Are schematic symbols going out of fashion?

In defense of the drafting drones, even simple op amps often aren't just
+in,-in,out triangles anymore. Add the trim/null, offset, filter, power and
whatever other pins are often there and it gets crowded to compress all of those
pins and labels into a reasonably sized triangle.

After some expensive layout errors in our system, we decided that all power pins
will always be shown explicitly on the schematic, not assumed or shown in a
table or left to a sub-part off in a corner somewhere. (The current test system
I work on has 13 separate voltage rails, and multiple ground areas.)

Now, having said that, we still use triangles when appropriate, but usually
boxes for the more complex parts, but then often place the triangle symbol
inside the box to satisfy the 'at a glance' folks. We use other logic symbols
'in the box' too, when its possible and appripriate to clarify a function that
is not obvious from the pin labels.

And, if there's any doubt, at least when viewing a schematic/layout on-screen
and on our network, a right-click brings up the datasheet on almost any part.

Gary Crowell
CAD system adminstrator/component librarian
Micron Technology






On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 22:52:22 +0100, Gareth
<gareth.harris@nobody.nowhere.invalid> wrote:

Our Drawing Office draws most components as rectangles which, in my
opinion, makes the schematic very hard to understand. Today I asked if
I could have amplifier symbols for my amplifiers and was told that
"nobody has triangles these days". Is this true or are our drawing
office just lazy?

I expect that what has happened is that they have become used to drawing
schematics consisting mainly of things like FPGAs, microcontrollers, etc
and don't see many analogue or discrete components.

What are peoples opinions on rectangles vs schematic symbols?

Thanks for any input,

Gareth.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To reply to me directly:

Replace the text after the@symbol with: totalise DOT co DOT uk
(__ (__ (_____ (______ TM
(__ (__ (__ (__ (__ (__
(__ (__ (__ (__ (__
(__ (__ (__ (________ V1.64
(__ (__ (__ (__
(_____ (____ (__ (__ Freeware CP/CG Calculator
(____ (______ (__ (c)1996 Gary A. Crowell Sr.
vcp@cableone.net
http://myweb.cableone.net/cjcrowell
 
Active8 wrote:
In article <3f7a418b.9932906@news.east.cox.net>, spam@spam.com says...

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 22:52:22 +0100, Gareth
gareth.harris@nobody.nowhere.invalid> wrote:


Our Drawing Office draws most components as rectangles which, in my
opinion, makes the schematic very hard to understand. Today I asked if
I could have amplifier symbols for my amplifiers and was told that
"nobody has triangles these days". Is this true or are our drawing
office just lazy?

I expect that what has happened is that they have become used to drawing
schematics consisting mainly of things like FPGAs, microcontrollers, etc
and don't see many analogue or discrete components.

What are peoples opinions on rectangles vs schematic symbols?

Thanks for any input,




First, fire everyone in your "drawing office!" They are obviously
total morons.


*after* pissing in their coffee. then send 'em packin'.
[SNIP]

Thanks for all the replies.

The person who said "nobody uses triangles these days" obviously felt
guilty about making such a stupid comment as she has now draw triangles
for amplifiers, and even the proper symbol for an RF mixer, without me
saying anything more (or pissing in their coffee).

Gareth.
 
In article <dVmeb.1492$z43.850@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>,
gareth.harris@nobody.nowhere.invalid says...

Our Drawing Office draws most components as rectangles which, in my
opinion, makes the schematic very hard to understand. Today I asked if
I could have amplifier symbols for my amplifiers and was told that
"nobody has triangles these days". Is this true or are our drawing
office just lazy?
Lazy or, possibly, utterly ignorant of proper schematic symbols
and they don't want their ignorance to show.

I expect that what has happened is that they have become used to drawing
schematics consisting mainly of things like FPGAs, microcontrollers, etc
and don't see many analogue or discrete components.

What are peoples opinions on rectangles vs schematic symbols?
If you're gonna draw a schematic, it should be drawn right. Given
the vast assortment of schematic drawing/capture programs available, all
of which have the correct symbol sets built in, there's no excuse for
NOT using the right symbology.


--
Dr. Anton Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute
(Known to some as Bruce Lane, KC7GR)
kyrrin a/t bluefeathertech d-o=t c&o&m
"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" (Red Green)
 
will always be shown explicitly on the schematic
I'm with you on that

but I'm even more stubborn on the "obvious at a glance" readability
that standard symbols/syntax give (including left-to-right / top-to-bottom).

