Was Don Lancaster really a "guru"? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:01:15 pm
content: So I found these articles by some guy that apparently was quite popular years ago in the electronics world: Don Lancaster.However I have found most of his columns in magazines to be content-free, typo-filled, hyperbolic, self-aggrandizing prattle. A self-appointed "guru"? Really?Everything was eitherutterly simpleorcompletely change the world forever, yet I can't find anything he's actually done. A few publications for circuits in the 1970s and a book or two of basically republished data books and he's been coasting on that for decades?And what's his obsession with PostScript?

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:05:50 pm
content: HisActive Filter Cookbookis very good.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:10:00 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 06, 2018, 08:01:15 pmTo help us understand that perspective, please give links to your last half dozen or so publications.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:23:17 pm
content: There is no such thing as a guru.The guy did however produce three excellent books which grace my bookshelf. CMOS, TTL, active filter cookbooks. They have been terribly useful over the years.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:23:59 pm
content: He wrote half a dozen books or so, designed the pioneering TV typewriter project and helped countless people become entrepreneurs and interested in engineering, and I'm not sure how many magazine tutorial articles, but it's a lot. That's a lot more than most people.His website is full or article, here is just the tutorial page on PIC's:https://www.tinaja.com/picup01.shtmlHow about 87 Hardware Articles:https://www.tinaja.com/hhsamp1.shtmlDo you know how much work goes into writing just one good tutorial article, let alone 87 of them?Was he some leading edge design "guru", no, but does that matter?

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:38:42 pm
content: His books helped a good number of us get started back in the '70s. If you've only just heard of him, you're clearly not one of us.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 08:55:05 pm
content: You seem to be affected with a severe case of youngism.I've never owned one of his books, but his articles were great actually. A lot of us learned a lot thanks to him. Guru or not, profilic designer or not, he sure had very practical knowledge. You can't say he didn't know what he was talking about.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 09:11:28 pm
content: Haha, maybe, but not seriously - just pointing out the value he's brought to many.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 09:15:24 pm
content: Well I recall having a discussion with Don about the images in his Ebay store a couple of years ago. He claimed his images where the best of all Ebay stores and that he hastheabsolute knowledge about trading on Ebay. Unfortunately that is only true in his mind.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 09:16:42 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on November 06, 2018, 09:11:28 pmI was replying to the author of this thread and also based on another post in the Kirchhoff discussion.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 09:23:46 pm
content: I have an autographed copy of CMOS Cookbook. That and TTL Cookbook are still worth owning a copy of.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 09:45:26 pm
content: One has to remember the time when these books and articles were published........late 70s throughout the 80s.Back in those days, the only way a young person would be able to gain technical knowledge was....was........gasp.....get ready for this......... reading books.Technical books were either math heavy and intended for College EE courses. Or the simpler, hands-on type, with emphasis on learning thru building novel and fun projects. They were called "cookbooks" for a reason.People like Don Lancaster, Forrest Mims, Doug Self and many others wrote the latter books.To me in particular, Mr Mims was the best of the bunch. His notebook style, hand drawn, but very legible schematics were a joy to experiment with. Simple prose, good technical tips and advice, minimal details intended only to whet your appetite.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 09:59:56 pm
content: Don Lancaster never tried to be a guru. He stuck to presenting fairly basic material to beginners. Since he kept publishing for quite a while, I assume the target audience found it useful material.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 10:26:42 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 06, 2018, 08:01:15 pmHe has a curious way of being very binary, yes. And punctuating heavily. With periods. Not sure if he fancies himself in a Shatner style. Or what.I remember reading, for example, his articles on "magic sinewaves" back in Electronics Now. It sounds fantastic (remember -- his own advice, even -- about "too good to be true"?), but he never seems to discuss the practical challenges you'd face, using them in a real implementation.For example: offhand, it seems to me, you're building a waveform basically as PWM, but with the edges lined up just so, to control harmonics carefully. The solutions are simple enough, for a given setup (amplitude and frequency), and for relatively few edges. The solutions get progressively worse as number of edges rises -- you're solving for the roots of an order-N polynomial, a problem well known to be unstable (poorly conditioned), and having unfavorable complexity (i.e., as N rises, how long does the computation take?). Moreover, in any real system, you will need three things: 1. many switching edges, so you can keep the filter to a practical size; 2. amplitude control, so you can regulate the output; 3. quantized edges (i.e., clock synchronized), so that the sequence can be generated from a counter, not requiring complicated hardware (clock multipliers, or vernier, or variable analog delays, say).So, now that others have picked up the idea and actually done the hard work, there are real results available on the subject. Example, plots of edge timing versus amplitude, for a given number of pulses during the quarter cycle. It's a nonlinear trajectory, kind of obviously because of the trigonometric polynomial being solved, but less obviously in that you would naively expect the pulses to grow outward from their centers, and that's about that. Well, as it happens, that's the small-signal equivalent, and it's close enough for large signals (that is, near 100% amplitude) to serve as a starting point for refinements. Since it's just a polynomial, we can iterate Newton's root finding method to get arbitrarily close to the local minima, which because the starting point was close enough, it's very likely to be the true minima.That makes real time computation of the level (as a function of amplitude, tweaks in frequency, and quantization) practical, on modestly powerful MCUs, or FPGAs, for audio frequency content.Alternately, you can forget about it entirely, which is mostly what's happened. You don't gain much by timing the edges impossibly tightly, when you have, say, a thousand edges per cycle. For one, that's a huge pain to solve for (and with so many parameters to solve for, it's also that much more likely to go numerically unstable). For a 60Hz inverter, that's 30kHz, an entirely boring PWM frequency. If the motivation is reduction of waste power, then one needs at least a modest switching frequency to begin with, because filter inductor Q generally goes as sqrt(f). This combination already makes it at least intractable, if not outright impossible. Further, if we're optimizing for size, we need to push the switching frequency up that much higher still, and then we might look to higher performance technologies like GaN power transistors to address the switching losses.His predictions and arguments on other subjects are also here and there, in line with what you should expect for such matters.Hydrogen fuel cells still aren't going anywhere, even with adsorption storage to try to drive down its astronomically poor specific energy density. Downside being the extreme weight and cost gain in the process. Possibly a catalyst can be developed which is relatively cheap and allows rapid, efficient and reversible bonding of hydrogen to, say, a hydrocarbon framework. Without the framework reverting to, say, graphite while it's empty.We are, however, getting closer to solar fuels. Chemical processes are known which can convert CO2 into small alcohols and such (which can be used directly in engines), they're just awful end-to-end efficiency. Some use electrical power (paired with a PV array, you get solar fuel as such), some with traditional chemical (heat driven) methods, some with direct photolytic action.I think he followed solar too, mainly complaining that it wasn't anywhere close to break-even. I haven't checked if his opinion has changed on that in recent years. I think also as time went on, he changed his tune from economic breakeven (which is relatively rapid with today's installs -- a few years) to thermodynamic breakeven (i.e., you don't see solar panel factories with solar panels on the top and a negative overall power consumption to the grid). He is probably still correct about that, but we'll see if that continues to change at the same rate as the first instance...Tim

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 11:16:36 pm
content: Postscript is MUCH more than most people think it is, that's why Don was so into it for a certain period. I used to work with his examples and dump things to printers to try them out - instead of filling out page after page of a word processor document and then sending it to the printer, a dozen lines of PostScript code could create the same output. It's MUCH more than simply a page layout formatting language.I suggest reading his PostScript articles, I would expect they are available online these days. You might learn something neat. I kind of forgot a lot of that stuff when I moved on and didn;t have ready access to a PostScript printer to actually execute things on.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 11:27:53 pm
content: Quote from: rrinker on November 06, 2018, 11:16:36 pmYup - and it's still pervasive in the printers world.Also remember how NeXTSTEP used Display PostScript for its GUI.

author: jmelson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 11:34:07 pm
content: Quote from: rrinker on November 06, 2018, 11:16:36 pmYes! I actually corresponded with him many years ago about some obscure PostScript issue, and he was quite helpful. I was trying to generate grey-tone graphical output on a full page of a printer with limited memory, and he suggested what to do to make it work. (At least, I think that was what the issue was.) I think I later corresponded with him again on an issue much closer to some eevblog topics of surplus test gear.He seemed to be a really nice guy, eager to help out.His web site is still there, too, athttps://tinaja.com/Jon

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 11:38:33 pm
content: Quote from: jmelson on November 06, 2018, 11:34:07 pmAwesome - there it is, a lot of the things I played around with, on the Postscript page, Don & Bee Lancaster's Postscript Beginner's Guide. I think I have found a new time sink - since now you cna send that stuff to a local renderer instead of a physical printer. Just looking at some of the code brings back memories.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2018, 11:41:48 pm
content: Also - I remember well the Apple II Cookbooks - I used those to learn assembly for the Apple II which I needed for my final project for the advanced BASIC class in schoool because doing my graphics in BASIC was waaay too slow. So I integrated some assembly for the slow parts which made it work.

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 12:02:52 am
content: I can't say that Don would be a guru today but in the mid 1970s he certainly was. For one thing, he was very good at being able to explain topics in anunderstandablefashion. I still have astackof the various Cookbook series, including several that he wrote.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 12:32:06 am
content: Quote from: Stray Electron on November 07, 2018, 12:02:52 amAs opposed to some professors that tend to explain understandable topics in an obscure fashion.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 12:37:55 am
content: First of all I suspect a very large proportion of the older readers of EEVblog got a lot of their start in electronics from Don's books and articles. Always clear, well written and with a sense of humor.Don's most important books:The TTL CookbookThe CMOS CookbookThe Active Filter Cookbookwere staples on the shelves of any serious hobbyist. And it you needed a terminal for your Apple I (for which he designed the keyboard) or Altair 8800B you also had the TV Typewriter Cookbook. I don't recall that I ever called him, though I might have once. But he was widely known to accept phone calls and letters and answer questions. At 65 I still idolize him. He was the real deal.In the 70's and 80's if you claimed to be interested in electronics and didn't recognize allusions to Don and his books and articles you were immediately dismissed a pretentious wannabe.As for calling himself a "guru" (if he ever did) you need to remember that in the 1970's the US was overrun with a vast number of frauds who came to the West and set themselves up as "gurus". For those of us who lived in that era, someone claiming to be a "tech guru" is a tongue in cheek joke. So when I hear or read some younger person claiming seriously to be a "guru" I always laugh. Absolute guaranteed way for me not to take them seriously at all.It appears as if Don may have passed away in the past few days as his last blog entry was 11-1-18 and he seems to have been very consistent about making a short post every day. I hope that's not the case. If anyone knows please post a link to an obituary. He wandered off into archaeology and other stuff and stopped writing on electronics almost completely.On Halloween he posted a link to the Lawrence Welk version of "One Toke Over the Line"!!! Obviously Welk and his production staff did *not* understanding of "toke".

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 12:47:42 am
content: One of the things that made me like Don Lancaster a lot in his articles and on his web page is that he really did make sure the math worked. It came out most clearly in his discussions of solar powered cars, but it was there everywhere.You can partly understand his fascination with Postscript when you realize that as magazines and other outlets died much of his income came from his self publishing business. He put a lot of time and effort into how to efficiently put words on paper and into a mailer.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 12:52:53 am
content: I missed out out Don Lancasters books, learnt logic design from the Texas TTL data book, Motorola 4000 series data book, Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar and back issues of Wireless World.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 12:54:15 am
content: Quote from: rhb on November 07, 2018, 12:37:55 amHis website is called the Guru's LairAnd he claims 1800 articles and 36 books, wow that's a lot of work.https://www.tinaja.com/glair01.shtml

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 01:10:24 am
content: Unless we talk about actual sect gurus, calling oneself a "guru" is kind of tongue-in-cheek anyway, as "guru" often bears a slightly negative image. I don't think that someone really full of themselves would really call themselves a guru.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 01:14:18 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 07, 2018, 12:54:15 amI should have registered that. "Guru" is sort of a null word for old guys like me. I knew some people who were for a time members of the Divine Light Mission. I'll let Wikipedia fill in the details for younger readers.Dave, you have a long way to go to catch up to Don. But then you're a lot younger, so there is still time. But you'll have to work at it.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 01:27:02 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on November 06, 2018, 08:38:42 pmThat's exactly the point. At the time he did some outstanding work and he will always be a big player to folks who were there at the time.He also did a couple of video books: "Cheap Video Cookbook" and "Son of Check Video Cookbook" in addition to the CMOS, TTL and Active Filter books. The Cheap Video Cookbook was especially important since we had to use conventional TVs as monitors.

