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Swords Into Plowshares
On 6/4/2010 11:44 AM, Richard Crowley wrote:
"K6LHA" Len Anderson wrote... Almost ALL developments in electronics began as industry projects, even the IC. There is some controversy in the industry whether Intel or TI made the "first IC." Intel's first IC was for an Asian customer to use in a four-function calculator. Intel's first commercial IC products were static (volatile) RAM chips (like the 3101) which replaced the magnetic cores used even in solid-state computers of the era (1960s). It wasn't until 1971 that Intel marketed the first monolithic microprocessor product, the 4004. Originally designed, as Mr. Anderson said, for the (now defunct) Japanese customer Busicom for a desk calculator. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busicom Though I might agree with you in part, There have been major advances in Electroincs due to non industry projects too. Of course that was then.. This is now. Back in the old days several major advances in electroincs were brought about by some tinker, tinkering around with stuff and learning (I am fond of saying Marconi had to have been an amateur radio operator cause before him there were no professionals in the field and thus no industry) However... With today's VLSI circuits... You do need an "Infrastructure" to "Tinker" and short of folks like Mr. Gates and partners... Not many people have that kind of resource on their own. |
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Swords Into Plowshares
On Jun 5, 5:58�am, Misters Davis, McKenzie, and Crowley all wrote
about integrated circuits. "K6LHA" Len Anderson wrote... Almost ALL developments in electronics began as industry projects, eve n the IC. There is some controversy in the industry whether Intel or TI made the "first IC." Intel's first IC was for an Asian customer to use in a four-function calculator. Ahem...the original subject was started in regards to WWII-era "surplus" electronic hardware. Semiconductors - as we know them today - don't quite qualify since Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley did their transistor thing in 1947 at Bell Labs. :-) As to the very first of the "scientific handheld calculators," a good part of that story is written up in "Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard created the world's greatest company" by Michael Malone. In itself, that book is representative of the entire electronics industry from 1939 onwards (HP was formed in 1939) and the (usually) monthly magazine put out free by HP, "Hewlett Packard Journal" shows that in detail. ALL the issues of the HP Journal are on-line and are free downloads. As one of the early owners of an HP-35, I can add that there was no ONE IC that was critical in it. Each one had a set of ICs that did everything, contracted for from two vendors. A fault of HP somewhere down the design line was not specifying things correctly and chips from one IC vendor would not work with those from another vendor. One of mine failed and I found out that story the hard way. HP just did not expect nearly the onslaught of orders for the '35 (described in Malone's book) and they had to set up for multiple shifts to handle them and to revise their marketing practices. Eventually HP would establish a division in Corvallis, OR, just for calculators and special ICs for those and other HP divisions. The first desktop calculator was the HP 9100 introduced in 1968. It had NO ICs in it, not even RAM or ROM. Details of its design are in the HP Journal of September 1968. It was also the first time HP employed a "full-time" consultant named Tom Osborne who demonstrated a working model he had built in his apartment. He used CORDIC algorithms which HP long-timer David Cochrane crammed into the 9100's ROM-equivalent. Both were involved in the later "box of numbers" called the HP-35. My HP-35 still works but the NiCad pack always gave trouble in recharging (three of them did) and I got a programmable HP-25, gave that to my Tech at Teledyne so that I could get an HP-67 which had program storage via magnetic card. Long time after the little card reader jammed and I got the CMOS HP-32S II which lasted ten years on one battery set, now on its 2nd set. I bought an anniversary model, the HP-35S as a memento and am waiting for the '32 to fail before using that. :-) However... With today's VLSI circuits... You do need an "Infrastructure" to "Tinker" and short of folks like Mr. Gates and partners... Not many people have that kind of resource on their own. Slight correction. I'm playing with Microchip's PIC one-package micros right now, using their free program editor-compiler. Got the development hardware package because IC lead length spacings got too small with modst SMDs. For many years AADE and Neil Heckt have been making and selling their one-chip frequency counters up in the Puget Sound area and many hams have installed those in older receivers and transceivers. Neil has a great little workshop instrument in his L/C meter also using a PIC chip. As to "surplus," I can say I've operated a lot of that while in the US Army 1952-1960 since so much was manufactured before or during WWII...some of it by Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Co. for big hulking 1 KW HF transmitters (BC-339, BC-340). In another area, some of the contracted-for communuications electronics designed after WWII showed a different design scheme of systems, circuitry, even physical mounting than the pre-WWII thinking. There has been a constant evoltion of design, use, application of 'radio' for the last seven decades. 73, Len K6LHA |
