A fellow technician once asked me : " If I wire 2 x 9v batteries in
parallel , will I get 4.5v or 18v ? "
My reply - a resigned " Oh , f*** off " didn't answer his question but
everyone else in the room was laughing anyway.
We also had an ex- RAF guy who used to ask for a 250v fuse - not a 12v one
, a 250v one !?
It took a long time to put him straight.
Both could be classed as "board jockeys " as opposed to their earlier
counterparts " valve jockeys".
I am also told of production workers on a TV assy. line who complained that
their remote controls didn't work.
Of course , they tested fine....etc. It turned out ( this was in the early
days of remote controls ) that they had "lifted " the remotes to use at home
on their old "non-rc" tv's.
Who was it said that ,to earlier civilisations, high technology would appear
to be magic ?
Not that much earlier , it would appear.
Geoff.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 4:14 AM
Subject: Re: Modern Electronics (was Re: List charter mods &
> >
> > It's worse than that. Most people in electronics today don't even have
a
> > good understanding of basic components such as diodes, transistors,
> > capacitors etc. A good example was the guy on this list that claimed
>
> A lot of people don't understand _wire_ properly ;-). Of course that is
> one of the most complex parts of your circuit in general.
>
> > voltage didn't matter in a power supply, only current. VERY few of the
>
> I once had a row with an idiot who decided that the 100 off 100nF
> decoupling capacitors I'd shown across the supply lines (this was a large
> board...) could be replaced by a single 10uF electrolytic mear the power
> connector. This was on a board of ECL clocking at 100+ MHz.....
>
> > people that I know that have Electrical Engineering degrees can even
read a
> > color code or can identify simple parts such as a resistor from a diode.
I
>
> Most people with EE degrees over here can find and solve the equations a
> lot better than I can, but have no idea what they mean, or why they're
> applicable, or what the components actually are. Somebody once asked me
> for a 362.8 ohm (or something like that) resistor to use as an LED
> current limiter because that's what the formula had told him to use...
>
> -tony
>
Received on Sun Jun 20 2004 - 12:59:25 BST