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 02:57:53 pm
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on November 06, 2018, 08:10:00 pmThe other day I went to a restaurant. The food was not good so the chef asked me how many meals I cooked.He sure showed me.Hint: your "argument" is nonsense

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 03:37:02 pm
content: You've been ignorantly disparaging someone who was *the* dominant factor for many of us to get started with digital electronics. I was never a Forrest Mims fan. But I was, and will always be a big fan of Don. Don taught us how to work at the limits of the technology of the time under tight cost constraints. Don's books were written to help hobbyists fulfill their goals 40 years ago. The "TTL Cookbook" went through six press runs in the first two years. The "CMOS Cookbook" went through 5 runs in the first 3 years. The other books were equally popular. Don's books sold in the millions.Your first post demonstrated that you had not given any serious attention to Don's work. Why you would want to launch what is basically a personal attack on someone you know nothing about is beyond me. And also treading very close to deserving being banned. Were it my decision you would be just for the nasty attitude you have displayed.

author: RandallMcRee
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 03:53:20 pm
content: Hmmm,I was going to stay silent on this one, because, yes, Don is a good guy and everyone was pointing that out. The OP seems to be a bit thickheaded, however, shooting back with a disparagement-by-cooking analogy.To see some objective evidence of Don's influence you just need to look for PLL circuits. Don was the first, in the CMOS cookbook to fully explain how to make simple PLLs using the CD4046 (a genius chip for its time). I know this because these were also my first interesting, successful circuits back in the day.Today, if you go to look up more advanced PLL material you will still find numerous references, e.g. in college courses, to Don's original material extracted from his book and put on the web.It is a recipe that has stood the test of time.I also think that the "Guru" label is a joke, not meant seriously.

author: cgroen
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 04:00:29 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 06, 2018, 08:23:59 pmAhhh Dave, thanks for bringing the "Typewriter" book into my memories from way back againI had forgotten about all the books I have had that Don wrote, make me feel old

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 04:45:22 pm
content: I remember reading his articles in magazines back in the 90s, and I still have a copy of TTL Cookbook which has been useful. About 10 years ago I bought some parts on ebay and the seller turned out to be him. I got an email after some time apologizing and saying the parts had been misplaced and sent me a refund. Several weeks after that they showed up in my mailbox, I offered to send the money back but didn't get a reply.At any rate he was quite knowledgeable in the era, it's easy to forget that pre-internet (which wasn't really very long ago) finding information was SO much harder than it is today. Need a datasheet for a common part? Hopefully you could find a databook in the library or a magazine article to get a photocopy from. What about a more obscure part? Might as well just forget it. To say things have changed would be the understatement of the century.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 05:28:36 pm
content: Of course I just had to go look up the YouTube video of "One Toke Over the Line" on Lawrence Welk. OMG! The original got frequent airplay and was one of my favorites though I was only about 5 at the time and had no clue at all what a 'toke' was, I just thought they were referring to the train station in my town.I do hope all is well with Don. I don;t get the negativity by the OP towards Don's contributions at all. Mims was also an inspiration of mine, first through his column in Popular Electronics and then the Engineer's Notebook series. And there is another series of books he did that were sold through Radio Shack, I have a few of those as well, they predate the Engineer's Notebook ones. Had a lot of fun building some of the transistor circuits in those. Heck, my senior lab project in college was based on a series on Mims PE articles - we build an LED array oscilloscope. I keep thinkign the Signlent scope I bought a few years ago is the first scope I owned - not really so, I had one a designed and built myself - ok, it was only good to maybe 1KHz and a very small range of vertical amplitude, but you coudl distinguise a square wave from a sine wave from a triangle wave. Most o the time

author: ArthurDent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 05:48:05 pm
content: Many years ago I built a modification of the WWVB loop antenna/amp designed by Don Lancaster and that antenna is still working on my roof. I found that in the WWVB article, as well as other articles he had written, he explained the theory and trade-offs quite well.https://www.tinaja.com/glib/rad_elec/experiment_wwvb_8_73.pdfI'm not sure what the purpose of the OP starting this thread is. Maybe the old saying: "If you can't say anything positive....."

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 06:11:29 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 07, 2018, 02:57:53 pmWow, speaking of nonsense......

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 06:30:44 pm
content: I had a quick scan of my library. I have at least 5 of Don's books. Quite likely 7 or 8. The only author from that period who comes close to Don is Joseph Carr with John Lenk a distant 3rd.Don is probably the most successful ($$$$) general audience electronics writer ever by a very wide margin. If you're that successful you do what *you* want to do. Not what someone else wants you to do.The OP obviously has no grasp of what electronics was like in 1974 when the TTL Cookbook came out. That was 2 years before Ed Roberts introduced the Altair 8800. The microprocessor did not even exist. I sat in on an Electronics 101 course as a break from looking through a microscope all day. The instructor was a semiconductor physicist who designed and built a computer from scratch using TTL logic. By the time he finished it, the 8080 had come out and it was hopelessly obsolete.I doubt that there was anyone of significance to hobbyists technically that did not have several of Don's books. Jobs wouldn't, but Wozniak would. The TV Typewriter book was published in 1976, the year the Altair was introduced. If you had an Altair you had Don's book.Don's books were full of clever tips like using a memory chip to implement complex arbitrary logic which is exactly what FPGAs do today. Don understood and wrote to his audience better than any other author on digital electronics. Carr's focus is RF and Lenk's was repair.I think the cook's was response was a polite "f*** off punk". Doubtless the OP demanded to see the chef and it was the only response the chef could think of.

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 06:42:54 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on November 07, 2018, 06:11:29 pmHaving a hard time following my reply? Asking someone else how well they can cook has noting to do with the meal in front of them.Just like asking how many articles I wrote has nothing to do with what I think of someone else's articles.If I used your logic, I could never criticize a car unless I built one (or even more), etc.Is that so hard to grasp?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 06:59:56 pm
content: why is it your threads are always controversial? you are a right pain in the ass on this forum. One day you will push me to get my hammer out!

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 08:35:43 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 07, 2018, 06:42:54 pmPerhaps you will understand your argument turned around. People paid for those writings of Don Lancaster. No one sells that much material if those buying don't find value in it. I personally didn't like everything he wrote, but found way more than half to be of interest. The remainder was mostly good enough stuff, just not of interest to me. Stuff like his PostScript mania. In your terms that is like saying I enjoyed the appetizer and main course but didn't care for the deserts. Does that make a bad cook? Other people at the table liked the desert but didn't care for the appetizer.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 07, 2018, 09:02:19 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 06, 2018, 08:01:15 pmSeems a pretty good description of you, except you haven't written anything other than some offensive forum posts.QuoteYou obviously did not look very hard if you only found one or two books. None of which are republished data books. Don certainly did include the important part of the datasheets for the devices referenced in the books. Otherwise they would have not been usable by many of his readers. Data books were *very* hard to get if you didn't work for a large company. And people who did get them for free had a long list of people who wanted their old copy. I still have the hand me down data books I was given. Many of the devices are no lonAnd "book on demand" has changed the publishing world as did PostScript.QuoteIn the day when a small microcontroller cost several hundred dollars, Don was showing how you could use your LaserWriter to do the job. Ever hear of a "parallel port"? That was how you normally drove a printer and the parallel port on the LaserWriter was bidirectional. So the range of things you could do with it was limited only by the number of pins (not problem for Don to expand with a bit of TTL or CMOS logic) and your ability to fit everything into memory.And if you wrote raw PostScript you could print anything you wanted to using an ordinary text editor. So I printed business cards with a small PostScript file that were of professional quality and cut them with a paper knife. Even today I sometimes use raw PostScript for the simple reason it is far less work than any other option. And it doesn't cost anything extra. Apple wanted you to dump your Apple II and buy a MacIntosh. So Don showed that you could do everything with an Apple II.But more importantly, PostScript provided a *device independent* means of printing complex pages. That was *not* possible before PostScript was developed. If you ever had to write a printer driver or even configure a printer for which you had a driver in the 70's and early 80's you might be able to understand.If you told a professional chef that his plate layout was not very good or he got the recipe wrong you got precisely the answer you deserved. At least, short of picking you up by the scruff of the neck and throwing you out the door.Aside from the general attitude, your biggest problem is you are ignorant and lazy. As was amply demonstrated by your first post. If you were not ignorant you would have understood about PostScript. And if you weren't lazy you would have learned very quickly that Don was a very prolific writer.However, your biggest problem is you crave attention so much you seek it even if it results in people taking a very negative view of you.But, no worries, mate. You'll be gone soon, though perhaps not soon enough to suit some of us.Edit: I just checked Don's website and he is clearly alive and active at least as of yesterday so the "godman" of our youth is still with us.Just for fun, here's the text of his 2 November post which for some reason did not appear when I checked his website yesterday.The "anvil test" for camp coffee...If the anvil sinks, it it too weak.If the anvil floats, it is just right.If the anvil dissolves, it is too strong.Which I think says a lot about the "Guru's Lair" name.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 02:37:38 am
content: Quote from: schmitt trigger on November 06, 2018, 09:45:26 pmWell, there were Techical School night classes!QuoteI never saw much to interest me in "cookbooks"---- they were usually for things I had not the slightest interest in making, or contained a lot of stuff which I could find for myself in such things as the National Semiconductors manuals.( but then again, I wasn't "Just a stripling lad" during those years.)There were quite a few technical books which, although they did include mathematics,also had written descriptions of things, so if you were weak on maths, you could "read around "it, & still get good value out of the textThe earlier editions of "Electronics Australia"(& it's Predecessors) the British publications "Wireless World",& "Practical Wireless" as well as "73" & the "ARRl Handbook, were the things I learnt quite a lot from.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:34:48 am
content: Quote from: rhb on November 07, 2018, 06:30:44 pmWhen I bought my Altair 8800 in early '75, it came with no IO boards and had a huge 256 BYTES of RAM. But NO IO. I bought a serial board fairly early and borrowed glass teletypes but eventually that source ran out and I had to do something with Don's TV Typewriter. Maybe I bought something from Southwest Technical... It's been a long time and memory fades.Byte Magazine and Dr. Dobb's Journal were about the only sources of information on a periodic basis and Don Lancaster's books were much more detailed. As discussed above, they were wildly popular.

author: alpher
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:50:37 am
content: QuoteAnd here lies the problem, for some "Byte" and Don Lancaster are sort off contemporary things.It's really hard to grasp for the younger folks, how much world changed in the last 20 years.Don started to write good 10 years before "Byte", to the common belief, yes, there was electronics before 1980's.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 04:17:49 am
content: I had that dark green TTL cookbook. Eventually it fell apart at the binder. Layers of tape were holding it together. I passed it along to another hobbyist. It was a very good book for that time period. I got some other magazines but most were more general, so digital was hit and miss. I also had one of his graphics books but back then, graphics for me was basically non-existent.Personally, I don't use terms like prodigy and guru in the way Webster's defines them. I will say that I have fond memories of that TTL cookbook. Of course, the down side to reading such books is you start building stuff like this when you get a little older:https://youtu.be/5OUfx2F43ek?t=509

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 04:18:53 am
content: Yep. Today's folks can hardly comprehend that at first, booting a computer meant entering a loader program by setting the bits of memory using switches on the front of a computer. This wasn't just the hobby world, the minicomputers like the PDP series and HP 1000 series worked that way too. It wasn't as big a problem as it might seem because core memory was non-volatile and you usually didn't have to do all that switch flipping every day. And while it would have been practical by the time the Altair and others came out to put that loader in a ROM, the people buying those computers had cut their teeth on those commercial machines and wanted their home computer to be a "real" computer. It took a few years to grow out of that mindset.

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 04:46:18 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on November 07, 2018, 01:10:24 amYes, it's strange how the language morphs and evolves. I remember, at the time, that a "guru" was some sort of mystic from the middle east and was associated with achieving nirvana through budhism. The "gurus" came to the US in a wave associated with the Beatles, who, at the time, had visited the middle east, (I think India?) and had their mind expanded by smoking hemp, tasking LSD and listening to these gurus explain how to achieve inner peace and achieve the ultimate nirvana. This was adopted by the "hippies" of the time and, along with LSD and other mind bending drug use, opened their arms to these gurus of the middle east and India. There was a tremendous influx of these gurus into these sects in the west, but mostly to the US. EDIT: Nowadays, gurus are synonymous with someone who is an expert. END EDITSo, at the time, any mention of anyone being a "guru", a middle eastern or Indian holy man came to mind (and citars would play in the mind), and for the more conservative folks, this was somewhat of a joke. This is why Don tried to depict himself, jokingly, as a "holy man" or, in a word, "guru".I read Don's articles in the magazines, when I could get them, but always thought that this was a bit out of reach for me at the time because I was a poor young father, who had no money and no time for hobbies. Without the very simplest of measuring instruments available to me, I could not pursue this interest. I would still read the articles and wanted very much to get the devices and experiment, though. Don was a force for young people interested in the hobby, or in professional electronics design. In my book, he was one of the very few friends of hobbyists at the time and opened up avenues that otherwise would not have been available to someone who was unable to go to college and study electronics.Again, those who are young have missed out on the most important period in the history of electronics and that Don was a pioneer. In a way, I feel very sad that the young folks of today did not experience the revolution that was occurring back then. I know that I felt it in my bones at the time. I am not trying to take away anything from today's advances in the industry, but anyone in that time period who happened to understand logic circuits and also happened upon a PDP-8 can not grasp the significance.This was just my take on history, some of you may have experienced it differently.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 05:51:05 am
content: At least throughout most of my life, "guru" has been a common term to describe anyone who knows enough to be one of those experts who everyone goes to for information. It doesn't have to be the original definition of a far east mystic or whatever.

