Idle thoughts, irony...

From: Dave McGuire <mcguire_at_neurotica.com>
Date: Fri Oct 15 13:27:45 1999

On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Bruce Lane wrote:
> 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've found that there are very definite categories of electronic stuff that
tend to get "outdated" at different rates. PCs (meaning Intel-based Windoze
boxes) are at one end of the range, with the average motherboard design being
produced for at most five months, and RF & analog test equipment being at the
other end of the range, with products often lasting for 20-25 years or more.

  The conversations I have with non-electronics people who walk into my RF lab
are often very funny. They'll see the purchase & calibration date stickers on
something like my Tektronix 492 spectrum analyzer or the HP 3325A synthesized
function generator and see that they're in excess of ten years old. I can tell
who the PC people are by their statements like "Wow! Why are you using that
old thing? Surely there's something newer! How can it possibly still work?!"
when (as any electronics buffs here know full well) that argument is completely
bogus.

  Take that current tracer, for example. There's absolutely *nothing* in the
functionality of that unit that would be improved in the least by any advances
in electronic technology in the past 15 years...much less in the past one year.
While, at the other end of the range, a new PC motherboard needs to be brought
to market every few months to keep up with the processor-clock-itis that drives
the PC world.

  The conversations I have with non-electronics people who walk into my RF lab
are often very funny. They'll see the purchase & calibration date stickers on
something like my Tektronix 492 spectrum analyzer or the HP 3325A synthesized
function generator and see that they're in excess of ten years old. I can tell
who the PC people are by their statements like "Wow! Why are you using that
old thing? Surely there's something newer! How can it possibly still work?!"
when (as any electronics buffs here know full well) that argument is completely
bogus.

  This is the main reason why the PCs and other stuff at that end of the range
tend to have zero resale value, while stuff at the other end hold their prices
in the used market for many years. A government surplus place that I frequent
is where I see this in action...they get stuff in by the truckload, ranging
from PCs to minis to comm gear to test equipment. The PCs, sometimes as
recent as Pentium boxes that, by their stickers, are two years old, go straight
to the scrap pile...while the nearly 25-year-old HP 141T spectrum analyzers get
gingerly carried inside and wiped down, ready to be sold for in excess of a
thousand dollars.

                           -Dave McGuire
Received on Fri Oct 15 1999 - 13:27:45 BST