While reading the usual morning mail, a bit of irony chased its way
through my gray matter.
While on my recent trip to the Bay Area, both to attend part of VCF and do
a little scrounging, I was high bidder for a nice HP 545A logic probe a
fellow had up on E-pay (around $25 if I recall). I was able to pick it up
while on said trip, as he lived in south San Jose.
Picking this up completed my collection of HP's logic
probe/troubleshooting family: Probe, pulser, and current tracer. To this
day, I still consider this set one of the best for poking around in both
legacy and current logic circuits.
A few months back, when I'd gotten hold of the current tracer, several
folks were envious, though I couldn't understand why even after asking
around and getting a basic idea of what it was used for.
I'm now well into my second year towards my A.A.S. degree in Electronics,
and my current class is Intro to Digital circuits. I find it most ironic
that my textbook, published less than a year ago, should make extensive
reference to all THREE HP probes (which were first developed in the
mid-70's or earlier), including the current tracer, and show clear
illustrations of how they're all used to find stuck levels, shorted inputs,
etc.
What works well does indeed endure. ;-)
I do not regret going back to college, despite the effort of cramming
Boolean algebra and Karnaugh maps into my gray matter! (though I find I
really do like working with Karnaughs. They simplify things immensely!)
On we go...
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Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin_at_bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our
own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
Received on Fri Oct 15 1999 - 09:10:45 BST