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 06:15:38 am
content: Quote from: james_s on November 08, 2018, 05:51:05 amI guess I would ask if you were around at that time, because that is when guru came to be synonymous with expert, not before.I do agree that Don is/was an expert in the '70s and '80s, but in the context of the time that he was doing his best work in the '70s, the context that I was talking about was why he jokingly said he was a guru (or whatever).

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 02:34:04 pm
content: @rstofer I had one encounter with an 8800B in response to an ad in the student newspaper. It turned out to be someone I already knew. I sat with him and a couple of others and we struggled and failed to get a simple blinky light loop entered via the front panel. There was a TV typewriter terminal sitting nearby, but there was no interface board available yet. Much less a ROM monitor.For the benefit of younger readers, a ROM monitor is a *very* minimal program that communicates over an RS-232 serial line and allows you to load images by reading from disk by track and sector addressing, dump or modify memory, etc. The standard was a 2 KB ROM. So the same functions as what is now called a BIOS courtesy of Gary Kildall's influence and IBM's naming. But with the benefit that it had a command line which IBM did not provide.@tpowell1830 Excellent summary of the times. Those were heady days because all manner of small things were happening which were changing the world forever, even though most people didn't realize it. And none of us could imagine that one day for $5K (1970 $) you could buy a machine with a terabyte of core and several teraflops of performance that could sit under your desk and not cook you.Don's business name is Synergetics. Don saw better than most how the individual bits would fall together and the whole would be far greater than the pieces.And how many million seller authors will answer the phone and talk to random readers about their technical problems? I'm sure he picked up some nice consulting contracts that way. But today someone as successful as Don would have lots of people to screen out 15 year olds and the like.There is a real problem in the tech sector with not knowing history. I have seen the same mistakes made over and over as a new generation came into the workforce. I benefited greatly from reading about the history of computing in the 1940 to 1980 time frame before I got involved.In the early 90's on my first contract job at a major oil company I counted 8 people an hour through my cubicle with questions. That made writing software rather difficult. So I went to my supervisor to discuss it. We arranged that a regular employee would prescreen questions. The situation was so bad that I would often say, "Obviously you have me confused with someone who knows what they are doing."I'm quite sure that if someone had referred to me as a "guru" in my hearing I'd have started doing some elaborate parody of a 1970's guru. I can do a wicked parody of Oral Roberts or Garner Ted Armstrong style preaching."I want you to reach out, put your hand on the seismic section. Feel the power of the vibrations saying, "I've got oil. I'm going to make you rich." Can I have a witness? Brother, will you testify for those who have not yet felt the tingles and don't believe?"

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:04:40 pm
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on November 08, 2018, 02:37:38 amActually, there weren't. I graduated college in '73 and we were still using slide rules. The HP 35 calculator came out in '72 - the first scientific calculator but not programmable. I couldn't afford it at the time so I kept on using the 'slip stick'. The HP 65 (3rd in series) introduced programmability.The Intel 4004 uP came out in '72 but it wasn't widely adopted by the hobby community. The 8008 came out in '72 as well and it became somewhat popular among those who built their own machines. There were several memorable articles about these machines. The 8080 came out in '74 and the Altair 8800B came out in early '75 and we were finally off to the races. The Altair cost around $400 and so did qty 1 8080 chips. Buy the chip or buy the machine - either way.I started grad school in '75 and we had an 'Engineering Seminar' class the first semester. For a topic, we chose microprocessors and we scrounged up every bit of data we could on the newly emerging processors. A lot of paper writing that semester!Electronics, at the uP level, was pretty much unheard of in the hobby community in those years. Small computers, priced where an individual could afford them, just didn't happen until the Altair 8800B came out.And then the hobby exploded! Bill Gates offered up several incantations of Altair Basic but you had to buy MITS memory boards to qualify to buy Basic. It was widely copied! I have Bill Gates' column in the MITS newsletter complaining about people stealing his software. Well, he got even for that!I remember using paper tape and audio tapes. I built a floppy controller board using the Western Digital 1771 chip and installed CP/M some time in '76.Then in '80 along came UCSD Pascal - those were the days!It's good to look back at where we came from.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:26:20 pm
content: Quote from: alpher on November 08, 2018, 03:50:37 amOf course there was! We had Heathkits when I was a kid. The company was founded in 1926.I built the 8W audio amplifier when I was about 12 ('57) and my dad and I build a shortwave radio from the ARRL handbook when I as about 10 - say around '55. Popular Electronics was my favorite (and only) magazine.I've been fooling around with this stuff for a very long time. But the explosion happened in '75. An entire industry was created around Intel. None of this stuff existed before '75.I remember the transition from transistor logic to RTL to DTL to TTL and eventually CMOS. A flip-flop used to take quite a bit of board space. Now I can get a million in a chip the size of a postage stamp.Don Lancaster had the exact skills necessary to help us along when this thing started up. I don't do analog very much (other than analog computing) but I would certainly think his Active Filters book would be required reading.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:37:13 pm
content: Despite the negative OP, this thread is fun! A lot of us share a common history and it has been an amazing ride!Imagine, a time before C ('72), a time when FORTRAN ('57) ruled the scientific community and COBOL ('60) was the language of choice for business. Or maybe when Algol ('58) showed us the right way to program.Imagine! I was writing FORTRAN before C was invented! How cool is that?The last 50 years have been outrageous! I wonder what comes next?

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:45:39 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on November 08, 2018, 03:04:40 pmYes, this was the time of the engineers with pocket protectors and slide rule scabbards hanging from their belts. I started learning programming in the early '80s in BASIC and Pascal on CPM. I thought that I wanted to be a programmer but the world put me back on track into electronics.This has no negativity towards the younger crowd here, but just an emphasis on the fact that so many changes in the electronics and computer world happened in this time and I was so very fortunate to be in the middle of it. To me, it was a very exciting time.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 03:56:52 pm
content: I'm not quite THAT old, but FORTRAN was my second high level language, after BASIC. And I even got to use it, post college, in my work environment, in the late 80's.By the time I got my first computer, there were far fancier machines available, but all well beyond my Jr. High grass cutting budget, so I started with a small single board machine with direct machine language programming. And I'm glad I did, it's a perspective you don;t get these days where even your phone is a more powerful computer than any available back then. By the time I started college, the IBM PC was available, but hadn't quite taken off yet - that came the following year. Universities were in transition - one of my classes was in 8080 assembly programming, and it was done on S-100 bus 8080 systems with 8" floppy drives (not Altair or Imsai, not sure exactly who made them). By the time I gradated, the whole campus was networked, including all dorm rooms, AT class machines were common (I had an 8MHz XT clone with EGA video), and lots of other things. It was a time of more than exponential rate of change.I still have that first computer, and it still works. I showed it to my kids not too long ago, they are in their 20's. All they kept saying was "but what can it DO?" I remember enough of the opcodes for the processor to write some simple on/off blinky kind of things, but of course in the age of photorealistic rendered graphics in everything, they were of course not impressed. What can it do? Besides teach you where it all came from? I guess not much.... To not recognize that, I think, is a great tragedy.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 04:26:48 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on November 08, 2018, 03:37:13 pmI was thinking the same thing. It took a while to find, but the discussion of front panel switches made me hunt down "Know Your System Administrator: A Field Guide". This was always my favorite.SITUATION: Root disk failsTECHNICAL THUG: Repairs drive. Usually is able to repair filesystem from boot monitor. Failing that, front-panel toggles microkernel in and starts script on neighboring machine to load binary boot code into broken machine, reformat and reinstall OS. Lets it run over the weekend while he goes mountain climbing.I had the pleasure of knowing a geoscience department electronics tech, John Thorne, who recovered a PDP 11 for another department via a bit of front panel work in the late 80's. He was rather pleased with himself as the alternative was a great deal of work and it's easy to mess up flipping switches. But a very pleasant and modest person. He designed and built the department mass spectrometer. Put a "No Bozos" sticker on one of the rack panels. He was rather mysterious about his past, but was good good friends with Joseph Carr, the RF author. As best I could guess he had spent a good bit of time working for some 3 letter agency in the DC area and in the process got involved in something which upset him to the point he left and took to reading the Bible a lot. He never mentioned the Bible, but he had one of those versions with 20 or 30 bookmarks built in in his office.And of course, there's Mel Kaye. At one job I formatted "The Story of Mel" as a man page so if a user typed "man mel" it came up in standard man page format.I encountered FORTRAN in chemistry class in the fall of '71 and took my only computer course, WATFIV, a few years later. I later suffered with BASIC on the Vic20 until I got a forth ROM cartridge. Naturally, as a scientist I used FORTRAN until I was handed 5000 lines of almost completely uncommented C written at Stanford and a Sun 386i as a summer intern. I'd been running a MicroVAX II in the BA123 worldbox for several years before that. So by the end of the summer I'd read Bach and Lefler, McKusick et al and could be found wandering around saying "awk, bailing out near line one".I typically use C unless I need to do complex arithmetic in which case I switch to FORTRAN 77 and call it from C. I'd really like to learn 9X, but I've never found a book suited to someone who is familiar with BNF, lex, yacc etc.I recently was sent a PDF of the new FORTRAN standard, but as there is no chance of scientific work at my age and the current oil prices, learning Verilog is more important now.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 05:05:18 pm
content: There was a time before MATLAB when, if you wanted a graph, you wrote the plot code yourself. Here is a sample from my grandson's Algebra book that I coded up a few years back and have used in a discussion during his Calc I class in college:Code:// JOB// DUP*DELETE PLOTA// FOR**PLOT AREA*NAME PLOTA*LIST ALL*ONE WORD INTEGERS*IOCS(PLOTTER)NPLOT = 71 FORMAT(I2)2 FORMAT('SIDE X IN FEET')3 FORMAT('AREA IN SQUARE FEET')4 FORMAT('AREA')5 FORMAT('X')6 FORMAT('16 - X')7 FORMAT('PERIMETER P = 32')8 FORMAT('AREA A = 16X - X**2')9 FORMAT('FENCING A RECTANGULAR AREA WITH 32 FEET OF FABRIC')10 FORMAT('SLOPE S = ')11 FORMAT('DA')12 FORMAT('DX')13 FORMAT(' = 16 - 2X')14 FORMAT('SLOPE')15 FORMAT(I3)CC PEN COMMANDSC INC - No ChangeC IDB - PEN DOWN BEFORE MOTIONC IDA - PEN DOWN AFTER MOTIONC IUB - PEN UP BEFORE MOTIONC IUA - PRN UP AFTER MOTIONCINC = 0IDB = 2IDA = -2IUB = 1IUA = -1CC CHSZX - CHARACTER SIZE X IN INCHESC CHSZY - CHARACTER SIZE Y IN INCHESCCHSZX = 0.1CHSZY = 0.1CC SX IS X-AXIS SCALE FACTOR : 5.5 INCHES OF PAPER FOR 17 UNITSC SY IS Y-AXIS SCALE FACTOR : 6.0 INCHES OF PAPER FOR 64 UNITSCSX = 5.5 / 17.0SY = 6.0 / 64.0CC XORG - PHYSICAL LOCATION OF GRAPH X ORIGIN ON PAPERC YORG - PHYSICAL LOCATION OF GRAPH Y ORIGIN ON PAPERCXORG = 4.4YORG = 1.8CC INITIAL PEN POSITIONCPX = -XORG / SXPY = -YORG / SYCC SET SCALE, DRAW BOTH AXIS AND PLACE PEN DOWN AT 0.0, 0.0CCALL SCALF(SX, SY, PX, PY)CALL FGRID(0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 16)CALL FGRID(1, 0.0, 0.0, 4.0, 16)CALL FPLOT(IDA, 0.0, 0.0)CC DRAW THE CURVE AND RAISE PEN AFTER COMPLETIONCCALL PEN(8)DO 20 I = 1, 17X = FLOAT(I) - 1.0Y = X * (16 - X)CALL FPLOT(INC, X, Y)CALL POINT(1)20 CONTINUECALL PEN(0)CALL FPLOT(IUB, X, Y)CC LABEL Y GRID WITH 0.1 x 0.1 CHARACTERSCDO 30 I = 1, 17J = 4 * (I - 1)X = -(3.0 * CHSZX) / SXY = FLOAT(J) - ((CHSZY / 2.0) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,1) J30 CONTINUECC LABEL X GRID 0.1 x 0.1 CHARACTERSCDO 70 I = 1, 17J = I - 1IF (J - 10) 40, 50, 5040 X = FLOAT(J) - ((1.5 * CHSZX) / SX)GOTO 6050 X = FLOAT(J) - (CHSZX / SX)60 Y = -(2.0 * CHSZY) / SYCALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,1) J70 CONTINUECC LABEL Y AXIS 0.2 X 0.2 CHARACTERS ROTATED 90 DEGREESCCHSZX = 0.2CHSZY = 0.2X = -0.5 / SXY = 32.0 - ((9.5 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 1.5708)WRITE(NPLOT, 3)CC LABEL X AXIS 0.2 x 0.2 CHARACTERSCX = 8.0 - ((7.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = -(3.0 * CHSZY) / SYCALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,2)CC DRAW THE BOXCCALL FPLOT(IDA, 5.0, 16.0)CALL FPLOT(INC, 11.0, 16.0)CALL FPLOT(INC, 11.0, 24.0)CALL FPLOT(INC, 5.0, 24.0)CALL FPLOT(IUA, 5.0, 16.0)CC LABEL THE BOX AND EQUATION FOR AREACCHSZX = 0.1CHSZY = 0.1X = 8.0 - ((2.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 20.0 - ((CHSZY / 2.0) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,4)X = 8.0 - ((3.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 16.0 - ((2.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,6)X = 5.0 - ((2.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 20.0 - ((CHSZY / 2.0) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,5)X = 8.0 - ((8.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 12.0 - ((2.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,7)X = 8.0 - ((9.5 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 12.0 - ((4.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,8)CC DRAW EQUATION FOR SLOPECX = 8.0 - ((11.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 12.0 - ((7.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,10)X = 8.0 - ((1.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 12.0 - ((6.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,11)Y = 12.0 - ((8.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,12)X = 8.0 + (5.5 * CHSZX)Y = 12.0 - ((7.0 * CHSZY) / SY)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,13)X = 8.0 - ((1.0 * CHSZX) / SX)Y = 12.0 - ((6.5 * CHSZY) / SY)X1 = X + ((2.0 * CHSZX) / SX)CALL FPLOT(IDA, X, Y)CALL FPLOT(IUA, X1, Y)CC RESET ORIGIN AND SCALECCALL FPLOT(INC, 0.0, 0.0)CALL SCALF(1.0, 1.0, XORG, YORG)CC DRAW THE TABLE OF VALUES BOXCBXORG = 0.75BYORG = 3.5CALL FPLOT(IDA, BXORG, BYORG)CALL SCALF( 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)HT = 2.75WD = 1.7COL1 = 0.375COL2 = 1.0CALL FPLOT(INC, WD, 0.0)CALL FPLOT(INC, WD, HT)CALL FPLOT(INC, 0.0, HT)CALL FPLOT(IUA, 0.0, 0.0)CALL FPLOT(IDA, 0.0, HT - 0.15)CALL FPLOT(IUA, WD, HT - 0.15)CALL FPLOT(IDA, COL1, HT)CALL FPLOT(IUA, COL1, 0.0)CALL FPLOT(IDA, COL2, HT)CALL FPLOT(IUA, COL2, 0.0)CC LABEL THE COLUMNSCX = (COL1 / 2.0) - (CHSZX / 2.0)Y = HT - 0.075 - (CHSZY / 2.0)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,5)X = COL1 + 0.15CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,4)X = COL2 + 0.1CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,14)CC FILL IN THE TABLECDO 80 I = 1, 17J = I - 1Y = (HT - 0.3) - (FLOAT(J) * (1.5 * CHSZY))X = 0.075CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,1) JX = COL1 + 0.2CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)IAREA = J * (16 - J)WRITE(NPLOT,1) IAREAX = COL2 + 0.15CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)ISLOP = 16 - (2 * J)WRITE(NPLOT,15) ISLOP80 CONTINUECC TITLE THE PAGECCHSZX = 0.2CHSZY = 0.2CALL FPLOT(INC, 0.0, 0.0)CALL SCALF(1.0, 1.0, BXORG, BYORG)Y = 0.50X = 5.0 - (24.5 * CHSZX)CALL FCHAR(X, Y, CHSZX, CHSZY, 0.0)WRITE(NPLOT,9)CC EJECT PAGE AND EXITCCALL PLTEJCALL EXITEND// DUP*STORE WS UA PLOTA// XEQ PLOTAMaximum variable name length = 5, only upper case, and other restrictions...The output is attached...This was written for my FPGA implementation of the IBM 1130 which, in my case, had a Calcomp 1627 drum plotter. I currently send plotter output directly to a LaserJet using HPGL statements to draw the image.The original plotter had 100 steps per inch and each line segment was created with a series of steps.http://ibm1130.org/hw/io/Those were fun days '70-'72

