modern scopes

[Cydrome Leader]

I was at a trade show yesterday and got to play with expensive looking
digital oscilloscopes from teledyne lecroy. I think these were something
that started at like 8000 and worked their way up with options.

For the life of me, I wasn't able to even display the square wave from
the calibration point. The interface was a combination of truly cheap
looking and feeling knobs, buttons and a touch screen.

Even the teledyne sales guy had a hard time just displaying 1 waveform
from 1 channel. he was easily able to get some weird 3d looking chart to
appear, but I have no idea what the point of that was.

Setting AC or DC coupling required dicking around with a touch screen for
a while. WTF.

It's possible I'm old fashioned, but these devices were just shitty
computers with crappy software in the form factor of a scope, but not even
usable as a scope unless you have 30 minutes to try to set the thing up.

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

 

Actually, it would cost too much to build a scope with the old fashioned switches and all that.

But hey, we got cars with user configurable touch screen dashboards (but you're not supposed to TALK on a cellphone while driving), and in dash DVD players.

Ain't it wonderful ?

I wouldn't take one of those new scopes for free. I don't even like the 2465 ! Turn the knob and hear relays click, bullshit. Plus they forgot how to make a trigger ciuit by then unless the ones I saw had a problem. The old 422 out triggers all of them.

Nope, no interest whatsoever in that new junk.

 

[Uffe Bćrentsen]

Den 27-06-2014 17:12, Cydrome Leader skrev:

> When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

When they decided to use Windows in a scope :-(


--
Uffe

 

[jeanyves]

On 2014-06-27 17:12:41 +0200, Cydrome Leader said:

I was at a trade show yesterday and got to play with expensive looking
digital oscilloscopes from teledyne lecroy. I think these were something
that started at like 8000 and worked their way up with options.

For the life of me, I wasn't able to even display the square wave from
the calibration point. The interface was a combination of truly cheap
looking and feeling knobs, buttons and a touch screen.

Even the teledyne sales guy had a hard time just displaying 1 waveform
from 1 channel. he was easily able to get some weird 3d looking chart to
appear, but I have no idea what the point of that was.

Setting AC or DC coupling required dicking around with a touch screen for
a while. WTF.

It's possible I'm old fashioned, but these devices were just shitty
computers with crappy software in the form factor of a scope, but not even
usable as a scope unless you have 30 minutes to try to set the thing up.

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

nowadays, engeneer that knows how to build a high GHz capable scopes
dont know a lot about user interface ...

--

Jean-Yves.

 

[OldGuy]

Cydrome Leader formulated the question :

I was at a trade show yesterday and got to play with expensive looking
digital oscilloscopes from teledyne lecroy. I think these were something
that started at like 8000 and worked their way up with options.

For the life of me, I wasn't able to even display the square wave from
the calibration point. The interface was a combination of truly cheap
looking and feeling knobs, buttons and a touch screen.

Even the teledyne sales guy had a hard time just displaying 1 waveform
from 1 channel. he was easily able to get some weird 3d looking chart to
appear, but I have no idea what the point of that was.

Setting AC or DC coupling required dicking around with a touch screen for
a while. WTF.

It's possible I'm old fashioned, but these devices were just shitty
computers with crappy software in the form factor of a scope, but not even
usable as a scope unless you have 30 minutes to try to set the thing up.

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

get Tek and hit the auto button.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 28/06/2014 1:12 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:

I was at a trade show yesterday and got to play with expensive looking
digital oscilloscopes from teledyne lecroy. I think these were something
that started at like 8000 and worked their way up with options.

For the life of me, I wasn't able to even display the square wave from
the calibration point. The interface was a combination of truly cheap
looking and feeling knobs, buttons and a touch screen.

Even the teledyne sales guy had a hard time just displaying 1 waveform
from 1 channel. he was easily able to get some weird 3d looking chart to
appear, but I have no idea what the point of that was.

Setting AC or DC coupling required dicking around with a touch screen for
a while. WTF.

