Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/18/2014 9:05 AM, Percy Picacity wrote:
In article ,
Jerry Stuckle wrote:

On 2/18/2014 5:58 AM, gareth wrote:
There was a time, back inthe 1920s and 1930s, that any active device
(valves in them thar days, tubes for the leftpondians) would cost nearly
a week's wages for the average working man, and so it was good economical
sense to try and use it as many ways as possible simultaneously.

Times have changes, and active devices with performance into the tens
of MegaHertz are now ten-a-penny, so what is achieved by competitions
such as the "Two Transistor Challenge" where it is the costs of switching
(manual, relays) which would be the major outlay?

Not carping, just curious.

-----ooooo-----

BUT BUT BUT, this one has no switching, apart from the Morse Key! ...


http://www.vk2zay.net/article/file/1138



I'm not familiar with this particular challenge - but similar ones I've
seen are more about the design than the cost.

Jerry, AI0K

True, but it is still a ridiculous constraint. It is about as sensible
as designing something where the first digit of every component value
had to be '4'.


Not necessarily. It takes skill to minimize components in a design
without degrading performance. Anyone with a modicum of RF design
experience can design a 5 or 10 transistor transmitter which has
reasonable output and no chirp. To do so with 2 transistors is much more difficult.

Indeed. This reminds me of the classic story about pre-Apple Woz
redesigning an Atari game's circuit design and taking the IC count down by
two-thirds or so, earning a fee for each one he pulled out of the design.
Steve Jobs then stole most of the total fee by telling Woz that the
commission was worth about a tenth of what it was in reality, but that's
another tale for another day!

--
Stephen Thomas Cole // Sent from my iPhone