I can't say it enough: Constantly reinventing the wheel is a BAD idea.
Just learn the STANDARDS associated with doing the job;
everybody before you had to. Nobody is that special that he can't do the basics.
 
jeffm_@email.com (JeffM) wrote in message news:<f8b945bc.0310042201.2e2423dd@posting.google.com>...

I can't say it enough: Constantly reinventing the wheel is a BAD idea.
Just learn the STANDARDS associated with doing the job;
everybody before you had to. Nobody is that special that he can't do the basics.

Hi. I quite agere with you in this case, but there is another where I
avoid the standard terminology, and thats the daft system of Vcc, Vdd
etc. a more senseless way of marking power pins I can hardly imagine.
V+ 0v V- +5v +12v_reg etc are far more informative and clear.


Regards, NT
 
In article <MPG.19e8959d4e6ab3f3989a37@192.168.42.131>,
SpammersAreVermin@dev.null says...
In article <dVmeb.1492$z43.850@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>,
gareth.harris@nobody.nowhere.invalid says...

Our Drawing Office draws most components as rectangles which, in my
opinion, makes the schematic very hard to understand. Today I asked if
I could have amplifier symbols for my amplifiers and was told that
"nobody has triangles these days". Is this true or are our drawing
office just lazy?

Lazy or, possibly, utterly ignorant of proper schematic symbols
and they don't want their ignorance to show.
When I graduated and went into the "real" world they took my
trinagles away too. All drawings were done on chain printers, so
everything was a rectangle. No triangles, nor rockets, nand
bullets. ;-) ...all rectangles. Analog circuits looked like
hell, but that was the only way to enter the data into the design
system (think of doing edif manually <shudder>).
I expect that what has happened is that they have become used to drawing
schematics consisting mainly of things like FPGAs, microcontrollers, etc
and don't see many analogue or discrete components.

What are peoples opinions on rectangles vs schematic symbols?

If you're gonna draw a schematic, it should be drawn right. Given
the vast assortment of schematic drawing/capture programs available, all
of which have the correct symbol sets built in, there's no excuse for
NOT using the right symbology.
I'd agree today. The DA systems have improved markedly (at least
in some ways ;-). I'm not upset with logic gates being
represented by rectangles. What frosts my cookies is someone
sloppy with the inversion wedgies/circles and like nomenclature
defugalites.

--
Keith
 
Keith R. Williams <krw@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:<MPG.19eb767ea54b280e98a775@enews.newsguy.com>...
In article <MPG.19e8959d4e6ab3f3989a37@192.168.42.131>,
SpammersAreVermin@dev.null says...
In article <dVmeb.1492$z43.850@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net>,
gareth.harris@nobody.nowhere.invalid says...

Our Drawing Office draws most components as rectangles which, in my
opinion, makes the schematic very hard to understand. Today I asked if
I could have amplifier symbols for my amplifiers and was told that
"nobody has triangles these days". Is this true or are our drawing
office just lazy?

Lazy or, possibly, utterly ignorant of proper schematic symbols
and they don't want their ignorance to show.

When I graduated and went into the "real" world they took my
trinagles away too. All drawings were done on chain printers, so
everything was a rectangle. No triangles, nor rockets, nand
bullets. ;-) ...all rectangles. Analog circuits looked like
hell, but that was the only way to enter the data into the design
system (think of doing edif manually <shudder>).

I expect that what has happened is that they have become used to drawing
schematics consisting mainly of things like FPGAs, microcontrollers, etc
and don't see many analogue or discrete components.

What are peoples opinions on rectangles vs schematic symbols?

If you're gonna draw a schematic, it should be drawn right. Given
the vast assortment of schematic drawing/capture programs available, all
of which have the correct symbol sets built in, there's no excuse for
NOT using the right symbology.