It's possible I'm old fashioned, but these devices were just shitty
computers with crappy software in the form factor of a scope, but not even
usable as a scope unless you have 30 minutes to try to set the thing up.

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

**I rarely use any of my analogue 'scopes nowadays. Although the crappy
8 bit vertical resolution is really annoying, the convenience of
operation, size of the instrument and the on-screen display features
(time, Voltage, FFT, etc) available from my cheap, Chinese digi-scope
are great for day to day use. As for obtaining a trace quickly, I just
hit the 'auto' button and the display appears within a couple of
seconds. Too easy.

Try a digi-scope for awhile. Unless your needs are very esoteric, I
suspect you'll be hooked. Try one of the cheap, Chinese ones (I use a
Rigol). They seem to be reasonably well resolved.

--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[Leif Neland]

jeanyves:

On 2014-06-27 17:12:41 +0200, Cydrome Leader said:

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

nowadays, engeneer that knows how to build a high GHz capable scopes dont
know a lot about user interface ...

One would believe a company building these scopes could afford at least
two engeneers, one for the internals, and one for the user interface.

Leif

--
Husk křrelys bagpĺ, hvis din bilfabrikant har taget den idiotiske
beslutning at undlade det.

 

[jeanyves]

On 2014-06-27 23:04:49 +0200, Leif Neland said:

jeanyves:
On 2014-06-27 17:12:41 +0200, Cydrome Leader said:

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

nowadays, engeneer that knows how to build a high GHz capable scopes
dont know a lot about user interface ...

One would believe a company building these scopes could afford at least
two engeneers, one for the internals, and one for the user interface.

Leif

you also need a third engeneer to make the two others talk to each other !

--

Jean-Yves.

 

"that the the oem cannot
enter into direct competition by offering high resolution displays. "

Try implementing thst policy on a CRT.

OK, it can be done, but then, there is this segment of the population that will not take this lying down.

for example - I wil not buy a car without a FACTORY INSTALLED ASHTRAY.

And I do not smoke. I just think for all that money you should geyt an ashtray.

Call me crazy, ?I have no problem with it soever, but they have called other peolle crazy in history, have they not ?

Fukum.

 

[c4urs11]

On Sat, 28 Jun 2014 06:47:29 +1000, Trevor Wilson wrote:

Although the crappy 8 bit vertical resolution is really annoying...
...
Try a digi-scope for awhile. Unless your needs are very esoteric, I
suspect you'll be hooked. Try one of the cheap, Chinese ones (I use a
Rigol). They seem to be reasonably well resolved.

Agree.
Knowing that Rigol actually produces scopes for Agilent, I suspect
there are agreements between brands and oem's that the the oem cannot
enter into direct competition by offering high resolution displays.
Only the crappy resolution keeps me from buying a chinese scope.

Cheers!

 

[Cydrome Leader]

Leif Neland <leif@neland.dk> wrote:

jeanyves:
On 2014-06-27 17:12:41 +0200, Cydrome Leader said:

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?

nowadays, engeneer that knows how to build a high GHz capable scopes dont
know a lot about user interface ...

One would believe a company building these scopes could afford at least
two engeneers, one for the internals, and one for the user interface.

They clearly lack any user interface people, and have never asked a
customer "what do you think about this?".

The extra sad part is all the buttons you'd even need are on the front
panel, so it's not like all features require poking your fingers at
the screen- just the ones anybody might actually need.

My guess is in the generation, lecroy will remove the sensitivity and
timebase knobs. That stuff will be buried under some obscure menu that's
hard to locate, or maybe you'll need a cell phone app to drive the entire
thing.

 

[Cydrome Leader]

Trevor Wilson <trevor@spamblockrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

On 28/06/2014 1:12 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
I was at a trade show yesterday and got to play with expensive looking
digital oscilloscopes from teledyne lecroy. I think these were something
that started at like 8000 and worked their way up with options.

For the life of me, I wasn't able to even display the square wave from
the calibration point. The interface was a combination of truly cheap
looking and feeling knobs, buttons and a touch screen.

