Help me solve this design problem PLEEEZ

[Terry Given]

[snip]


Just ignoring it works too. Oddly enough, many of the high-tech
companies I have worked for have had appalling, unintelligible PA
systems. Weird - why cant a company that manufactures picoJoule laser
pulse detectors get a PA to work?

Cheers
Terry


My vote for the worst is the drive-up intercoms at fast-food places.

Reminds me of a funny.....

Bob Widlar just hated the paging speakers spread throughout the
National facility in Santa Clara.

His complaints were ignored.

So, one day, he showed up to work with a "plumber's helper" and some
cherry bombs.

Place cherry bomb in "plumber's helper" cup, light fuse, then raise
arm up and hold cup against ceiling speaker... instant relief ;-)

...Jim Thompson

LOL.

Did you know Bob Widlar?

Yes, but on a more professional level than as friend... I never did go
drinking with him ;-)

I worked a Philco-Ford Semiconductor in 1968, right next door to
National. When Philco-Ford shut that facility I got my technician,
Jim Foster, a job working for Widlar. Another former technician of
mine, Jim Estep, also worked for Widlar, but via a separate hiring
path. (At one point in time there were 5 "Jim's" in my group... see
why I broke family tradition and named none of my sons James ... ?

Widlar always seemed to mistrust me. I'd often show up over there to
take Jim F to lunch, and Widlar would stand in his lab door so I
couldn't go in ;-)

One of my associates was stopped, along with Bob, traveling in
separate cars, for DUI. The cop let them go after it was determined
that the cop's brother worked for Bob.
LOL.

And when are you going to write a book?

Cheers
Terry

I debate about that. I don't know what to write about. My expertise
is in ASIC's... does anyone care?

...Jim Thompson

underpinned by clearly successful problem solving methodologies.

There are lots of books about the relevant theories. There are far fewer
books covering the practical aspects that are required to turn theory
into practice. Even worse, there are few (if any) books (or papers)
talking about things that didnt work, and why. This is the sort of
knowledge that dies and gets re-discovered the hard way.

Cheers
Terry

 

[Terry Given]

Very possibly, but how do you reduce the sound output of a loudspeaker?

a 1mm air-gap in series with one of the leads works nicely.

Cheers
Terry

 

[Jim Thompson]

Jim Thompson wrote: [snip]

I debate about that. I don't know what to write about. My expertise
is in ASIC's... does anyone care?

...Jim Thompson

underpinned by clearly successful problem solving methodologies.

There are lots of books about the relevant theories. There are far fewer
books covering the practical aspects that are required to turn theory
into practice. Even worse, there are few (if any) books (or papers)
talking about things that didnt work, and why. This is the sort of
knowledge that dies and gets re-discovered the hard way.

Cheers
Terry

Aha! That must make me the world's penultimate expert, "things that
didn't work". I've done more of those than you can count ;-)

But advice I will give... don't let mistakes destroy your zeal, just
learn from them, and then, when you reach my age, you can reminisce
and have a good laugh.

...Jim Thompson

 

[keith]

For this application, that probably wouldn't work. When the operator
hops in the crane he (and the company) want it to work right-away.

A *small* battery holding the last timer state in a UC should work. Ok,
if they tripped the thing out and left for the day they'll have to wait
tomorrow. In any case, I agree with others. If it's a temperature
problem, measure the temperature. ...and build in any alarms and margin to
make sure noone gets killed! I'm glad it's *your* problem. ;-)

 

[petrus bitbyter]

For this application, that probably wouldn't work. When the operator
hops in the crane he (and the company) want it to work right-away.

That's understandable. Using a micro there are other ways to achieve the
same. Modern micros have a sleep mode in which they use hardly energy but
keep all of their contents alive. A small battery can power such a thing in
this mode for over a year. Of course you have the same problem when they can
disconnect the battery but you can build in a five minutes delay for the
first time the micro is started. Again, some work has to be done and again
they may find a way to circumvent it. But what is the deal? After all it is
only a warning device. It can be ignored, they can cut some wire, muffle the
audible alarm using chewing gum and so on. If you can't trust the people
working with the equipment, you have a real big problem but not a technical
one. You may install a device that gathers data about the use of the
equipment you want to protect and send that data to some computer to make
reports of it. So you come near the $30.000 solution you did't like.

petrus bitbyter

 

[John Larkin]

Widlar always seemed to mistrust me. I'd often show up over there to
take Jim F to lunch, and Widlar would stand in his lab door so I
couldn't go in ;-)

He was paranoid about his designs. He wouldn't even let his girlfriend
see his chip layouts.

John