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Swords Into Plowshares
On 6/5/2010 7:15 PM, K6LHA wrote:
Slight correction. I'm playing with Microchip's PIC one-package micros right now, using their free program editor-compiler. Got the development hardware package because IC lead length spacings got too small with modst SMDs. For many years AADE and Neil Heckt have been making and selling their one-chip frequency counters up in the Puget Sound area and many hams have installed those in older receivers and transceivers. Neil has a great little workshop instrument in his L/C meter also using a PIC chip. Not really a correction Len.. We are speaking of two different places on the development train.. You are starting with ready made hardware and developing applications or products from that hardware. I'm talking aout making new hardware. |
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Swords Into Plowshares
On Jun 6, 4:08�am, John Davis wrote:
On 6/5/2010 7:15 PM, K6LHA wrote: Slight correction. �I'm playing with Microchip's PIC one-packag e micros right now, using their free program editor-compiler. �Go t the development hardware package because IC lead length spacings got too small with modst SMDs. �For many years AADE and Neil Heckt have been making and selling their one-chip frequency counters up in the Puget Sound area and many hams have installed those in older receivers and transceivers. �Neil has a great little workshop instrument in h is L/C meter also using a PIC chip. Not really a correction Len.. We are speaking of two different places on the development train.. You are starting with ready made hardware and developing applications or products from that hardware. I'm talking aout making new hardware. A PIC microcontroller is just an IC. It is a "tabula rasa" that can be programmed to do anything wanted (within certain limitations). A vacuum tube is "ready made hardware" that is made using very specialized machinery and test equipment. So is a transistor. So is a resistor. So are most capacitors. I don't see any dividing line there in buying/taking/scrounging components to build a larger system of electronics for any specific purpose. If the "hardware" needs software to make it work in a specific way, then that does not make it somehow worse/better/not- applicable. At least not to me. I, for one, am not going out to mine copper ore to smelt and eventually make into wire to hook up things. Or make alloys that are resistive to make resistors or delaminate mica so that I can somehow silver it to make silver-mica capacitors good for RF. I had started out as an illustrator. That is an artist who draws/ paints/inks things as they really are. Much later I had formal classes (Art Center School of Design, now in Pasadena, CA) which taught that "old masters" how to make their own oil paint. Making paint is not what I consider "art" but that's what all those old oil painters had to do. If I want to do some painting now I can go into a Michaels and buy already-to-go oil paint, or caesin or chalk or several other items to make an image on my choice of surfaces. I am an illustrator, not a paint maker. At the same time I would browse the Allied catalog (Allied then headquartered in Chicago, IL) for "radio parts" to make things electronic. I don't disparage those (limited) components nor do I separate the "hardware" from the (then) "software" that was really just a schematic/wiring diagram. Today I could (if I had access to an expensive program) make a mask for a PCB and its drill guide just from a schematic diagram. I've done that for work...as well as making PCB masks "the old fashioned way" using tracing paper (for two-sided boards) and wetware. Today's programmable microcontroller, whether from Microchip or Altera, is a wonderful additional component to our modern cornucopia of fascinating electronic components. WE can do all sorts of things with those components in ways never thought of back in olden times. Me, I'm going to keep my nice K&E Duplex Decitrig slide rule (from high school) as a memento of when "design" meant to 3-decimal-places tops or having to look in tables of logarithms (and do by-hand interpolation) to get 5 decimal places. With my HP-35 I suddenly had 10 decimal place accuracy and I could do equations never before possible without expensive mainframe computer time...all contained in bulk space of that K&E slide rule. I've built three frequency counters using old digital logic. With one PIC the size of one DIP, I can make a single frequency counter that operates up to 30 MHz and includes the circuit (but not the crystal) for the reference frequency oscillator. It will drive a small LCD panel directly and the power demand is so slight the PIC doesn't even get warm. If worst came to worst, I could program that PIC by hand, byte by byte, using toggle switches (one per bit). But, the worst is not here so I use free software to do the programming. 73, Len K6LHA |