Even the teledyne sales guy had a hard time just displaying 1 waveform
from 1 channel. he was easily able to get some weird 3d looking chart to
appear, but I have no idea what the point of that was.

Setting AC or DC coupling required dicking around with a touch screen for
a while. WTF.

It's possible I'm old fashioned, but these devices were just shitty
computers with crappy software in the form factor of a scope, but not even
usable as a scope unless you have 30 minutes to try to set the thing up.

When did scopes start to get designed by completed idiots?



**I rarely use any of my analogue 'scopes nowadays. Although the crappy
8 bit vertical resolution is really annoying, the convenience of
operation, size of the instrument and the on-screen display features
(time, Voltage, FFT, etc) available from my cheap, Chinese digi-scope
are great for day to day use. As for obtaining a trace quickly, I just
hit the 'auto' button and the display appears within a couple of
seconds. Too easy.

Try a digi-scope for awhile. Unless your needs are very esoteric, I
suspect you'll be hooked. Try one of the cheap, Chinese ones (I use a
Rigol). They seem to be reasonably well resolved.

I don't usually get to play with other scopes, but will make it a point to
mess with any I see from now on.

I'm still using a HP 54602B. It does nearly anything an analog scope can
do but has basic math and cursors. The knobs don't feel cheap, it doesn't
crash or need software updates and you don't need a manual to operate the
thing. The screen refresh rate is pretty poor as the display is digital,
but it has the option modules to print to a printer or send screen shots
to a PC (of course over serial).

 

Thing is, they do what is cheaper. More bang for the buck or whatever. All this digital shit deos take money to design, but costs practically nothing to produce. In compare to the old way that is. By theft or whatever, they reduced the value of money. If oyu do not paty more now, you are getting less, and there is no disputing that. If the value of a product is actually determined by its cost, this is irrefutable.

Because now one Man can do the work of ten, the boss malkes alot more, would you like him to just give it up ? What if the shoe was on the other foot, and after you develop the plane, and later the autommation to do this, would you want to give up a BIG piece of youe profit ? Just because ? Doesn't fly.

Stereos do not have a potetiometer for the volume and tone controls. this is not because they ar better, it is because they are cheaper. Televisions no lomnnger have what we called "turret" or "wafer" tuners, not because the digital tuner is better, but because it is cheaper. Your car has fuel injectors and a computer, not because it is better, but because it is cheape.

Didn't used to be so, in ALL cases. Now it is. You could put asn audio signal through your PC now, and have it equalize it in software. Right now, that is not quite cheaper than using the gyrator scheme and caps and OP AMPs for an EQ, but one day it will be. Then they will give you a new "feature" that it will accept audio from HDMI or optical, when the fact is, it that's what they're doing it is cheaper for them.

But you wil pay more for it.

Fact is - business is business. Dog eat dog. that is human nature and those at the top of the heap are really not much smarter than the rest. they just guessed right. Some of the richest people in the world know almost nothing. The pet rock guy comes to mind.

One exception is Amschel Rothschild, who authored a paper that related the economy to an eletronic circuit. I have that. Reading it did not make me rich by any means of course. But the understanding, how he equated capital with capacitance, work with inductance and taxes with resistance, I consider brilliant.

I digress. And digress, and so on.

Fact is, I probably shouldn't even post this out here, but one of mmy next investments is going to be old scopes. I am on the rampage for shit like old Tek 465s and all that. I do not care that they are too heavy. Take that new fucking junk on the road, don't risk that old ass scope. Might need it after a new software update !

Conputers did help cars alot. A DVM is much better than an old VTVM. Some things warrant modernization.

Others do not.

 

[Jon Elson]

Cydrome Leader wrote:

I was at a trade show yesterday and got to play with expensive looking
digital oscilloscopes from teledyne lecroy. I think these were something
that started at like 8000 and worked their way up with options.

For the life of me, I wasn't able to even display the square wave from
the calibration point. The interface was a combination of truly cheap
looking and feeling knobs, buttons and a touch screen.

