Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:18:03 -0700
Reply-To: honemastert <honemastert@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: honemastert <honemastert@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Are Today's Young People Mechanical Nitwits?
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> There is absolutely nothing like the smell of tube electronics that's
> lived in the company of smokers. Not bad, but distinctive.
Ahhh yes, I recall that smell, very very vaguely, Grandpa Schneider
died in 1967 (heart attack) lifelong smoker I was three, but I
do know that smell.. it's still in that radio today when you fire
it up. Pipe tobacco and Vacuum Tubes :-)
Tube testers.. yep, we had one.. have an EE friend that still does,
will use his to get this radio back to snuff. (I hope he still has it!?)
Interesting thing is that I have a good friend/cowoker who's
current partner, boyfriend still makes and designs super
high end audio equipment. One of those MIT transistor head
guys. Really bright, some of that stuff *still* uses tubes
for the amplification stages.. just like in a guitar amp, you cant
get the same sound out of solid state IC's (transistors)
Jeff is still an electronics 'tinkerer' at heart.
You can still do this stuff, but a lot is in the digital domain
these days. You're looking at a bench PC with something
like labview, and programmable logic, micro controllers and the like.
it's not feasible in this day and age to 'work' on your cell phone
per se. But then again, that 'radio' is way smaller than the
1936 zenith that I'm staring out here in the garage!
Take the Nike+ sensor deal that works with your iPod.
This is a cool gadget.. accelerometers in a small quarter
sized sensor pod deal that you put in your shoe, and a
small plug in deal that talks wirelessly from iPod to shoe
to track your distance/speed. Uses a PIC microcontroller
from Microchip (here in Chandler AZ)
Or the Garmin 405 sports watch,. designed in Kansas City
(built overseas I'm sure.. just as is the Nike+) I have one
and it's really cool to be able to have a heart rate monitor,
GPS data logger on your wrist, that actually *looks* like a
normal watch and not some geekly star trek communicator
sized square piece of nerd paraphanailia :-)
It wirelessly syncs with your PC and uploads the GPS data
so you can see the track on Google Maps/Earth and share
the routes with others.
I like it that I get to benefit from all the work of these 'tinkerers'! :-)
-tim
90 Syncro Westy
Gilbert, AZ
http://www.timschneider.org