I'd agree today. The DA systems have improved markedly (at least
in some ways ;-). I'm not upset with logic gates being
represented by rectangles. What frosts my cookies is someone
sloppy with the inversion wedgies/circles and like nomenclature
defugalites.
I just had the GREAT misfortune of having to work on a Sony PVM1354
picture monitor. The schematic is the worst drawn mess I've ever seen.
All ICs are drawn as pictorials (with the gate symbols inside) The
parallel lines all over the place are just horrible to look at. Things
at the bottom of the page run to top left, every direction imaginable.
Components have 'groups' in blocks of 100 but there is no rhyme or
reason to where they actually landed on the board. The test points on
the schematic are extremely tiny, less than half the size of a
resistor. There are red arrows on lines to indicate signal flow of the
main signals but certainly not nore than a few percent of them. There
are grid markings 1..9 and A..H with a chart listing all the
components EXCEPT the test points. Same for the component layout on
the board. I thought I could locate the test point I needed on the
schematic, find what components it was connected to and find it on the
board layout. No such luck. After I had the CRT out ( and thats
ANOTHER problem with these units, way HIGH failure rates on CRT) I
found the test point on the board but still haven't found it on the
schematic. No WONDER nobody wants to fix this dreck. I agree this crap
could generate a valid net list but I'd LOVE to meet the guy(s) who
designed this thing. And, I see MORE of this krud in my future.
Sigh...
GG
 
Glenn Gundlach wrote:

I just had the GREAT misfortune of having to work on a Sony PVM1354
picture monitor. The schematic is the worst drawn mess I've ever seen.
All ICs are drawn as pictorials (with the gate symbols inside) The
parallel lines all over the place are just horrible to look at. Things
at the bottom of the page run to top left, every direction imaginable.
Components have 'groups' in blocks of 100 but there is no rhyme or
reason to where they actually landed on the board. The test points on
the schematic are extremely tiny, less than half the size of a
resistor. There are red arrows on lines to indicate signal flow of the
main signals but certainly not nore than a few percent of them. There
are grid markings 1..9 and A..H with a chart listing all the
components EXCEPT the test points. Same for the component layout on
the board. I thought I could locate the test point I needed on the
schematic, find what components it was connected to and find it on the
board layout. No such luck. After I had the CRT out ( and thats
ANOTHER problem with these units, way HIGH failure rates on CRT) I
found the test point on the board but still haven't found it on the
schematic. No WONDER nobody wants to fix this dreck. I agree this crap
could generate a valid net list but I'd LOVE to meet the guy(s) who
designed this thing. And, I see MORE of this krud in my future.
Sigh...
GG
I think the primary problem (especially with BIG companies like Sony) is that
the electronic engineer enters the schematic her or himself. Circuits get
changed, added, moved, deleted for simulation and layout, and this new stuff is
added where thers is space because there is no time to rearrange everything
each time marketing decides they want to change features. NO time is allowed
when the project is finished to clean-up the schematic. It's on to the next
project, time is money, what are you sitting around wasting time for...

--
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| George H. Patrick, III | Resources for PCB Designers on |
| george@pcb-designer.com | the Web - The Designer's Den |
| George.H.Patrick@tektronix.com | http://www.pcb-designer.com |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| Take what you like and leave the rest... My opinion ONLY. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
"George Patrick" <me@pcb-designer.com> wrote in message
news:x-SdncB8CIrqVB-iU-KYgw@comcast.com...
Glenn Gundlach wrote:


I just had the GREAT misfortune of having to work on a Sony PVM1354
picture monitor. The schematic is the worst drawn mess I've ever seen.
All ICs are drawn as pictorials (with the gate symbols inside) The
parallel lines all over the place are just horrible to look at. Things
at the bottom of the page run to top left, every direction imaginable.
Components have 'groups' in blocks of 100 but there is no rhyme or
reason to where they actually landed on the board. The test points on
the schematic are extremely tiny, less than half the size of a
resistor. There are red arrows on lines to indicate signal flow of the
main signals but certainly not nore than a few percent of them. There
are grid markings 1..9 and A..H with a chart listing all the
components EXCEPT the test points. Same for the component layout on
the board. I thought I could locate the test point I needed on the
schematic, find what components it was connected to and find it on the
board layout. No such luck. After I had the CRT out ( and thats
ANOTHER problem with these units, way HIGH failure rates on CRT) I
found the test point on the board but still haven't found it on the
schematic. No WONDER nobody wants to fix this dreck. I agree this crap
could generate a valid net list but I'd LOVE to meet the guy(s) who
designed this thing. And, I see MORE of this krud in my future.
Sigh...
GG

I think the primary problem (especially with BIG companies like Sony) is
that
the electronic engineer enters the schematic her or himself. Circuits get
changed, added, moved, deleted for simulation and layout, and this new
stuff is
added where thers is space because there is no time to rearrange
everything
each time marketing decides they want to change features. NO time is
allowed
when the project is finished to clean-up the schematic. It's on to the
next
project, time is money, what are you sitting around wasting time for...
In days of yore, it was possible for the engineers to have schematic-entry
software that was incompatible with the layout artists' software. They took
my beautifully-constructed 12-B-page hierachical design, with on page for
every block in the first-page diagram, and almost all signal flow left to
right and top to bottom, and text notes scattered about to assist the
first-time viewer, and converted it by hand to a flat design crammed onto 2
D sheets.