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 05:55:36 pm
content: I wrote code to plot well logs using a very primitive plotting utility. The standard style of annotation, tic marks, etc is quite complex and requires multiple tracks aligned vertically.The Calcomp I used in my first pass through grad school had a dedicated system with a 9 track. So I'd run my contouring job on the IBM and then pick up my tape and go to another location where the Calcomp was located. This was in '81 and it was seldom used, so I had to learn a good bit about maintaining the pens, etc.But most of my seismic plotting was done on Versatecs. They were a nightmare to maintain, but they certainly could spit out paper fast which is very important if you need a 30 ft x 30" plot. At work we would lay them out in the hall. So it was common to see people walking around without their shoes. It was considered very poor etiquette to walk on someone's plot with you shoes on. And not uncommon to encounter plots spread out on both sides of the hall. So you took off your shoes until you got to the end of the plot.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 06:15:55 pm
content: When I read Don's books back in high school*, I was blown away and definitely thought he was the ultimate electronics guru.Recently I reread some of them, and wasn't so impressed. The CMOS and TTL Cookbooks are full of tricks that you might use once in a lifetime to save a package, but very light on practical design techniques that you would use routinely. The Cheap Video series takes you about 80% of the way to a working design, then says "Your Turn" to resolve the design problems that Don didn't want to deal with, or didn't discuss in order to preserve his kit sales.I've never met Don in person, but I've talked to him on the phone a few times, and found the experience about as surreal and entertaining as you would imagine. I'd love to hang out with him, but I sure wouldn't want to have to do business with him!*I vividly remember being teased for carrying a "Cookbook" to class. Wow, I went to school with some idiots.

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 06:22:06 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on November 08, 2018, 06:15:55 pmThere you go, that's all I was saying. Reading his columns I wasGrandiose pronouncements, italics every third word, content-free blather, a few tricks he flogged as much as he could... and then what? He's a Kurzweil-lite.Seems like I hurt some tough engineer's delicate feelings concerning their childhood hero...

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 06:25:53 pm
content: When you are a child you need things explained in that manner. I take you jump straight to IEEE publications and PhD dissertations when you learned how to read?

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 06:30:15 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on November 08, 2018, 06:25:53 pmOh I see! His columns published in magazines for adults... were actually aimed atchildren!!My mistake.(The lengths you people go through to defend your heroes is amazing. He sucked. That's all. Face it. No one used a Lancaster computer, or designed a Lancaster topology amplifier, or learned PostScript to program general purpose computing in their printer, etc... He was a self-aggrandizing Wizard of Oz. His "Incredible Secret Money Machine" was... how to fool most of the people most of the time!)

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 06:51:45 pm
content: Calm down children. If you have nothing nice to say, please leave.I am enjoying the sparse bits of this thread between the flame war over something that simply doesn't matter.Edit: I’m better than descending to swearing.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 07:08:53 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on November 08, 2018, 06:51:45 pmYes, indeed. Some very interesting stories are coming out.

author: Dubbie
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 07:34:00 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on November 07, 2018, 06:59:56 pmI don’t know. I’ve found this thread quite useful. As a relative newcomer to electronics, it’s nice to learn a bit of history and lore on the topic from a hobbiest POV

author: duak
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 07:38:09 pm
content: To bring the thread back to Don, his articles in Poptronics on digital test equipment and later on microcomputers allowed me to actually understand and build up such things even before graduating high school. As a senior in '76, some friends & I managed to convince the school to buy an Altair 8800 kit with Mits 4K basic. I wanted a home computer but there was no way I could afford one and go to college. I got a Motorola 6800 chipset evaluation kit from a local consulting business that was folding. Using Motorola's app manual and Don's schematics from his articles I built a computer very much like the SWTP 6800. I wirewrapped the processor and 8K of static memory. I kludged a SWTP terminal to accept a serial TTL input and scroll the display data (ordinarily, it started on the top line, went to the bottom then started at the top again). I built it into an old desktop calculator case with a ASCII keyboard in place of the original. SWTP 8K BASIC cost like $10 and was loaded in thru Don's cassette tape interface. Star Wars had just come out so I wrote a Star Wars game. The BASIC was so slow that you could get up to get some beer between moves. I recall writing a Mastermind program that was somewhat real time.As an aside, about the same time I read an article in Byte magazine by Wozniak about the Apple II. That fall, a classmate had bought anApple II board back when Apple sold them without a case. 4K of memory stock, a built in color display interface and the BASIC was fast enough to play an interactive video game. My 6800 was definitely outclassed but that's tech advancement for you. I did use the boards as examples of my work to get a job that led to much bigger and better things.Cheers,

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 08:00:05 pm
content: Quote from: Dubbie on November 08, 2018, 07:34:00 pmi am talking about the general trend of this user. I tire of the reports about him.

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 08:46:45 pm
content: To explain more about Don and just a handful of other writers in the sparse magazines and books of the time in the '70s, people don't seem to realize that this was the only window for hobbyists at the time. The devices were extremely crude in comparison to what is available now, but for us hobbyists, they were gold. I was an adult in the '70s, but I would still try to learn through the magazines what I could.There was no internet at the time and the only other alternative was the library and technical books which were too far over my head as a beginner hobbyist to fathom. That is why when we could find 2 or 3 quarters that we could rub together, we bought the latest Popular Science or Popular Electronics magazines. It was the ONLY venue available. Plus, there was the board layouts that you could transfer to copper and then etch for some of the circuits.However, as a hobbyist, Forest Mims was my favorite because he would walk through the theory and the circuit and explained as much as possible. It is unfathomable to young people nowadays how much of a knowledge desert it was back in the day without the internet.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 08:48:04 pm
content: I think the OP is trying to prove that holes do exist as there seems to be a perfect vacuum between his ears. He's demanding 40 years later that someone who spent his working career as a successful writer of mass market technical books and magazine articles should also be famous for designing an amplifier topology or any of the other things that Don did not do. As for what he has been doing since then, if you are that successful you do what *you* want to do, not what some snot nosed ignorant punk thinks you should do.No one has used a Lancaster computer, but there were a lot of Don Lancaster inspired TV typewriters built. And a lot of guys like @duak who took what Don wrote and extrapolated it to do something completely different from what Don presented.But the OP's real problem is not getting the attention that he craved when he started the thread. It's turned into a bunch of old guys chatting about their personal adventures when they were young. So he's trying to become the center of attention again.I really wish it were possible to get together and have a few beers with most of this crowd. The neighbor I hung out with while playing with electronics in grad school is long dead. And except for one friend who is an active embedded systems designer, no one I know outside of the internet does anything with electronics at all. I've got one friend who is an unemployed Mines PhD who is trying to teach himself electronics from AoE, but he's still struggling to get a workspace set up. He lives near Houston and their spare bedrooms have been filled with stuff belonging to friends who were flooded by Harvey.Sadly I know someone who was similar to the OP in high school. And at 60 something he's no different."Hi, how are you?""I'm doing fine."OK, that's enough about you, let's talk about me."After which you get an OCD rant about Stratocaster variants or whatever imaginary fault he sees with the world around him. If allowed, he will tell you the same half hour stories of events from 40 years ago that he told you the last time he talked to you.It's important to consider that Don was writing at a time when we were all, no matter our age, starved for information about digital logic. As Einstein noted, if you can't explain it to a child you don't understand it yourself. And a very large proportion of the subscribers to Popular Electronics and Radio-Electronics were adolescents and 20 somethings.The hallmark of a good writer is understanding the target audience and writing to them. Don did a beautiful job of that which is why he was wildly successful.Most of the devices Don wrote about are now museum pieces. And those of us who avidly studied what he wrote have since gone on to more modern and complex devices. So reading his books today is rather like reading Popular Mechanics from 100 years ago. Most of it is not very interesting, but here and there are the occasional gem. I'm sure Dave's videos will feel the same way 100 years from now. Except in very odd circumstances no one would do things now as they were done 40 years ago.However, the larger issue is that we have a generation or so that thinks that all they need is "just in time" knowledge. "if I need to know that I'll look it up on the internet." They fail to grasp that knowledge is cumulative. And it is the framework provided by accumulated knowledge that makes further learning possible. You are *not* going to be able to program an FPGA if you don't understand logic design which Don presented in a low cost, hands on manner using the chips of that day. Just as you are not going to understand digital signal processing unless you have first learned calculus and the rudiments of integral transforms and linear systems.I think @duak's narrative is right on the mark. I didn't have the money to do all that and I graduated high school in '71 when it was *much* harder to get anything. Later in college, I had other priorities like graduating. I finished my first degree in English lit in the fall of '76 just as the rocket took off. It wasn't until I started work on my MS that I was able to play with electronics. And as I was paying for it all, funds were very tight. I was thrilled when I found a Heathkit IO-18 at a yard sale for $75.An historical aside as it came up earlier, Heathkit was started in 1926 to sell airplane kits. The Heath Parasol.http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/heath-parasol

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 09:05:25 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on November 08, 2018, 08:48:04 pmand some of them like my boss are 50 somethings..... Yes it's great that I am not expected to have qualifications but with that attitude erm.... yea!

