I was talking to my interns, who are mostly still EE undergrads.
They say that most students are CE/EE majors and estimate that 95% are >software oriented, people who type and don't solder.
So electronic design may be an increasingly rare and valuable skill.
Good.
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
In the old days, many EEs were Hams, and built stuff from scrounged
analog junk, which could be taken apart and understood. Many took
hardware things apart, same story, though many were distracted into
ME. I floated between both fields, but somehow ended up in EE (but
never was a Ham).
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
In the old days, many EEs were Hams, and built stuff from scrounged
analog junk, which could be taken apart and understood. Many took
hardware things apart, same story, though many were distracted into
ME. I floated between both fields, but somehow ended up in EE (but
never was a Ham).
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
Being a ham I can see why. Not too long ago radios were made of tuned circuits and a few other components. You mechanically adjusted the
tuned circuits. Today they are mainly just computer chips and the
software does all the work. Just look at the dongle that plugs into a
USB port and you get the TV stations on the compuer screen.
I have a receiver box that is about 4 inches square and an inch or two
thick. It will tune in from just above the audio range to two gigaHZ.
While I can not follow it , it will let me set up 4 or 5 screens on the computer and have that many different stations all going at the same
time. Most everything is done in the sofware.
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
That will continue to be the trend for at least another generation.
Most hardware designs are boring and a waste of an engineer's time.
Look at how many folks resort to buying some "module" and growing
a system around it. Surely, one could put a processor, memory,
PMIC and clock on a board -- there's no magic, there (especially
as o one thinks to question whether D0 on a device should connect
to D0 -- and not D3 -- on some other device.
The argument is usually economic. Yet, you're still stuck designing a >daughter card (or mother, depending on how you look at the module's
role in your system).
But, what cinches it is the many thousand page data sheet that
one would have to understand and commit to practice! Much easier
to just buy someone else's set of bugs than create your own!
This is also how younger people are approaching design problems -- taking >some existing product and "hacking" it to achieve some other goal
(which is likely very similar to N other goals that have been met
previously with other devices). *So* much easier to tweek something
than to create from scratch!
With AIs already designing chips, it's not long before one sees a
commercial AI developed and "rented" (software as a service) to
firms in lieu of hiring costly (and buggy) human counterparts
to design and layout boards to any given set of design criteria
(likely also including targeted reliability and/or warranty costs,
in which most engineers are sorely lacking).
One of the problems with AI solutions is they can be replicated for
very little cost (whatever the market will bear). So, once your
competitor's products improve in quality and time to market
by adopting those tools, you'll be forced to do so, also. Then,
an entire industry collapses.
I was talking to my interns, who are mostly still EE undergrads.
They say that most students are CE/EE majors and estimate that 95% are software oriented, people who type and don't solder.
So electronic design may be an increasingly rare and valuable skill.
Good.
Ralph Mowery <[email protected]> wrote:
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
In the old days, many EEs were Hams, and built stuff from scrounged
analog junk, which could be taken apart and understood. Many took
hardware things apart, same story, though many were distracted into
ME. I floated between both fields, but somehow ended up in EE (but
never was a Ham).
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
Being a ham I can see why. Not too long ago radios were made of tuned
circuits and a few other components. You mechanically adjusted the
tuned circuits. Today they are mainly just computer chips and the
software does all the work. Just look at the dongle that plugs into a
USB port and you get the TV stations on the compuer screen.
I have a receiver box that is about 4 inches square and an inch or two
thick. It will tune in from just above the audio range to two gigaHZ.
While I can not follow it , it will let me set up 4 or 5 screens on the
computer and have that many different stations all going at the same
time. Most everything is done in the sofware.
The two places I know about that turn out actual circuit designers are the >University of Colorado in Boulder and Montana State in Bozeman.
Anybody who has been an EE or physics student at either place is worth a >look.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
On 30-07-2025 21:54, john larkin wrote:
I was talking to my interns, who are mostly still EE undergrads.
They say that most students are CE/EE majors and estimate that 95% are
software oriented, people who type and don't solder.
So electronic design may be an increasingly rare and valuable skill.
Good.
Yes, and even better if you want to start a business selling modules. I
am going down that path right now.
First will be board mounted power supplies, offline and POL converters
On 7/30/2025 4:00 PM, Don Y wrote:
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
That will continue to be the trend for at least another generation.
Most hardware designs are boring and a waste of an engineer's time.
Look at how many folks resort to buying some "module" and growing
a system around it. Surely, one could put a processor, memory,
PMIC and clock on a board -- there's no magic, there (especially
as o one thinks to question whether D0 on a device should connect
to D0 -- and not D3 -- on some other device.
The argument is usually economic. Yet, you're still stuck designing a
daughter card (or mother, depending on how you look at the module's
role in your system).
But, what cinches it is the many thousand page data sheet that
one would have to understand and commit to practice! Much easier
to just buy someone else's set of bugs than create your own!
This is also how younger people are approaching design problems -- taking
some existing product and "hacking" it to achieve some other goal
(which is likely very similar to N other goals that have been met
previously with other devices). *So* much easier to tweek something
than to create from scratch!
I don't know if you have ever been to a Maker Faire, but most of what
you will see there in the electronics area will be standard stuff
with software controls.
On 7/31/2025 6:30 AM, BillGill wrote:
On 7/30/2025 4:00 PM, Don Y wrote:
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
That will continue to be the trend for at least another generation.
Most hardware designs are boring and a waste of an engineer's time.
Look at how many folks resort to buying some "module" and growing
a system around it.� Surely, one could put a processor, memory,
PMIC and clock on a board -- there's no magic, there (especially
as o one thinks to question whether D0 on a device should connect
to D0 -- and not D3 -- on some other device.
