The most important changes in electronic design over the past 25 years?

[Jamie]

Yes. I've done a lot of observing.

Oh, so you were the ring leader.

Jamie

 

[Tim Williams]

Yep - and as such they behave like Schrödinger's cat. If you know
where they are, you do not know when.

In other words, a *continuum* of superposition states. Quantization, who
needs it?

Tim

 

[josephkk]

FPGAs and logic simulation

LT Spice; more simulation, less closed-form math

Internet instead of data books

Zillions of complex-function analog chips

Digital photography

Cheap color digital scopes

High-efficiency LEDs

Math programs (Matlab, Octave)

Filter design software

DDS

Delta-Sigma converters

They have been around for 50 years.

Serious desktop and embedded compute power

Computer based drawings and document libraries, less paper

More purchased blocks, like power converters and signal/RF bricks. That's a
trend, moving us up the abstraction stack.

Inexpensive fast power FETs.

PHEMTs.

 

[VioletaPachydermata]

They have been around for 50 years.
Inexpensive fast power FETs.

PHEMTs.

You tell him his thing is 50 years old, and then suggest something that
also doesn't qualify.

Brilliant.

 

[Gib Bogle]

Oh, so you were the ring leader.

Jamie

No, I've usually been on the outside of any rings.

 

[Fred Abse]

BTW I do see that there is a great deal of really good and useful stuff on
the ng. It's just that there are a few people who seem intent on
constantly proving their technical superiority. There are also some
Neanderthal political attitudes on display. Is there a correlation?
Perhaps

Neanderthal, meaning not agreeing with your own POV?

 

[Fred Abse]

Mostly uk.d-i-y and comp.lang.fortran I have to say that there is a lot
of childish behaviour on another one, rec.sport.rugby.union

When in the UK, I once was invited to a Rugby club dinner. I learned more
ribald songs in that one night, than ever before or since.

 

[John Doe]

Being pedantically semantic about the subject line...

Better wording, in spite of the famous magazine by the same name,
might be "electronics design". The expression "electronic design"
sounds like a method for designing circuits.

 

[Nico Coesel]

I still have a few dozen databooks, because the old datasheets are so
very much better than the newer ones.

Same here but you have to admit that getting information has become a
lot easier.

 

[[email protected]]

I don't know.  I used to get databooks hand-delivered to me by
salesmen.

google is much faster, databooks are more a pass time when you have to
"sit down"

-Lasse

 

[[email protected]]

I don't know. I used to get databooks hand-delivered to me by
salesmen.

I still do. The only ones I keep are .pdfs. Everything else goes in
the garbage. I do warn them, though.