!

Yep. But they fail to realize that today's small players are tomorrow's big guys. The other thing they fail to see is that consultants often design complete mass products. If they don't support them then their parts will never make it in. Once a design decision has been made it's done and done. Next to impossible to get in after the ECO. I've had sales guys close to bursting into tears after they found that out the hard way.

If they can't even figure that out they should at least sell through Digikey. But for large ranges of EU semiconductors that's not happening. Hence no design-wins.

Their top brass often has the habit of blaming everything else. The economy, the exchange rates. Something. All they'd initially need in terms of biz diagnostics would be a large mirror.

I remember when Jan Timmer slammed the pulpit. He really had a fit about the financials. I wrote to him with some ideas and so did others but he didn't listen.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

I was looking for a PowerMOSFET shortlist recently, and after being frustrated by various web sites, I used Digikey's search. Worked quite well [except the dummies list Power, and not milliohms], and showed some NXP & Infineon parts I would not otherwise have seen. Digikey's web site has the added advantage of having a 'stock reality check' built right in :)

-jg

Hello Jim,

Digikey has some but much of the good stuff just isn't there. In my case it was the BSP297. A great part, true engineering excellence, but it turned out to be nearly unobtainium unless you order a reel. Even then you might have to wait weeks. Not a realistic proposition for the prototype phase. They really need to clean up their act.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

RS-components show that one, on a 7 day lead time here in NZ ?

-jg

Hello Jim,

In the US, pretty large market I guess, it looks like this:

Digikey: Unobtanium Mouser: Unobtanium Arrow: 4 weeks (typically you must buy per reel)

That ain't no way to market electronic parts.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com