Amazing changes at TI

[John Larkin]

If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.

 

[Winfield Hill]

John Larkin wrote...

If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.

That's not new, first, at least for the parts
I've been downloading, the component name has
been the name of the file, nicely in lower case.
Second, the no-futzing download has been there
for a while too. Everything else, app notes,
etc., still has a crazy alpha+number name.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[John Robertson]

On 2019/08/22 2:14 p.m., Winfield Hill wrote:

John Larkin wrote...

If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.

That's not new, first, at least for the parts
I've been downloading, the component name has
been the name of the file, nicely in lower case.
Second, the no-futzing download has been there
for a while too. Everything else, app notes,
etc., still has a crazy alpha+number name.

In any case, it is nice that TI is making the PDFs easy to get for
reference! Do they also have their Ap notes going back to #1?

Ap notes are very handy!

John :-#)#

--
(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup)
John's Jukes Ltd.
MOVED to #7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
(604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, August 23, 2019 at 3:12:41 AM UTC-4, John Robertson wrote:

On 2019/08/22 2:14 p.m., Winfield Hill wrote:
John Larkin wrote...

If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.

That's not new, first, at least for the parts
I've been downloading, the component name has
been the name of the file, nicely in lower case.
Second, the no-futzing download has been there
for a while too. Everything else, app notes,
etc., still has a crazy alpha+number name.


In any case, it is nice that TI is making the PDFs easy to get for
reference! Do they also have their Ap notes going back to #1?

Ap notes are very handy!

I remember when the Internet had just been cut from it's umbilical cord and TI was one of the early adopters. I think they have mostly been an engineer driven company which can be seen in some of the mistakes as well as successes. Initially they had a great site with good access to data sheet with great information. No fuss, no muss.

As with many new things, trends happen with widening influence. The first I noticed on the web was the marketing driven trend to require users to "sign up". TI climbed on board that train and made it harder to get data sheets. About the same time they made it clear they would not be producing data books for new devices and eventually stopped printing data books already in print.

I think they dropped the sign up requirement before too long. But about that same time they started "organizing" the web site in marketing ways so as to make it harder for engineers to find "info".

I think most suppliers web sites have been this way for many years now. I recall trying to find overall views of various products and not being able to tell which products did what. Essentially I would need to download every data sheet for every part they made to be able to find what I needed.

TI started using what look like spread sheets on their web pages to let you compare components. But for many, like their MCUs they group them in ways that only makes sense to marketing, not by the functionality as engineers see parts. Once I literally could not find the information I wanted because the same family of parts had different members listed under different pages of the site.

The fact that you only have to click one link at the product page to open the data sheet is not a big improvement when you had to click so many times to reach the right product page. How many clicks was it before? I don't recall having much trouble with that. In fact, the data sheet link was always toward the top of the page at TI, no?

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, August 23, 2019 at 2:02:45 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:


If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.


what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??

Hey, let's not get crazy!

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christense]

fredag den 23. august 2019 kl. 20.02.45 UTC+2 skrev bitrex:

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:


If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.


what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??

I thought that problem was they only even make enough for samples

 

[bitrex]

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:

If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.

what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:02:39 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:


If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.


what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??

.... some time before they go EOL.

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 15:45:47 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 8/23/19 3:23 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:02:39 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:


If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.


what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??


... some time before they go EOL.


Must have been fun back in the day when you could just get a few
transistors on the same die in a case for 50 cent like:

https://www.bucek.name/pdf/ca3046.pdf

now everyone's like "that'll never sell"

Electronics has always been fun, now more than ever.

 

[bitrex]

On 8/23/19 3:23 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 14:02:39 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:


If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.


what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??


... some time before they go EOL.

Must have been fun back in the day when you could just get a few
transistors on the same die in a case for 50 cent like:

<https://www.bucek.name/pdf/ca3046.pdf>

now everyone's like "that'll never sell"

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 23/08/19 19:02, bitrex wrote:

On 8/22/19 5:05 PM, John Larkin wrote:


If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.


what's next, Maxim making chips that work the way the datasheet says??

Perhaps Maxim selling chips for which they have
produced a datasheet?

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, August 24, 2019 at 2:32:15 AM UTC+10, Rick C wrote:

On Friday, August 23, 2019 at 3:12:41 AM UTC-4, John Robertson wrote:
On 2019/08/22 2:14 p.m., Winfield Hill wrote:
John Larkin wrote...

If you now click on a "datasheet" link, it no longer redirects
somewhere... it just loads! More astounding, the PDF data sheet file
now has the same name as the part! Not something like slou441.pdf.

I haven't seen a TI data file named "userdata.lnk" (or whatever it
was) in a long time.

That's not new, first, at least for the parts
I've been downloading, the component name has
been the name of the file, nicely in lower case.
Second, the no-futzing download has been there
for a while too. Everything else, app notes,
etc., still has a crazy alpha+number name.


In any case, it is nice that TI is making the PDFs easy to get for
reference! Do they also have their Ap notes going back to #1?

Ap notes are very handy!

I remember when the Internet had just been cut from it's umbilical cord and TI was one of the early adopters. I think they have mostly been an engineer driven company which can be seen in some of the mistakes as well as successes. Initially they had a great site with good access to data sheet with great information. No fuss, no muss.

But Texas Instrument data sheets have always being influenced by the marketing department. This was obvious back in 1974 when I had to identify second source parts and data sheets, and I've been reminded of it from time to time ever since.

> As with many new things, trends happen with widening influence. The first I noticed on the web was the marketing driven trend to require users to "sign up". TI climbed on board that train and made it harder to get data sheets. About the same time they made it clear they would not be producing data books for new devices and eventually stopped printing data books already in print.

That made sense.

> I think they dropped the sign up requirement before too long. But about that same time they started "organizing" the web site in marketing ways so as to make it harder for engineers to find "info".

Marketing wants to push sales of particular parts. They aren't conscious of the fact that subtle difference between parts can mean that ostensibly similar parts won't work in specific applications.

> I think most suppliers web sites have been this way for many years now. I recall trying to find overall views of various products and not being able to tell which products did what. Essentially I would need to download every data sheet for every part they made to be able to find what I needed.

Marketing worries about what high volume users find important. There may be many more low volume users, but even if they collectively bought more parts marketing isn't going to put much effort into making them happy.

TI started using what look like spread sheets on their web pages to let you compare components. But for many, like their MCUs they group them in ways that only makes sense to marketing, not by the functionality as engineers see parts. Once I literally could not find the information I wanted because the same family of parts had different members listed under different pages of the site.

Typical.

<snip>

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

TI sucks in organizing their stuff.

Ever tried the fancy Stellaris software libraries? Same mess as the website: non consistent approach, some stuff needs to be compiled in command line only (with non working makefile scripts and batch files), demo projects consisting of linked files only, so no way to easily modify and share them with colleagues without breaking those links...

My personale solution is: I've estimated the hours needed to fix all that cr@p, and then I've persuated my company to switch elsewhere. As per today, next candidate is intel/altera soc for serious stuff and st (or nxp) for small projects.

Also avoid Ti and maxim devices as possibile.