The Tektronix DSO's generally work very closely to a standard analog
scope. You have to know that trace brightness has nothing to do with
rep rate, but otherwise, it will seem very familiar. I have an
HP 54200 I pulled out of a trash bin, and it has one of the most
frustrating user interfaces I've seen.

Jon

 

[Trevor Wilson]

On 1/07/2014 6:07 AM, jurb6006@gmail.com wrote:

Thing is, they do what is cheaper. More bang for the buck or
whatever. All this digital shit deos take money to design, but costs
practically nothing to produce. In compare to the old way that is. By
theft or whatever, they reduced the value of money. If oyu do not
paty more now, you are getting less, and there is no disputing that.
If the value of a product is actually determined by its cost, this is
irrefutable.

**Nope. It's progress. Back when Tektronix hit the market, DuMont was
king of the oscilloscope business. Tektronix undercut DuMont's pricing
by more than 50% and presented a superior product to boot. Did Tektronix
"reduce the value of money"? Nope. They simply produced a vastly
superior product for less money. The rest is history.

Because now one Man can do the work of ten, the boss malkes alot
more, would you like him to just give it up ? What if the shoe was on
the other foot, and after you develop the plane, and later the
autommation to do this, would you want to give up a BIG piece of youe
profit ? Just because ? Doesn't fly.

Stereos do not have a potetiometer for the volume and tone controls.
this is not because they ar better, it is because they are cheaper.

**Not quite, but sort of true.

Televisions no lomnnger have what we called "turret" or "wafer"
tuners, not because the digital tuner is better, but because it is
cheaper.

**Digital tuning is:

* MUCH more reliable.
* Does not drift.
* More accurate.


Your car has fuel injectors and a computer, not because it
> is better, but because it is cheape.

**Absolute bollocks. Modern fuel injection:

* Offers vastly better starting under adverse conditions.
* MUCH better fuel economy under normal conditions.
* Better driveability under all conditions.
* Until relatively recently, carbys were cheaper than FI.

Didn't used to be so, in ALL cases. Now it is. You could put asn
audio signal through your PC now, and have it equalize it in
software. Right now, that is not quite cheaper than using the gyrator
scheme and caps and OP AMPs for an EQ, but one day it will be. Then
they will give you a new "feature" that it will accept audio from
HDMI or optical, when the fact is, it that's what they're doing it is
cheaper for them.

But you wil pay more for it.

**No.

Fact is - business is business. Dog eat dog. that is human nature and
those at the top of the heap are really not much smarter than the
rest. they just guessed right. Some of the richest people in the
world know almost nothing. The pet rock guy comes to mind.

**Funny. I think of Bill Gates, when you mention the richest guy in the
world. Last I heard, Bill Gates was a pretty decent programmer (way back
when) and exceptional businessman. But yes, you're partly right. To make
a big fortune, being in the right place, at the right time, can be more
valuable than smarts.

One exception is Amschel Rothschild, who authored a paper that
related the economy to an eletronic circuit. I have that. Reading it
did not make me rich by any means of course. But the understanding,
how he equated capital with capacitance, work with inductance and
taxes with resistance, I consider brilliant.

I digress. And digress, and so on.

Fact is, I probably shouldn't even post this out here, but one of mmy
next investments is going to be old scopes. I am on the rampage for
shit like old Tek 465s and all that. I do not care that they are too
heavy. Take that new fucking junk on the road, don't risk that old
ass scope. Might need it after a new software update !

**Good. I have just the 'scope for you. I am selling my glorious, 600MHz
Tektronix 7854. Analogue, but with a bunch of digital smarts tacked on.
Originally, 20 Grand. You can have it for 1500 Bucks. I used to own a
465b. Great 'scope.

Conputers did help cars alot. A DVM is much better than an old VTVM.
Some things warrant modernization.

Others do not.

--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au

 

"**Nope. It's progress. Back when Tektronix hit the market, DuMont was
king of the oscilloscope business. Tektronix undercut DuMont's pricing
by more than 50% and presented a superior product to boot. Did Tektronix
"reduce the value of money"? Nope. They simply produced a vastly
superior product for less money. The rest is history. "

I may have miswrote that. The banks, whatever, devalued the money, not Tektronix.

