On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, David V. Corbin wrote:
> >> I think the question boils down: Are we losing any knowledge as each
> generation passes?
>
> I would have to answer this with a resounding YES!
Wow, two "resounding" yesses ;)
> There are many skills (engineering related or not) that are lost regularly.
> You mentioned tube technology. My father was one of the most respected
> engineering wiremen of the 1960's. He was highly sought after for making
> harnesses by many companies. The art of hand lacing a harness is basically
> lost. Harnesses of any significant size are rarely used anymore, and when
> they are, they are almost invariably "tie wrapped". I am sure nearly every
> list member could give a similar example.
>
> An alternative question of course is...
>
> "Does it matter if knowledge is lost as each generation passes?"
>
> This gets much more complicated......
This is more of what I'm getting at. Does it matter that some knowledge
is lost as generations go on? Are we ever going to need to go back to
tubes to design electronic circuits?
As long as the basics are retained and learned and taught--i.e. not
specifically HOW a tube or transistor works but WHY and WHEN we need or
want to use a device that provides a similar functionality--then teaching
people about tubes (and eventually transistors) is pretty useless (unless,
in the case of tubes, you are training someone to fix decades old
electronic equipment).
At some point, transistors will be as irrelevant as tubes. When tubes
became irrelevant, they were replaced by transistors, and so everyone
learned how to use, design with, or even build, transistors. Now,
transistors (for logic operations at least) have been supplanted by ICs,
and are fast becoming irrelevant (at least for logic designs, not
necessarily power or signal designs).
Again, the basics are what's key here: math, physics, chemistry. That
will never change. Everything else is irrelevant ;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Sun Jun 20 2004 - 16:30:26 BST