On Apr 16, 10:22 am, John from Detroit wrote:
N2EY wrote:
On Apr 15, 7:20 pm, John from Detroit wro

That is what I get for being a Science Major.. I consider "Doing" (LAB)
to be part of the "Studying" (Lecture hall) process. (IN short agreed)

Ham radio is a lot closer to engineering than science, however.

The technicial ability is a result of the willingness to study

Partly - but it also is a result of doing. "Book learning" is great
but it must be matched by practical know-how to do a radio amateur any
good.

There is a story... And you are looking at the end result of it as you
read this.

The story is a Professor had a bright idea.. How to make analog devices
(Vacuum tubes) work in a DIGITAL fashion (Could this be the first
computer circuit... Yes, it was.. I told you you were looking at the end
result)

Who was the Professor and where was he?

(here follows a digression)

The reason I ask is that I've seen and put my paws on parts of ENIAC -
the world's first fully operational high speed, general purpose,
Turing-complete, electronic digital computer. All modern computers are
descended from ENIAC.

Yes, there were other machines that try to claim the title. But they
all lack one or more of the characteristics of ENIAC.

For example, some early machines were part mechanical and part
electronic. Some were never fully operational, or only became fully
operational long after ENIAC. Many were special-purpose machines,
built to do one thing rather than being general-purpose programmable
systems that were Turing-complete. Many were not high-speed, using
line frequency for the clock.

About the only serious competition ENIAC has is the British Colossus
machine. But because of extreme secrecy, Colossus did not have any
direct descendants, while ENIAC did, leading to the first UNIVAC. I'm
not sure if Colossus was Turing-complete, either.

You see. He was a Ham Radio Operator and he had tested the theory.

Another story:

Some years back there was a documentary about the development of the
proximity fuze during WW2. The challenge was to build a small radar
set - with tubes, antenna, battery, etc. - into an artillery shell.
The problems involved were immense, considering that the fuze would
have to survive the shock of being fired, the spinning of the flight,
and still work when it got to the target. It would also have to not
detonate falsely, and work without maintenance after months or years
of storage and transport.

One of the managers of the project said that what worked best in the
development was to pair a theoretical scientist, usually a physicist,
with a ham. The physicist would do the theoretical; the ham would do
the practical. The proximity fuze was developed and manufactured in
the millions during the war.

I will look for the book. Kobiashi Maru IIRC.

73 de Jim, N2EY