And with no errors of course.
 
"Richard Henry" <rphenry@home.com> wrote in message news:<bgAgb.10006$La.2595@fed1read02>...
"George Patrick" <me@pcb-designer.com> wrote in message
news:x-SdncB8CIrqVB-iU-KYgw@comcast.com...
Glenn Gundlach wrote:
<snipped previous posts>

In days of yore, it was possible for the engineers to have schematic-entry
software that was incompatible with the layout artists' software. They took
my beautifully-constructed 12-B-page hierachical design, with on page for
every block in the first-page diagram, and almost all signal flow left to
right and top to bottom, and text notes scattered about to assist the
first-time viewer, and converted it by hand to a flat design crammed onto 2
D sheets.

And with no errors of course.
This certainly used to happen quite often. The only strange thing
about it is that nobody that I've heard of has gone postal and shot
the drafts-person responsible.

----
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
 
Richard Henry wrote:
In days of yore, it was possible for the engineers to have schematic-entry
software that was incompatible with the layout artists' software. They took
my beautifully-constructed 12-B-page hierachical design, with on page for
every block in the first-page diagram, and almost all signal flow left to
right and top to bottom, and text notes scattered about to assist the
first-time viewer, and converted it by hand to a flat design crammed onto 2
D sheets.

And with no errors of course.
I used to find it easier (back in those old days)to manually enter a text
netlist from the engineer's schematic, and appreciated the readability. It was
basically a waste of time to redraw a whole schematic when it wouldn't improve
anything, easier and quicker to just translate it and then team-up with another
designer to check it.:)

--
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| George H. Patrick, III | Resources for PCB Designers on |
| george@pcb-designer.com | the Web - The Designer's Den |
| George.H.Patrick@tektronix.com | http://www.pcb-designer.com |
+--------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| Take what you like and leave the rest... My opinion ONLY. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
"George Patrick" <me@pcb-designer.com> wrote in message
news:haudnSJqL-nK_x6iU-KYuQ@comcast.com...
Richard Henry wrote:



In days of yore, it was possible for the engineers to have
schematic-entry
software that was incompatible with the layout artists' software. They
took
my beautifully-constructed 12-B-page hierachical design, with on page
for
every block in the first-page diagram, and almost all signal flow left
to
right and top to bottom, and text notes scattered about to assist the
first-time viewer, and converted it by hand to a flat design crammed
onto 2
D sheets.

And with no errors of course.




I used to find it easier (back in those old days)to manually enter a text
netlist from the engineer's schematic, and appreciated the readability.
It was
basically a waste of time to redraw a whole schematic when it wouldn't
improve
anything, easier and quicker to just translate it and then team-up with
another
designer to check it.:)
The situation we had in those days was that the engineers would do a
complete schematic in Orcad or FutureNet. The the professional craftsmen in
the drafting department would do a mil-spec drawing loosely based on the
engineers output. After many cycles of review and correction, the resulting
board would be hand-taped.

When we got our first CAD layout system, the engineers were not trained to
use it. The draftsmen were. The results were predictable. If our drafters
screwed up, they continued to charge against the project account until it
was right. Smart program managers would avoid the problem by farming the
layout task to third-party vendors who could accept the computer-generated
netlist directly as input. And if the outsiders screwed up, they fixed it
for free.
 
I think the primary problem (especially with BIG companies like Sony) is
that
the electronic engineer enters the schematic her or himself. Circuits get
changed, added, moved, deleted for simulation and layout, and this new
stuff is
added where thers is space because there is no time to rearrange
everything
each time marketing decides they want to change features. NO time is
allowed
when the project is finished to clean-up the schematic. It's on to the
next
project, time is money, what are you sitting around wasting time for...
But then again.. if I made as much money as Sony.. and my products had a 5
year life.. or less.. I wouldn't care how good my schematics are either..
just make sure they are accurate (and correct).
 