Back in that day, wasn't Hickok also in the game, and Gould ? Some people told me Gould scopes are as good as Teks but I have never even seen one. Speaking of Tektronix, does anyone know if Jim Yanik is still among the living ? He was the Tek guru of all time around here. Yeah, you post like "I got this 475C and the trace is...bla bla bla" and then Jim comes backe wirth "Well I am not all that familiar with that model but C405 is probably bad, and while you're in there....". but he's not all that familiar with that model...

"**Digital tuning is:

* MUCH more reliable.
* Does not drift.
* More accurate. "

Of course, but that really doesn't make it inherently better. At one time it was expensive as hell. Feasible, but not costworthy. Only high end things had it. I was the alpha tuner expert, the old GTE Sylvanias. Nobody else could fix them. They just send them in and got a replacement. I fixed them at component level. This whole big box with a dozwen chips or so, like TTL and shit, running a varactor based tuner, a shielded cable running back from the prescaler which divided the local oscillator frequency down enough fo transport to the system. Kinda cool actually. not the whole system and more is in a box smaller than a pack of cigarettes. That includes the tuner/RF section as well as the used to be dozen ICs. Those sets sold for near a thousand bucks back when cars were, hmm, let me think about that. I had a 1970 toronado which was abou tten grand new, but most other cars weren't, and this was not 1970. These alpha tuners were in the 1970s, but not 1970. So a car would be from like two grand up ? The 25" MONOPHONIC color TV, a grand. Magnavox had a similar model with the "STAR" tuning system which actually was one of the first with on screen display.

All this shit cost a bunch of bread man, most people had a 19" portable with a mechanical tuner. They were cheaper, and they sold like hotcakes. Actually back then there was something worth watching on TV. Now I got hundreds of channels and nothing to watch.

**Funny. I think of Bill Gates, when you mention the richest guy in the
world. Last I heard, Bill Gates was a pretty decent programmer (way back
when) and exceptional businessman. But yes, you're partly right. To make
a big fortune, being in the right place, at the right time, can be more
valuable than smarts. "

That is a different story. And Bill Gates is nowhere near the richest. Maybe in the US, but there are people pout there who could buy and sell him with pocket change. The Rothschild fortune is estimated at $230 trillion by Credit Suisse, and that is the most conservative estimate I have found to date. Not that I am looking. But Bill Gates really didn't do all that much, I agree. One of the main things is he figured out how to make people pay. One of the things he rip[ped off was a big chunk of an DOS shell known as "Desqview" put out by a company called quarterdeck. It had most of the features of Windows 95, but about ten years earlier. Fact is, even Windows 8 is really a DOS shell. It might no longer give you a command prompt, but if you look at the contents from like, Linux or something, it is still a "disk operating system". Without that, Bill gates would still be running Traffometer.

"**Good. I have just the 'scope for you. I am selling my glorious, 600MHz
Tektronix 7854. Analogue, but with a bunch of digital smarts tacked on.
Originally, 20 Grand. You can have it for 1500 Bucks. I used to own a
465b. Great 'scope. "

Money is a bit tight right now, but if things pick up I might just take you up on that. Six hundred megahertz ? Analog ? (I don't know and don't feel like looking it up mid-post)

 

>"Cheaper, and built in China by slave labor. "

May have been like that a while back, but hthihgs are changing there. Everyone thinks they all live in grass huts and shit and ride a mule to work uphill both ways. The factors that make the labor cheaper are complex. the jobs did not go there sinply because of cost. They import drywall for fuck's sake. I can understand ipads and shit because they weigh noting and about ten trillion of them fit on the boat, but drywall ? Thing is, the people who run the world are not stupid, nor are the shortsighted like the majority of people now. What they are doing by removing the manufacturing base for consumer goods here is basicall lowering the cost and standard of living here, and wages. Once th wage base is low enough the manufacturing will return, we will be like the new Japan. Japan is about to get an ass kicking too because they don't do alot of the real work anymore. They job it out and now they are an investment based economy like the US. That makes them very vulnerable. Their governemnt is better though. Not in every way, but t least they didn't say "There are no laws for the banks" like here.