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 10:25:54 pm
content: I'm getting confused, here.Is Don Lancaster, referring/complaining about this thread, in his latest notes ?Or am I imagining it ?https://www.tinaja.com/whtnu18.shtmlQuote

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 10:55:30 pm
content: Certainly looks like it,

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 11:03:02 pm
content: Don Lancaster's website, is well worth a visit, if you are interested in that type of thing. Since this thread started, I've probably spent too long, going through the website and some of the resources on it.E.g. I spent a while today, reading the amazing (at least for me), vintage book on RTL logic (cookbook).Resistor Transistor Logic.https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/rtlcb.pdfI'm convinced that Don Lancaster's, extensive books and magazine projects/articles, have helped enrich my Electronics/Computing knowledge/excitement/interest.I've had first hand experience with at least one of Don Lancaster's electronic's magazines projects, and I thought it was really great!. I am very tempted to build it now, as a kind of fun/exciting vintage/retro electronics experience thing.He has kindly put up a huge number of the vintage projects (https://www.tinaja.com/crsamp1.shtml), on his website.Many book PDF free downloads, as well.https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtmlMany pages to explore and links to follow.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2018, 11:58:07 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on November 08, 2018, 10:25:54 pmROFLSure sounds like Don to me. This is absolutely hilarious. I wonder how he found out. The OP better watch out. He's getting trolled by Don. This could easily turn into the funniest thread on the forum. Read the "Blatant Opportunist" article he linked to "The Worst of Marcia Swampfelder" which I've attached below if you have *any* doubts.I can easily imagine him appearing incognito and running circles around the OP while everyone else rolls on the floor laughing.

author: alpher
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 12:04:36 am
content: "Godzilla versus the Night Nurses",.Where's e torrent ??

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 12:34:46 am
content: We need to copy some of this to the audiophool thread. Don discusses the relative merits of barbed wire for speakers, pointing out that some listeners recommend 2 point for Barry Manilow and 4 point for Metallica. But the points are a little sharp so you have to flatten them.It will be fun to see if the OP posts again or just slinks away.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 07:45:13 am
content: I am glad i did not close this thread

author: tpowell1830
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 03:38:43 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on November 09, 2018, 12:34:46 amJust make sure that it is oxygen impregnated barbed wire.

author: RandallMcRee
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 04:25:04 pm
content: My apologies to Don, he *is* a guru.Good stuff. The OP actually created something fun in the world--he is probably thinking hard how to undo it, right now.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 04:26:43 pm
content: Quote from: alpher on November 08, 2018, 03:50:37 ammore like 10 years. When i started thinkering in high school here was NOTHING compared to what hobbyist can get today. 5 years if we want to remember the dark times before cheap-ass pcbs from china became mainstreamI'm amused by the fact that i studied power electronics in a book from the seventies and a couple years later i would have studied from a book from 2010s

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 04:27:26 pm
content: Quote from: RandallMcRee on November 09, 2018, 04:25:04 pmMaybe In Vacuo Veritas is actually Don Lancaster in disguise

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 04:37:26 pm
content: Dave: EE Video BlogDon: EE Paper BookTo some extent they occupy the same space and provide the same need, separated only by the media through which their content is distributed, with minor variations due to the technologies available at the time. There is an appealing fractal nature to this.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 04:57:35 pm
content: I grew up in italy so understand how it was because although i am only 35 things in italy are 10-25 years behind. I was over the moon when a friendly TV repairer gave me old RS catalogues and transistor databooks.The RS catalogue went with me on every car journey and i would pour over each page in a quest to find out what parts could be found in the wild.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 05:59:21 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on November 08, 2018, 11:03:02 pmBad publicity is better than no publicity at all!Due to the language barrier as a kid, I did not get to experience firsthand Don Lancaster's writings but we certainly had our share of local writers that, in retrospect, seem a bit exaggerated and puerile (may have even been disciples of Don Lancaster's style). However, as others have mentioned, they were certainly catering to the audience and the style that grasped our attention as kids/teenagers and kept us going despite the usual hardships and troubles that are part of this electronics journey. After all, what they presented was the absolute source of information from the unreachable manufacturers.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 07:53:09 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on November 09, 2018, 04:57:35 pmNope, that's not what i meant, at all. Even though i had simillar experiences (only it was my teacher who gave me his old RS catalogues.. and to this days i still use paper catalogues for certain distributors because of their godafwul websites. Namely RS and TME)What i meant was that we are still learning from books from the 70s, but in the last 10 years i saw power converters design becoming so much more affordable and reliable that it could be taught in high school!I don't remember if you ever told from which part of italy you came but i can assure you the north east was and still is on par with the rest of the world

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 08:46:21 pm
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on November 09, 2018, 05:59:21 pmI agree. Good or bad publicity, can be good for business, either way.As others have said in this thread (or similar), the accessibility of electronics, has changed, massively, over the last 50 years (and longer).Computers, perhaps 50 or more years ago, cost perhaps £100,000 or even £1,000,000+ in today's money, needed a massive room, huge amounts of electricity and a big team of long white lab coat wearing engineers/mathematicians/scientists/etc, to keep it ticking along.Whereas, they start at $0.03, now.The internet potentially replaces the old paper books, datasheets, needing to ask 'gurus' in person, etc.I'm glad that the OP's thread, has apparently/probably gone spectacularly wrong for them!

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 08:51:54 pm
content: I still don't think he's a guru. A shameless self-promoter, sure. All I'm saying is no one ever said "Do it like Lancaster did it".Notice no one is using PostScript as a general purpose language and solar power and electric cars seem to be doing just fine, no matter what this windbag said decades ago...Quote from: MK14 on November 09, 2018, 08:46:21 pmHow do you figure? I still have seen no evidence of "guru" status, just that he wrote a lot of stuff. Even one person agreed with me on my main point.So great, he wrote a lot of stuff that people read... because there was nothing else to read!

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 09:00:40 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 09, 2018, 08:51:54 pmThat's fine. You are welcome to have your own opinion.But if I ever bumped in to him (unlikely), and he/we had time and wanted to have a great long chat about electronics. Both now and in the past.I would thoroughly enjoy the experience.The electronics industry has created a lot of heroes and gurus, over the years.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 09:51:20 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 09, 2018, 08:51:54 pmWhy do you care what he calls his website?Why keep digging your hole further?You're no doubt now embarrassed to find out he's one of the industries pioneers in education, oops.What have you done for engineering education that makes you even remotely qualified to criticise someone like this?All I see is some anonymous shit poster who is jealous of someone else's hard work, prove me wrong.QuoteHe wrote a lot of stuff that helped educate, entertain, and inspire hobbyists and engineers.Wow, one person agrees with your main point, congratulations, you win the internet.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 09:53:29 pm
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 09, 2018, 08:51:54 pmTheGuru's and Swami's Union Hulapai County local #357begs to differ...According to Merriam Webster, guru isa teacher and especially intellectual guide in matters of fundamental concern, which in the distant 1970's he fulfilled this definition in respect to digital designs according to your fellow eevbloggers. Therefore it is not a matter of opinion.If he still is a guru, that may be up for debate - I really don't know if you can revoke these titles.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 10:01:53 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 09, 2018, 09:51:20 pmThat is not clear. Some people are too clueless and/or stubborn to be embarrassed.Isn't there a "ignore this user" feature around here somewhere?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2018, 10:10:13 pm
content: Quote from: JPortici on November 09, 2018, 07:53:09 pmI was in the south puglia, Alberobello to be exact, As far as i know I could not order from RS unless i was a business, internet was something i got very late on and to this day the village probably still does not have it when it was a decent sized place not far from a town that had it. It was dialup only and I eventually managed it on my 3G mobile that i had to put on a special cradle bolted to the balcony with a bag over it in the rain and a 5V regulator running off an old car battery to relay the internet connection to my computer over blue tooth. Schools internet was 56Kb/s for the entire site so actual speeds of 0.5Kbps were quite normal. Getting information was very hard,Without the internet and until i got a prepaid debit card i could not buy anything online and did not know where to get books, there were magazines but the italian practical electronics was a joke and i was a mug paying money for a magazine that was of no better standard than those so called indutry standard magazines we get at work full of waffle. Oventually practical electronics changed it's name twice becoming a computer magazine with an electrical bent. Circuits in it were often wrong and how i would of etched a board I don't know and the school lab technician was most unhelpful (an ignorant idiot that did not even know how to etch boards properly).

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 12:58:19 am
content: Quote from: rsjsouza on November 09, 2018, 09:53:29 pmtl;dr ;-)I was a bit surprised he didn't post a photo of his union card. After all, he could make one in 5 minutes or less. It would take longer to "age" it than make it. Doubtless due to having had a few hundred thousand idiots like our vacuuos friend here make similar stupid comments. Hence the Marcia Swampfelder piece.The simple truth of the matter is that *really* smart and capable people don't care at all what other people think of their abilities. What other people think of their personal conduct matters. One does not wish to offend.Rest assured that *other* people imposed the "guru" label. So Don has fun with it. If you are actually good enough to achieve "walks on water" status, you get *very* tired of it *very* quickly. While you can't remove the notion from people's minds, you can poke pins in it. Been there, done that and wore out several T shirts.There is an old proverb that the best answer to a fool is silence. It's the princile of conservation of energy. Fools respond to *all* answers in the same way. The *only* reason I got involved in this thread was the OPs use of the past tense. Fortunately it was merely because In Vacuo Veritas hasn't mastered the English language sufficiently to write grammatically. I was quite concerned that Don might have passed away.Very few people achieve the level of success as a professional tech writer that Don and Forrest have. Even though I greatly prefer Don's work over Forrest's, I have to acknowledge Forrest's accomplishment. In part it may be simply age related. I was reading Don and others before Forrest started writing. So I'd already learned all the stuff the he presented. And quite a lot of that really was just data sheet examples redrawn by hand. Forrest did do pioneering work on the use of photovoltaic cells as emitters and got into a big clash with AT&T in which AT&T behaved *very* badly. The settlement was never disclosed, but I am quite certain Mims got quite a bit of money in compensation.Many of my close personal friends and colleagues from work have PhDs from the very best schools in the world and were supervised by the very best scientists in the world. They are all very modest and unpretentious. Except for those who must do business with national oil companies, none of them has "PhD" on their business card. "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"I'm an ABD (All But Dissertation). I never refer to it that way. I always say, " I'm a failed PhD candidate, and beware of anyone who advertises it." At professional society meetings I hang out with a bunch I refer to as the "heckling section". Not because any of us are in any way disruptive. We're very polite. But we ask hard questions. And if one of us closes our comment at the end of the talk with "Food for thought." it has just been very publicly and politely announced that despite being given a very explicit hint, you are clueless and the audience should ignore your conclusions.I had wanted this thread locked, but I share Simon's sentiment that leaving it going was far better. I have not laughed so hard in ages when I read Don's 8 November post.A note to Dave and the other moderators: If a user starts a thread in the manner that this one was started:disparagement of a public figureobvious lack of even basic research into that person's workI should like to suggest that the person be advised that if they continue posting in such vein they will be banned. There was never *any* justification for the original post. The OP did not actually seek information, but merely wanted to attract personal attention by making inflammatory remarks. That this is true is demonstrated by the OP's refusal to accept that those of us who were there hold Don in high regard and recognize the "The Guru's Lair" is a '70's joke. And even though Don himself has pointed this out, the OP has persisted in insisting that *his* opinion is more important than the opinion of those of us who learned so much from Don.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:02:08 am
content: LOL kinda random subject... But back in the '90s I found the TTL Cookbook in my college's library as they were clearing out older titles, I picked it up for 1$. I still have it!Actually reminds me I always wanted the RTL cookbook because of all the RTL chips in my vintage Tek junk... Off to eBay!

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:05:54 am
content: I have two copies of the TTL Cookbook. The one I bought back in the day and a scavenged copy. I've also got a scavenged copy of the RTL Cookbook. Talk about primitive logic implementations. I hope I never have to fix any of that stuff.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:13:01 am
content: Many of Don Lancaster's books are available at Alibris:https://www.alibris.com/booksearch?keyword=don+lancasterI have 'repurchased' several. Darned if I could turn up my original volumes - I have moved several times over the years and everybody knows how that works out.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:23:31 am
content: With cheap, high performance MCUs, it's rare to need to use gate level logic, but sometimes you really can't use clocked logic. When you must implement asynchronous logic, Don's books suddenly become very relevant again.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:34:46 am
content: Quote from: rhb on November 10, 2018, 01:05:54 amEh? Primitive? Check out the innards of the 6R1 digital plugin. You'll be thrilled with RTL chips instead of discrete transistors at 20V...http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/6R1Quote from: rstofer on November 10, 2018, 01:13:01 amThanks. The Montreal used book scene is very limited these days, all the places I used to haunt are now restaurants, or convenience stores...USPS shipping to Canada is pretty high these days too, 20$ USPS for a 10$ book.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:36:13 am
content: I've used his TTL Cookbook quite a lot when doing FPGA development. It may not be dealing with individual TTL ICs but the logic is roughly the same. Sometimes too it's just fun to build something the old way, and at times a couple of gates can solve something easily that would be a pain or unnecessary to do in software.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:37:47 am
content: Quote from: Simon on November 09, 2018, 10:10:13 pmSounds like a great place to spend a summerbut not to live inyou know.. "Italia a due velocità"btw two years ago my cousin moved to gargano to live with his girlfriend.. sometimes he tells me how things are there..Quoteas were most distributors until the 2010s AFAIRQuoteyeah, i remember we had a 14.4k line and i have a very clear memory of my dad taking the modem out and smashing it on the ground when the connection was too slowQuotewe had pretty good libraries (public libraries, school libraries)Quotei've read magazines from other countries and they were just as terrible and full of mistakes.Quoteoh yes, we also had one of those, but most of my teachers were what i would consider gurus (one a guy with two degrees that got the first one a year or two ahead, the typical nerd from the movies, another a guy that worked with military and designed electronics for elicopters, another one -my favourite teacher- one that came from lower schools, but with a great mind and very skilled, he learned everything he needed as he needed it and he was who taught me the most)why i insist on this? I understand that you had an awful experience, but i can assure that italy is not just that. It can be so much more

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 01:52:02 am
content: The books you learned a topic from are incredibly valuable. I'm amazed by the notion of textbook rentals, especially in engineering where only a small fraction of the book is covered in class. I'm sure that 5 years after graduation it is really easy to separate the keepers from the renters.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 02:42:01 am
content: I have insisted my grandson buy "new" copies of all textbooks and that he retain them indefinitely. Since I pay for the books, it's no big deal to him. The idea, of course, is that he build a library of books he has actually used.I still have most of my college texts and I actually use them from time to time.What is more interesting is the changes in presentation over the last 4 decades. Math books used to be pretty dry with few illustrations. Today they are filled with diagrams - most in color. A picture is worth a lot...One bright note: His copy of Stewart's "Calculus - Early Transcendentals" appears to be the standard in the industry and will be used for Calc I, Calc II, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations. It saves a bit of money if the colleges can get together and standardize on a book. Especially one that can be used for 4 semesters.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 08:42:42 am
content: Quote from: JPortici on November 10, 2018, 01:37:47 amMy teachers were happy not to teach once they realised the class were not interested and just gave them all C to get rid of them. At the state exam the third party observer was knowingly whisked off to the bar while I and others gave out the answers to a diff op amp circuit they could not work out from the provided book that contained 2000 pages of gold.True the UK is nearly as bad in that respect which i now know as I am attempting further qualifications.I know i was in the worse part of italy but as i originally stated at least for that area it was 10-25 years behind so I have an appreciation of what it may have been like for older people in the UK when they were young.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 03:32:50 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on November 10, 2018, 02:42:01 amSigh.. once again tl;drIt's really great to hear that. I use my college texts a lot, but then that's texts from 12 years of study. I don't use my undergrad level texts very often, but I do from time to time. And as a lit major lots of those are not references unless you are taking literature and studying writing styles, etc. Or just want to reread it for pleasure. But except for some that have vanished I have a lot of them. I've discovered that my Dad borrrowed quite a number, so they reappear from time to time.Spatial memory if far more important than is widely recognized. There is a tremendous amount of material that I know is treated on the bottom left side near the middle of a particular book.My Linear Systems text, "The Fourier Transform and Its Applications" by Bracewell gets used at *least* monthly and generally a lot more than that. About half of that is for my use and about half when explaining some point in a post. I have probably 8-10 other books on the Fourier transform, but I know what's in Bracewell, so it's my first choice. I only go to the others if the matter is not adequately covered in Bracewell.I have a 5000+ volume technical library. Seven 12 ft shelves hold the bulk of the computer books and the matching shelves on the back side hold the geoscience and mathematics texts. I've bought a lot of the classics, like Watson's treatise on the Bessel function which have seen very little use. Lots of things like that I found at a used book store. But even then I have well over $150K invested. But I made quite a lot of money from having that immediately available. As a literature major I acquired the ability to read with good comprehension at 400-800 wpm. So if a subject arose at work about which everyone was fairly ignorant, a few days later I was the most knowledgeable by far. I could beat my way through 1000+ pages of documentation in a day or two.The development of my library in current form is an interesting tale. The student bookstore at UT Austin got a trailer load of remaindered textbooks and put them out on a long line of tables made from 4x8 sheets of plywood for sale at $1. The response was amazing. The books sold faster than they could bring them out and put them on the tables. So they got more. This continued for several months and there was a regular coterie that checked the tables several times a day. We got to know each other's interests and would often point out new arrivals that might be of interest to them, provided we didn't want it ourselves. For $1, I'll buy a book on a topic just because I *might, perhaps, maybe* find it useful. These then got just stacked up in a pile on my living room floor along one wall. Looking at the titles one day I realized I had acquired a rather good general technical library. None of these were in any way related to my course work except perhaps as citations and bibliographic entries. This led me to want a general technical library as a personal tool.After I left Austin I moved to Dallas and for the next 10 years I made the round of 3 Half Price Books locations collecting technical books on every imaginable topic except life sciences. I did get some of those, but very few. I need to correct that. I continued the practice in Houston for 8 more years and if I go to Houston to visit friends I make the rounds while I am there.The only downside is that a library of that size is a real bear to move. It takes about 3-4 weeks to pack and about the same to unpack and shelve. sorting and packing by size is critical to not having the boxes collapse. The books weigh around 5-6 tons. It completely fills a 500 sq ft 2 car garage and sits on standard commercial library shelving I bought used from a dealer in California. It's more work than moving the tools that overflow my 1500 sq ft shop building to the point of being a major obstacle to organizing it.I'd like to suggest another conditional requirement; that your grandson start a card catalog of some type on electronic media. I'd love to have an index, but now it would require working full time for a month *if* you could do a book every two minutes continuously for 8 hours every day.While she was looking for work after joining me in Dallas, my girlfriend spent a full day working on a catalog for me. Then she turned off the computer without saving the file. I never had the heart to ask her to do it over.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 04:29:22 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on November 10, 2018, 03:32:50 pmHis major, at the moment, is Mechanical Engineering (I tried to get him into CS or EE but no joy!). So be it! I have the vast majority of my EE books and my personal library is probably only on the order of 200 books or so - mostly EE and CS.I buy old books for arcane things like analog computing. I bought a 100+ year old copy of Bowditch (navigation) just to learn how they used to determine time from a process known as Lunar Distance. If you have time, an almanac and can see the horizon, you can get a fix on your position. At one time, I was really into the process of Celestial Navigation. So was Apollo 13...Like you, I remember what is where in which volume even if I don't remember the details.I re-bought a few of Don Lancaster's books just to fill in some gaps in my library. Seriously, an EE really should have the Active Filters Cookbook and, just for nostalgia, the RTL, TTL and CMOS cookbooks. No, we're not going to do things that way at this late date but it's always good to kick back and reminisce. There was a time before FPGAs. And there certainly was a time before microcomputers and microcontrollers. And I was there...

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 05:56:07 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on November 10, 2018, 03:32:50 pmI can suggest Readerware. It is not expensive and does a pretty good job as a catalog. It accepts input from a bar code reader so it is really fast on newer books that have the ISBN bar coded on the back cover or in the front piece. Even hand keying the ISBN is relatively quick and that catches most books published since the early seventies or so.My library is not nearly so large as yours, only about 1600 volumes, but it only took a few months of intermittent effort to get it entered. A dozen or two books whenever I needed a distraction from whatever else was going on.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2018, 06:22:05 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on November 10, 2018, 02:42:01 amMost of my textbooks were not very good and I got rid of them long ago, the whole textbook thing is a complete racket, new revisions coming out all the time with the same content just shuffled around or altered just enough that you have to buy the new revision. I kept several of my math textbooks for a long time but gave them to the used book store several years ago when I realized I hadn't opened one in years, it's faster for me to look up something online than it is to walk into the other room and grab a dusty book.I don't know your grandson but I would be shocked if he doesn't get tired of lugging around all those books and dumps the lot after his second or third move. My generation is one of the last to really value physical books and even I have pruned down my collection, keeping only the gems, vintage or unusual stuff and some coffee table books. Any sort of modern textbook material I can find online or in digital copies that don't take up precious space and are easily searched. I now work with a bunch of millennials and they seem to view physical books as quaint relics of their parents and grandparents generation. Everything is online or e-books now, most of them don't own homes and move frequently so they keep minimal physical possessions in order to stay mobile. You see their apartment and there are maybe 2 or 3 books in the whole place, if any at all.

author: GeoffreyF
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2018, 07:53:53 pm
content: Don Lancaster was an informative inspiration to my electronics evolution in the 60's and 70's. I built the TV Typewriter by the way. However, I think this cartoon is relevant to Guru 'ate.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2018, 12:49:14 am
content: For any who doubt the value of Don's books:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/curve-tracer-designs/msg1988960/#msg1988960

author: Conrad Hoffman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2018, 06:10:40 pm
content: Some years ago I bought an HP instrument from Don and talked to him on the phone. Great guy. I've used his books over the years and pre-net they were a great source of info. I've worked in various disciplines he's written about over the years and found his writings to be spot on, in spite of what marketing and optimisim would have you believe.RHB, my library is far smaller than yours, but IMHO a decent technical library is a tremendous technical advantage. Not everything is on the 'net and many things aren't covered in the necessary depth if you'r working in the field. Heck, I still refer to Terman quite often. For practical hands-on how-to-do-it, Joe Carr wrote some very good popular RF books. Especially if you've never wound a toroid. Was never a big Mims fan.The only thing I can't seem to figure out is if Don is still with us. Anybody know for sure?

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 05, 2018, 06:14:02 pm
content: He is. He had an amusing stab I suspect at this thread here:https://www.tinaja.com/whtnu18.shtml#d11.08.18