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Swords Into Plowshares
On 6/7/2010 4:49 PM, K6LHA wrote:
Me, I'm going to keep my nice K&E Duplex Decitrig slide rule (from high school) as a memento of when "design" meant to 3-decimal-places tops or having to look in tables of logarithms (and do by-hand interpolation) to get 5 decimal places. Funny you should mention that Len, I still have mine too, albeit I bought mine used. Speaking of PICs, you see the nifty test equipment in the recent QST magazines using one of those to do all the "ugly" stuff? Jeff-1.0 wa6fwi |
#6
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Swords Into Plowshares
On Jun 7, 7:26�pm, Jeffrey Angus wrote:
On 6/7/2010 4:49 PM, K6LHA wrote: Speaking of PICs, you see the nifty test equipment in the recent QST magazines using one of those to do all the "ugly" stuff? Please explain what "ugly stuff" is. 73, Len K6LHA |
#7
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Swords Into Plowshares
On 6/8/2010 10:44 PM, K6LHA wrote:
On Jun 7, 7:26�pm, Jeffrey wrote: On 6/7/2010 4:49 PM, K6LHA wrote: Speaking of PICs, you see the nifty test equipment in the recent QST magazines using one of those to do all the "ugly" stuff? Please explain what "ugly stuff" is. Okies... The one I was thinking about, it started out as a simple amps and volts meter for monitoring battery supplies for portable equipment. But after they added the processor and a nice LCD display it turned into a watt hour meter, watt meter and data recorder. Now I do have a couple of 4-terminal Simpson watt meters in the "oh boy" box, but there's something kind of neat about doing all of what used to be done the hard way with discreet components and mechanical hardware (chart recorders and such) with an IC. Jeff-1.0 wa6fwi |
#8
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Swords Into Plowshares
On 6/7/2010 5:49 PM, K6LHA wrote:
On Jun 6, 4:08�am, John wr ote: On 6/5/2010 7:15 PM, K6LHA wrote: Slight correction. �I'm playing with Microchip's PIC one-pack ag e micros right now, using their free program editor-compiler. � Go t the development hardware package because IC lead length spacings got too small with modst SMDs. �For many years AADE and Neil Heckt ha ve been making and selling their one-chip frequency counters up in the Puget Sound area and many hams have installed those in older receivers and transceivers. �Neil has a great little workshop instrument in h is L/C meter also using a PIC chip. Not really a correction Len.. We are speaking of two different places on the development train.. You are starting with ready made hardware and developing applications or products from that hardware. I'm talking aout making new hardware. A PIC microcontroller is just an IC. It is a "tabula rasa" that can be programmed to do anything wanted (within certain limitations). A vacuum tube is "ready made hardware" that is made using very specialized machinery and test equipment. So is a transistor. So is a resistor. So are most capacitors. I don't see any dividing line there in buying/taking/scrounging components to build a larger system of electronics for any specific purpose. If the "hardware" needs software to make it work in a specific way, then that does not make it somehow worse/better/not- applicable. At least not to me. I, for one, am not going out to mine copper ore to smelt and eventually make into wire to hook up things. Or make alloys that are resistive to make resistors or delaminate mica so that I can somehow silver it to make silver-mica capacitors good for RF. I had started out as an illustrator. That is an artist who draws/ paints/inks things as they really are. Much later I had formal classes (Art Center School of Design, now in Pasadena, CA) which taught that "old masters" how to make their own oil paint. Making paint is not what I consider "art" but that's what all those old oil painters had to do. If I want to do some painting now I can go into a Michaels and buy already-to-go oil paint, or caesin or chalk or several other items to make an image on my choice of surfaces. I am an illustrator, not a paint maker. At the same time I would browse the Allied catalog (Allied then headquartered in Chicago, IL) for "radio parts" to make things electronic. I don't disparage those (limited) components nor do I separate the "hardware" from the (then) "software" that was really just a schematic/wiring diagram. Today I could (if I had access to an expensive program) make a mask for a PCB and its drill guide just from a schematic diagram. I've done that for work...as well as making PCB masks "the old fashioned way" using tracing paper (for two-sided boards) and wetware. Today's programmable microcontroller, whether from Microchip or Altera, is a wonderful additional component to our modern cornucopia of fascinating electronic components. WE can do all sorts of things with those components in ways never thought of back in olden times. Me, I'm going to keep my nice K&E Duplex Decitrig slide rule (from high school) as a memento of when "design" meant to 3-decimal-places tops or having to look in tables of logarithms (and do by-hand interpolation) to get 5 decimal places. With my HP-35 I suddenly had 10 decimal place accuracy and I could do equations never before possible without expensive mainframe computer time...all contained in bulk space of that K&E slide rule. I've built three frequency counters using old digital logic. With one PIC the size of one DIP, I can make a single frequency counter that operates up to 30 MHz and includes the circuit (but not the crystal) for the reference frequency oscillator. It will drive a small LCD panel directly and the power demand is so slight the PIC doesn't even get warm. If worst came to worst, I could program that PIC by hand, byte by byte, using toggle switches (one per bit). But, the worst is not here so I use free software to do the programming. 73, Len K6LHA I think we are now on the same page. I do agree one cqn still adapt existing hardware, including some new exciting stuff, to do new jobs,, And perhaps a new piece of hardware can be thus developed (For example if an application uses say 25% of a PIC chip's abilities, and the application becomes "popular" then the company making the chip may may a x.25 version (25% of the original) that is less expensive (or perhaps it's the original verison with a failure somewhere in the other 75% which makes it "Free to produce") But .. To play around at the component level in today's VLSI world.. You need a clean room, lasers and things to control them. |
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Swords Into Plowshares
On Jun 9, 6:16�am, John Davis wrote:
On 6/7/2010 5:49 PM, K6LHA wrote: I think we are now on the same page. We aren't even at the same bookshelf. I'm not endorsing Microchip. They are very busy making new PICs of all kinds and lots of other IC types. Also making lots of good technical information on how to use them. To use those, especially for the task of generating the control word for an Analog Devices single-chip frequency synthesizer (serial or parallel word, a choice) for any stable frequency from near-DC to 60 MHz, takes a DIFFERENT route than copying analog circuitry out of a 1960s QST project. For example, Instruction Sets. I've got five different micro instruction sets running around in my head from past microprocessor adventures and Microchip has this RISC or Reduced Instruction Set which is mostly different than any of the other five. Add to that at least two dialects of Fortran and six more dialects of Basic, yet the procedural creation of this software is the SAME as what I was doing back in 1972. One needs to CONCENTRATE on the Instruction Set being used and, hopefully, the source code editor will trap any typos or wrong syntax. It becomes harder and harder as the semiconductors get smaller and smaller. It is like trying to translate something while riding a bus along a pot-holed street with lots of nosy riders. It can be done but it takes CONCENTRATION. But .. To play around at the component level in today's VLSI world.. You need a clean room, lasers and things to control them. NO. A "foundry" is NOT needed. Not even if you are only doing digital stuff. "VLSI" is just more of the same of "LSI" and that was just more than medium-scale integrated. Ever try a "STATE MACHINE" project? One could do that using an EPROM. The essential part of an Apple ][+ floppy disk controller used one and Wozniak did his all by hisself. Fascinating. How about a Logarithmic Detector such as Analog Devices makes (several models available but they don't hand out "samples" readily now). Analog thing, just a chain of successive-detection blocks inside, designed so that the summation of their outputs has a logarithmic function of the input. Can make a very high dynamic range spectrum analyzer. If you think you NEED foundry facilities, then read Hans Camenzind's small book on "Designing Analog Chips," a wonderful look into the basic guts of doing just that, complete with all the specialized info on junctions and hanging them together. He writes very well. He made IC masks from the start, cutting Rubylith by hand. Designed the most- sold IC of the analog kind, the 555. 73, Len K6LHA |
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