How much accuracy do you
need, with a good AFC? How many digital tuners failed, due to poor
design, like the RCAs built by Thompson of France?

thoise old chips, I had a joke about them. "Look at the IC and picture a lighning bolt in your mind and it will go bad". Yeah, it was a jioke - almost..

I have a first run,
Motorola Quasar TV that will soon be 50 years old. I have a Philco B&W
portable that was built in 1949. It is now 65 years old, and both still
worked the last time they were turned on. How many digital TVs will
still work in 50 years? "

All that shdit is probably worth more (dollars) than it was new. Not more because of "inflation" which is really devaluation of the currency. Nothing went up in value, the value of the money used to buy it went down. Once you think from that angle, alot more things make sense.

In fact, if you really think about it, after a time, and possibly reading the writings of Maj. General Smedly Butler, you might just change your sig line. All this shit is for money. I can ALWAYS find a monet rrason for everything they do. somethimes it take a while. Want to read about it ? butler. war is a racket. Stick them words into Google and you will get it. Good reading really.

As far as what will still work in fifty years ? I guess my Phase Linear. In fact I am about to sell that. I am not throwing out my original KP-36XBR. FFuck it. I do not have room for it and I do not watch TV. Tell you what though, once I aligned the COMB filter it was pretty much the best fducking analog TV I ever saw. PERFECT convergence. I do not mean almost perfect, I mean PERFECT. the old KPR4110 and 405 had identical curcuitry almost, but not quite perfect. It ecven tracked the halation, try designing that in a three tube projection.

Part of it was they used magnets on the yokes to take care of most of the pincushion correction. Newer ones abandoned that philoshophy and made the convergence circuit the biggest moneymaker for TV techs ever. Even before HDTV these things were pushing audio chips harder that ANY audio system ever would. Running into a couple of ohms if they're lucky, plus and minus 25 volts, DC coupled and almost clipping all the time. AND, have to put out harmonics of 15,734 Hz. Bandwidth almost 100 kHz even before HDTV. Made us alot of money. Mgnets on the yoke would have saved them alot of money and really, I cannot figure out why they stopped doing it.

Enough.

 

>" I am not throwing out my original KP-36XBR. "

OOPS. I am NOW throwing it out. Anyone need any parts ? It works.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Trevor Wilson wrote:

On 1/07/2014 6:07 AM, jurb6006@gmail.com wrote:
Thing is, they do what is cheaper. More bang for the buck or
whatever. All this digital shit deos take money to design, but costs
practically nothing to produce. In compare to the old way that is. By
theft or whatever, they reduced the value of money. If oyu do not
paty more now, you are getting less, and there is no disputing that.
If the value of a product is actually determined by its cost, this is
irrefutable.

**Nope. It's progress. Back when Tektronix hit the market, DuMont was
king of the oscilloscope business. Tektronix undercut DuMont's pricing
by more than 50% and presented a superior product to boot. Did Tektronix
"reduce the value of money"? Nope. They simply produced a vastly
superior product for less money. The rest is history.

I've used digital scopes and didn't like them. Instead, I used a Tek
2465A four channel analog scope for critical work on telemetry
equipment. I liked it so much that I now have three of them. Use
whatever you want. I've used close to 100 scopes over more than four
decades, and none of the digital did what I wanted or needed, at that
time.

Because now one Man can do the work of ten, the boss makes alot
more, would you like him to just give it up ? What if the shoe was on
the other foot, and after you develop the plane, and later the
autommation to do this, would you want to give up a BIG piece of your
profit ? Just because ? Doesn't fly.

Stereos do not have a potetiometer for the volume and tone controls.
this is not because they ar better, it is because they are cheaper.

**Not quite, but sort of true.

Televisions no longer have what we called "turret" or "wafer"
tuners, not because the digital tuner is better, but because it is
cheaper.