The argument is usually economic.� Yet, you're still stuck designing a
daughter card (or mother, depending on how you look at the module's
role in your system).
But, what cinches it is the many thousand page data sheet that
one would have to understand and commit to practice!� Much easier
to just buy someone else's set of bugs than create your own!
This is also how younger people are approaching design problems -- taking >>> some existing product and "hacking" it to achieve some other goal
(which is likely very similar to N other goals that have been met
previously with other devices).� *So* much easier to tweek something
than to create from scratch!
I don't know if you have ever been to a Maker Faire, but most of what
you will see there in the electronics area will be standard stuff
with software controls.
It makes a certain amount of sense /for hobbyists/ to build on >predesigned/fabricated modules; they want to get to a result that
*appears* to work with very little effort. They're not trying to design >*products* that actually DO have to work -- in all circumstances.
But, this leads to a perverse design approach; instead of deciding what the >goal is and then working towards that, they look at what the "module(s)"
make available to them and then find uses for those facilities. They
fail to see the false economy that this brings to their designs -- they've >baked in additional complexity that the design didn't really require.
Because there is no way to elide it!
Additional complexity likely means a buggier, more brittle product:
"We can use the file system to support different groups of settings
to allow the device to be quickly reconfigured for a different application"
"We can redirect results to a file and export them on a SMB share"
"We can build a web page hosted by the inbuilt HTTPd to allow configuration >settings to be graphically manipulated -- isn't that cool?"
"We can support L10N/I18N (once we find someone who understands swahili)"
"We can include a calculator -- with support for HEX/OCT/DEC/ENG"
"We can display the current time of day (in any timezone!)"
"We can graph the results (with any scale)"
"We can..."
And, of course, they likely have *NO* understanding of all the mechanisms >that make these things possible; they didn't author any of them so don't >understand how they can fail or how to repair them when they do.
"My can opener also toasts bread!" <rolls eyes>
On Wed, 30 Jul 2025 22:11:47 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs ><[email protected]> wrote:
Ralph Mowery <[email protected]> wrote:
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
In the old days, many EEs were Hams, and built stuff from scrounged
analog junk, which could be taken apart and understood. Many took
hardware things apart, same story, though many were distracted into
ME. I floated between both fields, but somehow ended up in EE (but
never was a Ham).
Now days, if you want to play with hardware, ya gotta program.
Being a ham I can see why. Not too long ago radios were made of tuned
circuits and a few other components. You mechanically adjusted the
tuned circuits. Today they are mainly just computer chips and the
software does all the work. Just look at the dongle that plugs into a
USB port and you get the TV stations on the compuer screen.
I have a receiver box that is about 4 inches square and an inch or two
thick. It will tune in from just above the audio range to two gigaHZ.
While I can not follow it , it will let me set up 4 or 5 screens on the
computer and have that many different stations all going at the same
time. Most everything is done in the sofware.
The two places I know about that turn out actual circuit designers are the >>University of Colorado in Boulder and Montana State in Bozeman.
Anybody who has been an EE or physics student at either place is worth a >>look.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
There are a few good ones at UC Santa Cruz too.
Not UC Berkeley, apparently.
I've heard good things about Rice too.
... No interpreted language is remotely fast enough, or reliable under pounding. ...
On 7/31/2025 12:43 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
... No interpreted language is remotely fast enough, or reliable under
pounding. ...
Forth?
I was talking to my interns, who are mostly still EE undergrads.
They say that most students are CE/EE majors and estimate that 95% are software oriented, people who type and don't solder.
So electronic design may be an increasingly rare and valuable skill.
Good.
On 8/1/2025 7:48 AM, Buzz McCool wrote:
On 7/31/2025 12:43 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
... No interpreted language is remotely fast enough, or reliable under
pounding. ...
Forth?
Forth isn't (strictly speaking) interpreted. It's just a simple stack machine >sort of like using RPN on a calculator.
On Fri, 1 Aug 2025 08:05:31 -0700, Don Y <[email protected]d>
wrote:
On 8/1/2025 7:48 AM, Buzz McCool wrote:
On 7/31/2025 12:43 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
... No interpreted language is remotely fast enough, or reliable under >>>> pounding. ...
Forth?
Forth isn't (strictly speaking) interpreted. It's just a simple stack machine
sort of like using RPN on a calculator.
Exactly. While Forth is in fact interpreted, running on a list of RPN commands to the hardware controller. Forth was created by an
astronomer as a better way to control pointing and tracking of very
large optical telescopes.
War story: I was very interested when Forth came out in the 1970s,
and dug into it very deeply for possible use in realtime systems.
Forth Inc was very secretive, and would not say anything useful about
how it worked. Eventually, I asked for the contact details of ten
happy customers, and called them. Turned out that half were happy and
half were not. The half that were happy had all cracked the kernel,
and knew how it worked.
One sent me a paper copy of an octal dump of the kernel, which I hand disassembled. If I recall, the listing was something like 20 pages.
It sounds impossible, but it's no harder to read machine code than the assembly code that generated it. After a short while, you just know
that 37 octal is ADD, and so on.
I pulled it all together by writing my own version, which I called
Fifth. It took about a month, but I was in the field working on a
customers simulator, and had lots of dead time to fill. It was so
quiet I could visualize vastly complex things and hold them for hours.
Never again. Don't recall just how big Fifth was, but it was about
the same size as Forth, a few thousand lines.
Anyway, once I knew how it worked, I could see that it would be
impossibly awkward to use to implement a full-up simulator (100,000
lines of 32-bit assembly code).
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