Bill Sloman wrote:
"Richard Henry" <rphenry@home.com> wrote in message news:<bgAgb.10006$La.2595@fed1read02>...

"George Patrick" <me@pcb-designer.com> wrote in message
news:x-SdncB8CIrqVB-iU-KYgw@comcast.com...

Glenn Gundlach wrote:


snipped previous posts

In days of yore, it was possible for the engineers to have schematic-entry
software that was incompatible with the layout artists' software. They took
my beautifully-constructed 12-B-page hierachical design, with on page for
every block in the first-page diagram, and almost all signal flow left to
right and top to bottom, and text notes scattered about to assist the
first-time viewer, and converted it by hand to a flat design crammed onto 2
D sheets.

And with no errors of course.


This certainly used to happen quite often. The only strange thing
about it is that nobody that I've heard of has gone postal and shot
the drafts-person responsible.
in the old days, the draftsmen had knives out on the table.


--
local optimization seldom leads to global optimization

my e-mail address is: rb <my last name> AT ieee DOT org
 
Roy McCammon <rbmccammon@mmm.com> wrote in message news:<3F843BEC.1050508@mmm.com>...
Bill Sloman wrote:
"Richard Henry" <rphenry@home.com> wrote in message news:<bgAgb.10006$La.2595@fed1read02>...

"George Patrick" <me@pcb-designer.com> wrote in message
news:x-SdncB8CIrqVB-iU-KYgw@comcast.com...

Glenn Gundlach wrote:


snipped previous posts

In days of yore, it was possible for the engineers to have schematic-entry
software that was incompatible with the layout artists' software. They
took my beautifully-constructed 12-B-page hierachical design, with on page > >>for every block in the first-page diagram, and almost all signal flow left > >>to right and top to bottom, and text notes scattered about to assist the
first-time viewer, and converted it by hand to a flat design crammed onto 2
D sheets.

And with no errors of course.


This certainly used to happen quite often. The only strange thing
about it is that nobody that I've heard of has gone postal and shot
the drafts-person responsible.

in the old days, the draftsmen had knives out on the table.
In my time they were disposable blade scapels, for scraping indian ink
off the drafting film. The ones I used were pretty well balanced, and
would have made effective throwing knives, but I never saw any
evidence that any of the draftsmen had mastered that skill - not that
they ever saw any evidence that I used to throw my Biology 1 scapels
at a convenient dartsboard to let off steam when I was cramming for my
final exams.

------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
 
Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 22:52:22 +0100, Gareth
gareth.harris@nobody.nowhere.invalid> wrote:

Our Drawing Office draws most components as rectangles which, in my
opinion, makes the schematic very hard to understand. Today I asked if
I could have amplifier symbols for my amplifiers and was told that
"nobody has triangles these days". Is this true or are our drawing
office just lazy?

I expect that what has happened is that they have become used to drawing
schematics consisting mainly of things like FPGAs, microcontrollers, etc
and don't see many analogue or discrete components.

What are peoples opinions on rectangles vs schematic symbols?

Thanks for any input,

Gareth.


Your "Drawing Office" has been victimized by IEEE drawing "standards".
Remember their damned AND gate:
_______
| |
---| & |-----
---| |
|______|

Didn't last very long in the real world did it? Though they did
manage to Hertz us ;-)
Now there's a solution for the original poster. If his cad department is
so enamoured of rectangles, he can submit an employee suggestion to
eliminate all of their (expensive) cad applications and do all their
schematics as ASCII art with WordPad or vi. Think of the money they'd
save. ;-)

--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:paul@Hovnanian.com
note to spammers: a Washington State resident
------------------------------------------------------------------
Stop Continental Drift! Re-unite Gondwanaland!
 
I nominate Paul for Presidential Advisor.

Wisdom like his is rare.
 
"Active8" <mTHISREMOVEcolasono@earthlink.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:MPG.19e4ec621cb4e15b9898eb@news.west.earthlink.net...

<snip>
hey. we had a vendor at the fair this year selling Staedler Mars
Rapidograph pens and plotter supplies. they had an electric eraser for
sale. i asked if they offered plotting services. the answer was no. they
don't even have a plotter.
Damn, i'd nearly forgoten about those ol' electric erasers. Use them with
those terrific stainless stell stencils. There were great back in the day..
 

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