**Digital tuning is:

* MUCH more reliable.
* Does not drift.
* More accurate.

Cheaper, and built in China by slave labor. How much accuracy do you
need, with a good AFC? How many digital tuners failed, due to poor
design, like the RCAs built by Thompson of France? I have a first run,
Motorola Quasar TV that will soon be 50 years old. I have a Philco B&W
portable that was built in 1949. It is now 65 years old, and both still
worked the last time they were turned on. How many digital TVs will
still work in 50 years?

Your car has fuel injectors and a computer, not because it
is better, but because it is cheape.

**Absolute bollocks. Modern fuel injection:

* Offers vastly better starting under adverse conditions.
* MUCH better fuel economy under normal conditions.
* Better driveability under all conditions.
* Until relatively recently, carbys were cheaper than FI.

Fuel injection predates carburetors.

**Funny. I think of Bill Gates, when you mention the richest guy in the
world. Last I heard, Bill Gates was a pretty decent programmer (way back
when) and exceptional businessman. But yes, you're partly right. To make
a big fortune, being in the right place, at the right time, can be more
valuable than smarts.

What did Gates write, other than some 8008 software? He BOUGHT DOS,
and hired programmers after that.

One exception is Amschel Rothschild, who authored a paper that
related the economy to an eletronic circuit. I have that. Reading it
did not make me rich by any means of course. But the understanding,
how he equated capital with capacitance, work with inductance and
taxes with resistance, I consider brilliant.

I digress. And digress, and so on.

Fact is, I probably shouldn't even post this out here, but one of mmy
next investments is going to be old scopes. I am on the rampage for
shit like old Tek 465s and all that. I do not care that they are too
heavy. Take that new fucking junk on the road, don't risk that old
ass scope. Might need it after a new software update !

**Good. I have just the 'scope for you. I am selling my glorious, 600MHz
Tektronix 7854. Analogue, but with a bunch of digital smarts tacked on.
Originally, 20 Grand. You can have it for 1500 Bucks. I used to own a
465b. Great 'scope.


Conputers did help cars alot. A DVM is much better than an old VTVM.
Some things warrant modernization.

There are places where a DVM is absolutely useless, and a VTVM is the
required equipment. If you don't know why, you won't understand the
reasoning.


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have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

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[Adrian Tuddenham]

Trevor Wilson <trevor@SPAMBLOCKrageaudio.com.au> wrote:

On 1/07/2014 6:07 AM, jurb6006@gmail.com wrote:
[...]

Your car has fuel injectors and a computer, not because it
is better, but because it is cheape.

**Absolute bollocks. Modern fuel injection:

* Offers vastly better starting under adverse conditions.
* MUCH better fuel economy under normal conditions.
* Better driveability under all conditions.
* Until relatively recently, carbys were cheaper than FI.

I have limited experience of this, but my personal comparison, based on
long ownership of a Standard Vanguard Estate and a Volvo 940 Estate does
not entirely bear this out.

Vanguard (1948 design, 1961 build) weight 1.25 tons, twin carburettors.
Volvo (1980s design, 1991 build) weight 1.25 tons, fuel injection.


> * Offers vastly better starting under adverse conditions.

Both start well under all conditions but the Volvo is more prone to
flooding if anything goes wrong.

> * MUCH better fuel economy under normal conditions.

Vanguard 30 MPG under normal driving conditions
Volvo 30 MPG under normal driving conditions

> * Better driveability under all conditions.

Difficult to asess, but the Vanguard engine (6-cyl) gives more torque at
very low revs, whereas the Volvo (4-cyl) become lumpy and stalls. Those
results are probably irrelevant to the carbs v. injection argument. The
Volvo system takes a while to settle down to idling speed (wasting fuel)
whereas the Vanguard drops back to idle immediately and can be set to
idle a lot slower than the Volvo.

> * Until relatively recently, carbys were cheaper than FI.

They still are, almost every major component in a fuel injection system
costs as much as an entire carburettor.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk