sorry-spammers wrote:
Yep, this is an off-the-wall question.....

Paging through an old QST, it dawned on me that when schematics are
drawn, usually the earliest stages are drawn on the left side of the
diagram. The speech input circuits for a voice transmitter; the antenna
coupling and RF preamp (if any) for a receiver, etc., all seem to be
drawn on the left.

In the tube days at least (and to some degree with solid-state homebrew
today) we seem to build the actual equipment the same way: the earliest
stages are physically on the left side of the gear.

Of course, in Western culture we also read and write from left to
right. I suppose we learn to look for the beginning of a story on the
left side of the page.


And of course, in some other cultures, people read and write from *right
to left*.

When people from these cultures become involved in radio, do they draw
schematics (and build gear?) in the same direction Westerners do? Or do
they work "backwards"?

I've always wondered why some languages were written from right to left.
Could it be that in some cultures left handed people were more common
than right handed?

Actually, I think the answer lies in the fact that some early writing
was done not on paper like material with charcoal or ink, but with stone
tablets and chisels. Since a right handed person would hold the chisel
with his left hand to strike it with a hammer held in his right, the
characters would be written from right to left. So ancient languages
like Hebrew would have been written from right to left, and still are
even though nothing is carved in stone anymore.