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 01:21:16 am
content: Don is 78 and apparently wandering around the desert on archeological projects among other things. I don't think he has slowed down a bit. He was apparently on a camping trip when this thread started which made me a little concerned. But then he reappeared with a post about how to tell if camp coffee is strong enough. If the anvil sinks it's too weak. If it floats it's just right. If it dissolves it's too strong. Followed a few days later by the post in reference to this thread.Out of curiosity I asked and Don was kind enough to offer an estimate of about 1.4 million copies of the TTL Cookbook. So he probably sold over 10 million technical books. The TTL Cookbook went through at least 3 printings the first year it was out. John Lenk, Joe Carr and Horowitz and Hill are the only writers in electronics for the popular market that come close. And AoE is rather upscale by an order of magnitude from Don or Joe. Which is a large part of why we had to wait so long for the 3rd edition.I just had a quick browse through the 33 ft of electronics books which are actually in the correct section of my library. I have as many or more books by Don than by Lenk and Carr combined. Microprocessor books are shelved in the computer section, but I can't think of anyone who was as prolific as Don. With the possible exception of Doug DeMaw. "Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur" by DeMaw and Hayward is a classic. For the life of me I don't understand why ARRL let it go out of print. "Experimental Methods in RF Design" is great, but it really presumes you've mastered the contents of Solid State Design. Doug cranked out a slew of QRP project books aimed at the novice builder who wanted to be able to say he had built a radio from scratch.I was on the EMRFD list for about a year, but when a post I made showed up 4-5 days later I got angry and unsubscribed. By the time it appeared it was no longer relevant. And after posting rather sparsely for such a long period, having to pass approval of a moderator was offensive. A very large amount of the traffic was people looking for obsolete parts so they could duplicate old designs. So not even close to the level of this forum. My all time favorite here is still the "Has anyone built a mass spec" thread. A few posts in was someone who had built two. An academic instrument and then a few years later a commercial instrument for which he had a $750K budget.The OP is too young to grasp that those of us over 50 something consider "guru" a joke. The younger crowd take it seriously. With his PostScript skills I half expected Don to whip up a union card, age it a little bit and post a photo.My library cost me a lot of money. But I also made a lot of money from having it. If a topic came up at work that no one was familiar with, odds were pretty good I had references on the topic. So in a day or two I knew more than anyone else as I could read at 600 wpm and faster if I was skimming massive technical manuals looking for specific information. Even skimming I would have enough comprehension and retention to have learned quite a lot of contextual information.I also never cared for Mims' work. Those really were just app note circuits redrawn by hand. But I also had Don's books long before Mims started writing. Mims was hanging out with an Air Force buddy, Ed Roberts, designing instrumentation packages for model rocketry when Don published the TTL Cookbook. And then Ed designed the Altair 8800, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and the computer industry was turned upside down.Mims caused a huge commotion by launching some Estes based rockets in Nam. I think he was in the Saigon area. They sent a helicopter gunship to investigate IIRC. This was when Charlie was rocketing Saigon on a regular basis using simple X brace to hold a Soviet or Chinese made rocket and a primitive timer to allow them to get away before it took off.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 01:56:16 am
content: I didn't know Forest Mims due to the language barrier when I was a kid, but a few years ago my wife got me a NOS copy of his book "Siliconnections" and is, in fact, a great story.However, if memory does not fail me, Don Lancaster's TTL cookbook was printed in portuguese - I recall the blue cover from a very early age in my life.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 02:55:54 am
content: The foreign language editions made Don's number a guesstimate as they were not too sure how accurate those numbers were.That was a great book by Mims. Very lucky guy. He was in the right place at the right time.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 08:11:24 am
content: rhb: some good points on EMRFD and Solid State Design there. I think people missed the point of those books (and the other DeMaw ones) which were to give you a set of problem solving tools and example use cases rather than a set of plans to build something. I am forever seeing scratch builds and copycat rigs everywhere. If anyone comes up with anything even slightly derivative (Farhan/Summers) then they suddenly get treated like the messiah. I think they just read the books properly! I reckon with a suitable choice of standard parts you can come up with your own QRP cult and followers (I have considered this)Same problem with a lot of the other books. Most of them weren’t recipe books even if the recipes did work. Lots of projects I’ve seen over the years were bits of familiar stuff glued together poorly in different ways. Sometimes mistakes were copied verbatim!On a side point I think the basic Mimms books, despite the following, were pretty bad. The circuit scrapbook series weren’t as bad but still suffered from the whole recipe book problem I mentioned above.Perhaps that’s another cult.On to Don’s books, I actually learned something with CMOS cookbook. That was a revelation.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 01:20:49 pm
content: bd139, I think you are missing the point when talking about derivative work: despite anyone can potentially read an advanced book properly, sometimes it takes someone to translate that advanced knowledge into something more palatable, and that is a skill on itself.I don't know Mimm's books, but I can figure from accounts and his following that he was one of these translators: heck, even when I was a kid I preferred the small electronics magazines with cartoonish drawings and simpler explanations but my father still subscribed to a very good (even for today's standards) more professional magazine. I remember browsing it without too much interest.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 03:43:10 pm
content: DeMaw was trying to get people to build radios rather than just buy them. Their are 30-40 hams near me, but none of them build anything.But you have to judge someone's accomplishments in the context of their goals. Both Farhan and Summers are addressing the cost of radios. The only station I ever had was an AMECO single 6L6 xtal TX and an RF-2200 portable for the receiver. The reason was cost. I was in grad school pursuing my MS and had to earn the money during summers and vacations. At $139 in 1978, the RF-2200 was a major purchase.Summers QCX is quite sophisticated. And his YOTA 2018 design is very attractive. Farhan's BITX was a significant innovation in cost reduction. If I were licensed I'd get a uBITX in a heartbeat.The fundamental problem is the tendency for many people to to want to worship someone. The most you can do to counteract that is poke fun at yourself as Don does with the "Guru's Lair". Though after 20 years, you encounter people like the OP who don't get the joke.I dealt with it on my first contract by saying, "Obviously you have me confused with someone who knows what he is doing" whenever someone asked me a question I couldn't answer. At one point I counted 8 people in my cubicle per hour which was making doing my work impossible. So after a discussion with my boss we designated another person to screen questions. He was quite good, so the traffic was reduced to levels that allowed me to actually write code again.You can only understand things in the context of what you already know. So I routinely learn something whenever I read an old book I've used many times before. The "I'll look it up on the internet if I need to know" attitude is producing an entire generation which is completely uneducated despite spending 12-16 years in school.The most extreme example of mental context controlling understanding is probably the cargo cult in New Guinea. A C47 had crashed and the natives found all this cool stuff in the wreck. So they built a replica in hopes of attracting others. Their mental model for things that flew was birds and they had experience using decoys to attract them.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 05:30:33 pm
content: Agree on all points

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 05:47:23 pm
content: There's few people that published large circuit collections, back in the day when paper books and magazines were the media.I found Forrest Mim's circuits good for a kid or hobbyist starting out into electronics. Not perfect circuits but enough to give you ideas and have fun on the breadboard, at the Radio Shack level.Don Lancaster's work is very good, relevant even today there are subtleties he brought up nobody discussed. Walt Jung also did a few books full of analog wisdom.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 06:29:38 pm
content: A snippet of something I just posted to another thread:The thing that is *really* amazing is that Don's major classics are still in print after over 40 years! I cannot think of any electronics book that has been in print that long. Wow!!!!That's not a guru, that's a Bodhisattva!!!Even Jung has been displaced by another author which really surprised me. But likely due to the churn in op amp chips. Logic is still logic.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 06:50:02 pm
content: There are many that have been in print that long, though I agree, I can't think of any that close to the component level that have survived.Examples of long term survivors.Fields and Waves in Communications Electronics by Ramo, Whinnery and Van Duzer. First published in 1965. Current price is almost 15 times what I paid in the early seventies.Handbook of Mathematical Functions. Abramowitz and Stegun. First published in 1964. A bit of cheat since it is now a Dover reprint.Introduction to the Theory of Random Signals and Noise. Davenport and Root. First published in 1958.I know of several others and suspect there are many more. Things like Feynman's lectures (maybe not exactly electronics), and Donald Knuth's series.On the theory side, once someone hits a home run it tends to last a long, long time.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 07:01:06 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on December 06, 2018, 05:47:23 pmThe one I remember we had was Markus' Guidebook of Electronics Circuits - a massive 1000 page compendium of transistor and op amp based circuits.Quote from: rhb on December 06, 2018, 06:29:38 pmThe other one that I had in the 1980's and it was already in print for a very long time (30 years) was Valkenburg, Nooger and Neville's Basic Electricity and Basic Electronics books.Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 06, 2018, 06:50:02 pmI used this one in my Electromag classes at the university - I paid about 10 times less in the 1990s than what it costs today.

author: In Vacuo Veritas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 07:46:59 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on December 06, 2018, 06:29:38 pmSo is Dianetics...

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 07:52:10 pm
content: I actually read that once. Mein Kampf was less retarded.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 08:06:45 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 06, 2018, 06:50:02 pmThat book was the text for a graduate course in Microwave Electronics I took in 1989. Van Duzer was not involved then!QuoteEspecially if the theory doesn't change!

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 08:07:30 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on December 06, 2018, 07:52:10 pmMighty low standard, this.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 06, 2018, 08:56:47 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 06, 2018, 06:50:02 pmDon't forget RAND'sOne Million Random Digits, truly a spellbinding epic.Tim

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 07, 2018, 12:21:48 am
content: I have a lot of stuff that is almost a hundred years old and still in print. My point was a general device level electronics book in print for that long is very rare.The King James Bible is still in print 400 years later. So are Sir Isaac Newton's works. And in the field of literature there are thousands of works which are still in print a two thousand years later. Cicero, Virgil, Caesar's s "Gallic Wars" was the standard 1st and 2nd year Latin text when I took Latin and then there are all the Greek works which are even older.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 07, 2018, 01:02:59 am
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on December 06, 2018, 08:06:45 pmThat book was the text for a graduate course in Microwave Electronics I took in 1989. Van Duzer was not involved then!You must have purchased an old copy. Mine was purchased in 1971-1972 and Van Duzer is printed right in the cover and fronts piece. In the preface it notes that it is based on the earlier work "Fields and Waves in Modern Radio" by Ramo and Whinnery in 1944. If you treat that string as one book it is a technical book that has been in print for 84 years.

author: vk3yedotcom
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 10:22:21 am
content: Was just reading through the secret money machine book (downloadable fromhttps://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml).He reminded me of Talking Electronics. You'd be going through pages on FM bugs and there'd be a page about money or business or something.I wonder if Don Lancaster was one of Colin Mitchell's influences?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 12:10:36 pm
content: Quote from: vk3yedotcom on February 10, 2019, 10:22:21 amI seem to recall him mentioning Don in my interviews with him, but not entirely sure.He admitted to stealing good ideas, like Forest Mimm's grid based paper schematics.I loved those little business tidbits in the TE magazines, and I think I mentioned that in the interview somewhere.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 12:17:34 pm
content: FYI, our AmpHour interview with Forrest Mimmshttps://theamphour.com/171-an-interview-with-forrest-mims-snell-solisequious-scientist/

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 01:18:37 pm
content: Don Lancasterwas and is knowledgeable but he also distilled plain old common sense and practicality. He had articles against nonsense like pseudoscience, perpetual motion machines and similar idiocies. Besides the technical stuff I learned a lot about how to follow a logical way of thinking, the scientific method, etc. That is something that I find lacking in many people. We need to teach and stress that and he did a lot in that direction.Quote

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 01:24:00 pm
content: Quote from: soldar on February 10, 2019, 01:18:37 pmUnfortunately there are so very few people doing this. The number of Youtubers for example that do any sort technical debunking videos you could count on one hand, and there are so many people around that say it's a "waste of time".

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 01:32:15 pm
content: Unfortunately telling someone that someone else is wrong will only be any use if they are intelligent enough to look at both sides or have enough education to understand your point of view and that maybe your right and they should look deeper into the other claims.And even debunkers need to be careful to stay on the side of truth. As mad as thunderfoot can come across as (heavy dose of aspergers coupled with a high IQ I suspect) I respected his reasonings until the other day when I saw a video he did about how shit tesla batteries are when in fact it ws a comparison between battery technology and petrol/diesel energy density. Sorry thunderfoot, you have an axe to grind, so the next time i see one of his videos "debunking" pseudo science do i beleive him or do i suspect he simply has an axe to grind? fortunately i can tell the difference but why should i waste my time listening to a guy who it may turn out simply has an axe to grind.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 02:36:51 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 10, 2019, 01:32:15 pmCritical thinking is sorely lacking in the general population but you would think people in science, engineering, math would be well equipped in this regard and while probably better than the general population I still find cases which are difficult to understand or justify.I am always amused by the "sovereign citizen" types who live in an alternative reality and no amount of evidence to the contrary will make them question their beliefs. You can see plenty of videos and reports of these guys being dragged to jail, tasered, fined, etc. You cannot find any reports of their loony theories prevailing and yet they insist they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. I am amazed at how some people can be so immune to obvious facts, to evidence. They have made up their own reality in their minds and anything that does not match that is just ignored. It takes a special level of pigheadedness to insist like that even after the cops taser you and then the judge throws you in jail. To keep saying "they can't do that" because I know some magical words ("joinder", etc.) that will stop them.I have a friend here in Spain who has a daughter who is married in England and has lived and worked there for the better part of two decades. We get together for lunch every few months and we have exactly the same conversation over and over again. He says his daughter would like to take UK citizenship if it weren't because she would have to renounce her Spanish citizenship. Then I say that is not so and remind him I have sent him several times emails with links to UK government sites where they say you do not have to renounce another citizenship in order to acquire UK citizenship. In fact it is not easy to lose UK citizenship. He listens like it is the first time he hears it. Then, a few months later, we have the same conversation all over again.Some people are just immune to facts and reason. They will assert X which makes no sense and when asked to provide evidence and support for their assertion they will disappear or just say "look it up". They know there is no evidence in support of their position but they will not reconsider.I read an article about how people, when their beliefs are challenged with evidence and facts and shown to be wrong, most people will not reconsider and will come away with stronger support for that position they held. People get invested in a certain position and any challenge is taken as a challenge to them personally.Again, we need to learn and teach to think critically and search for facts and truth. The scientific method.Don Lancasterhas a lot of common sense, not only in matters of science and technology but also in matters of general getting around life. I cited his"Case Against Patents"as an example. Some people think you can just have a great idea, patent it and count the money as it rolls in. In practice it does not work like that.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 03:26:01 pm
content: Yes, my company directors are engineers and yet the most inflexible and stubborn at times. If it's easy they decide it's hard and won't take the risk when in fact they are the ones taking the risk, if it's a convoluted way of doing it it seems the most obvious to them.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 04:14:40 pm
content: I was a bit surprised to see this pop up again.Take a look at "The Commanding Self" or "Knowing How to Know" by Idries Shah.When Nobel laureates in Physics and other disciplines make solemn declarations about the need to combat "climate change" it's quite clear that critical thinking is not being taught at all in the sciences and engineering. Two semesters of basic geology is enough to make clear the climate *is* changing, always has and always will. And humans have very little effect except around large concentrations. The really big changes took place before we appeared.I'm sure all these Nobel laureates are aware of the last ice age when glaciers covered most of the polar regions down to mid latitudes. They are also aware that those regions have not been covered with ice during recorded human history. Yet the obvious conclusion that the earth has been getting warmer for thousands of years without any human intervention entirely escapes them. It's a spectacular example of cognitive dissonance among people who are supposed to be some of the smartest people on the planet.If one is generous and allows 6000 years for human history, that's 1 ppm the existence of the earth. And the amount of "good" quality climate data is probably less than 100 years. I put good in quotes because someone visited a series of weather recording stations and posted photos of recording stations is absurdly bad locations such as a few feet from a large building.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 04:35:23 pm
content: Erm this is not a climate change debate, end of!

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2019, 09:23:48 pm
content: It's also not about Don Lancaster either. It morphed into a discussion of critical thinking.I'm a geoscientist. I'm hardly about to bother debating pure BS. Experience quickly proves it's not useful. Besides which, the usual response is a torrent of verbal abuse or worse.My point was that people learn about the last ice age in the 5th grade, win a Nobel prize and still lack the clarity of thought to recognize human beings are not the cause of climate change demonstrates that critical thinking is commonly absent among people who should know better. I presented a logical proof called a "syllogism".Actually, critical thinking has probably always been a rare skill and always will be.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 12:00:44 am
content: Talking about "cognitive dissonance" isn't very convincing when you're suffering from it yourself...Which works both ways, by the way. You're not going to convince anyone, nor be convinced yourself, in the presence of it.Tim

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 12:08:25 am
content: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 12:14:20 am
content: Anyway, I finally got a copy of the Active Filter Cookbook directly from his ebay shop. A new, signed copy!I never was too aware of him before this thread actually, although somehow I suspect there may be a book of his in my collection somewhere, and it's likely I borrowed some material years ago from others.There are a lot of nice publications on his site. Much to work through.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 04:43:52 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 11, 2019, 12:00:44 amPerhaps you would be so kind as to explain my "cognitive dissonance"? Which of my statements contradicts my other statements?A mile thick sheet of ice doesn't melt in a few years, especially if the average temperature is only slightly above freezing for a few months each year. Have you ever taken a course in geology?? It would take several tractor trailer loads to collect all the literature just on the topic of the last ice age 15,000 years ago. Never mind the rest of them.Just because "journalists" claim that there is a "scientific consensus" that "anthropogenic climate change" is a serious threat means nothing. All you have to do is make sure you only consult scientists who don't know geology. I do not know a *single* geoscientist that believes any of this. And most of the geoscientists I know (which is probably most of the people I know) have PhDs from Stanford, Mines, Austin, Delft and other top rank schools. So the scientific consensus among people who actually study geoscience is *exactly* the opposite of Michael Mann et al.Go read AAPG Memoir 26, "Seismic Stratigraphy- applications to hydrocarbon exploration". The publication of that memoir was a *major* embarrassment for Exxon's upper management when the significance of the work by Pete Vail et al sank in. Prior to that no one outside of Vail's group realized that sea level has risen and fallen by hundreds of feet in the past and that this was evident and synchronous worldwide. Upper management wasn't interested in Pete's work, so they gave him permission to publish what proved to be some of the most important work in geology of the 70's.Would you consider the consensus of a bunch of auto mechanics about a medical problem valid? Maybe you should go to your auto mechanic for a diagnosis.As for convincing ignorant people of the truth, as I remarked at the start, it's a complete waste of time.As Adolf Hitler noted, if you repeat the same lies often enough and loudly enough, most people will believe it.

author: tomato
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 05:24:17 am
content: Quote from: rhb on February 11, 2019, 04:43:52 amOf course not. Likewise, geoscientists' opinion on climatology is also not very relevant. It isn't their field.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 07:34:48 am
content: Quote from: tomato on February 11, 2019, 05:24:17 amExcuse me, but geology deals with the earth in its totality. A major portion of that is 4.2 billion years of history. Climatology is just a small fraction of that. And there is also the issue that all of the climatology data constitute less than 1 ppm of the earth's climate history. "Climatology" is just a scam invented by a bunch of failed meteorologists who got their PhD because their supervisor wanted to get rid of them. I don't think the field even existed when I got my geology MS in 1982.I have an acquaintance of many years who got his PhD in meteorology. He went to work for the British weather service. He found a major bug in their weather prediction software. He fixed it and went home thinking that the weather forecasts would dramatically improve. It had *no* effect.The last time we chatted about the subject (there are many more interesting topics, so I'm not sure how this drudgery came up) he made the observation that the thermal dynamics of the oceans are largely unknown. The thermal capacity of water is *much* larger than air. And until recently, the climate models assumed a constant ocean temperature.Recently there was a paper by some oceanographers who had detected the cooling effect of the little ice age in the ocean bottom currents, some of which have circulation times of a million years. I think we can reasonably expect that other workers will follow their methods and develop better models of the earth's temperature over time.There are over 30 major changes in sea level on the order of 1000 ft. Where do you think all that water went? It's pretty simple. It turned into immense glaciers which then melted. Except for the last one or two humans did not even exist. Much less alter the CO2 and CH4 content of the atmosphere,So would you state the voltage of a reference from a single microsecond of data? If so, I certainly don't want you doing my metrology or anything else.I don't comment on subjects of which I am ignorant. Perhaps you should consider doing the same.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 07:42:28 am
content: There is no denying that the climate is warming and there is no denying that the energy sources we use can contribute end of!

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 07:49:31 am
content: Quote from: rhb on February 11, 2019, 07:34:48 amSo you have just contradicted yourself by admitting that global warming may be worse than we think because the oceans are soaking the energy up, yea you bet water holds more heat than air: 1'000 Kg/m^3 versus 1Kg/m^3 (at sea level) fancy making a mistake of 3 orders of magnitude.....

author: tomato
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 02:32:45 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on February 11, 2019, 07:34:48 amBy that muddled reasoning, cosmology is better suited to deal with climate change since it deals with the universe as a whole, and the universe is nearly 14 billion years old.QuotePreposterous. Climatology dates back to the late 19th century.QuoteMeteorology is not not the same as climatology.QuoteYou often resort to personal attacks when someone disagrees with you. It doesn't strengthen your argument.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2019, 03:27:13 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 11, 2019, 07:42:28 amThere is no denying by Simon that....<rest of quote goes here>

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2019, 12:56:56 am
content: The data showing human impact on climate change is readily available and about as plain as it gets, there is no controversy to speak of in science, the people denying it are operating off of an emotional belief that is not based on reason or rational thought. I suspect it's exactly the same mental mechanism that leads many otherwise intelligent people to believe in wacky conspiracy theories. Why anyone would want to make this stuff up I have no idea. I mean I love fossil fuels, I love big powerful cars, I love big noisy old airplanes, I would love to not have to concern myself at all with energy efficiency or pollution but wishing it didn't have a negative impact doesn't mitigate the impact.That said, most of the data I've seen also suggests that the situation is essentially hopeless with no reasonable chance of significant mitigation, we may well have passed the point of no return already. It's also possible that the changes forced by simply exhausting the supplies of readily available fossil fuels will be as effective in the grand scheme of things as trying to make large changes now.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 16, 2019, 08:12:26 am
content: Yea, I had a guy from a solar inverter manufacturer come and help me set up my inverter. It went from isn't the quality of education shit these days to "rothchild family" conspiracies. Refugees are all part of the plan as they are not very clever so they are brought to the UK to dilute our intelligence. Clobal warming is man made by 3 5MW RF generators that heat the atmosphere like microwaves because all of the air has tiny aluminium particles in it and on and on. He reconed he had made for £40 what his employer spent millions on developing hydrogen electrolyisis kit and he thinks he can run whatever hydrogen device he wants off this thing he made that only uses 300mA and was basically claiming over unity although he did not go so far as to clearly state it. The guy was completely off his rocker. No wonder his employer does not use any of his designs

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2019, 06:07:59 pm
content: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-15/climate-change-religion-and-related-cover-ups-what-hell-nasa-hiding

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 16, 2019, 07:08:51 pm
content: Yea, yea, conspiracy theory bullshit.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 12:11:57 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on February 11, 2019, 07:34:48 amMmmmmm, yeah, um, your entire post above pretty much proves otherwise.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 01:58:22 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 10, 2019, 01:32:15 pmI didn't even need to watch that video to know it really had nothing to do with Tesla (Panasonic) batteries as such, and knew that he was just using the Tesla angle to troll the people who hate his Tesla videos. I think he enjoys baiting them immensely

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 05:04:57 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on February 17, 2019, 01:58:22 pmAll well and good if you have that tight a following that they know what you are up to but I think he needs to pick which he is doing, trolling and provoking or scientific debunking. I have also noticed some rather generous rounding up of numbers in his debeunkings, a bit more generous than I'd like. If you are making an honest point make it honestly, if you are as dishonest as the dishonest person who can tell the difference. I drifted off his videos because they became wild rants about everything else with repetition of significant amounts of old material. He seems to have tried to clean things up a bit but still rants off topic.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 05:09:48 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 16, 2019, 07:08:51 pmThe author is *rather* hyperbolic, but the science is sound. The 15,000 year solar cycle is the main driver of climate with the occasional caldera collapse, asteroid impact, etc tossed in for novelty.The earth's wobble is so precisely understood and measured that in the late 80's another grad student at UT Austin was modelling the effects of tropical monsoons on the wobble with an Apricot PC.The Dane's hypothesis about the galactic radiation and rotation is quite intriguing. I was a member of the Royal Astronomical Society when it first appeared in print. It neatly accounts for a lot of geological history for which no one has found a satisfactory explanation.As this started on the subject of critical thinking, I'd like to note that there are people, including former attorney general Loretta Lynch, who want to make it a crime to disagree on a matter of science. A stunning parallel to the persecution of Galileo and the "thought crimes" of "1984".

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 05:19:37 pm
content: We know for a fact that:1) fossil fuel is bad, it produces poisonous gasses and those gasses are green house gasses. You may debate how much they contribute to global warming.2) fossil fuel is not limitless and we need a new solution anyway.And yet the dinosaurs of our society will argue forever that we should just carry on.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 05:46:35 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on February 17, 2019, 05:19:37 pmI think there are two drivers for that. The most obvious one is people with vested interests in the way things are done now. The other is people kinda realise in a vague way what Without The Hot Air spells out in detail, and its just too awful to face. You can see this in the abuse thrown at David MacKay in the comments below YouTiube videos of his talks. Few of the people making those comments can really be dumb enough to believe what they are saying. They just don't like reality.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 05:53:22 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2019, 05:46:35 pmAh well, I'm sure natural selection will take care of them and all of us. This planet will not die, we will. Even if the climate is naturally warming why do anything to help that? We are where we are today because we evolved and learnt to control our environment and we created technologies that made life easier, too easy it would seem as now we are allowing the unintelligents to breed, they are not being selected out because our advances in technology allow them to survive in our society structure. Perhaps they should remember who they owe their lives to or rather the professions that created the system that sustains such an inferior human and have some respect for it.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 09:18:37 pm
content: Except for carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, none of the gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels is toxic. The hydrogen sulfide is only a consequence of the presence of an impurity which is iron sulfide in the case of coal and readily removed by using appropriate technology. The resulting byproduct is calcium sulfate, otherwise known as plaster of paris. The walls of most houses in the Western world are made of it.Carbon monoxide is just a combustion process failure. Neither carbon dioxide nor water is intrinsically toxic. Coal is obviously more complex, but petroleum products are just various combinations of carbon and hydrogen. Without fossil fuels we would still be living in a neolithic culture and this conversation would not even be taking place.All of the predictions made about the effects of "greenhouse" gases are dependent upon complex computer models and data which are not available for public inspection. Mann et al insist they must remain confidential. The general acceptance of Mann's assertions under such circumstances is a glaring example of the absence of critical thinking. If the evidence is so overwhelming, why can't those who question his results see his data and software? What became of the open source software mantra that "many eyes improve code quality"?I spent my career writing and maintaining numerical codes which were much less complex. A couple of observations:They are difficult to get right no matter how careful you are.Any method you choose has error artifacts that depend upon the method and the parameters. Without knowledge of the method and the parameters there is no way to evaluate the results accuratelyFurthermore Mann et al apply "corrections" to the raw data. They will not release the raw data. And the 'corrections" have been changed repeatedly in the IPCC reports.I spent my career in the oil industry because my chosen field, mining geology, had no employment opportunities at the time I graduated. My initial reaction to "climate change" was it was preposterously silly, but if it led to a reduction in the insane rate at which we were consuming oil it suited me just fine. Most environmental regulations drive me up the wall because they are written so badly they are simply silly and complying with them a waste of money. However, that probably only applies to someone like me who understands the system from one end to the other and understands the consequences of decisions. I agonize over discarding a 1/4" of 10 AWG copper wire because I look at that wire and I see the hole in the ground and all the resources consumed to produce it. Where does the cost of recycling make conservation prohibitive?Unfortunately, instead of outlawing 6-8 mpg SUVs they wrote laws which drove up the cost of automobiles without in any way curbing the consumption of fuel. I would *love* to see a variable tax that imposed a constant $5/gal gasoline and diesel retail price. That money could be used to build a high speed rail system down the median of the interstate highway system. You pulled up at an exit, a small train stopped, you drove your car onto the train and the took off at 120 mph. At your destination exit, it stopped briefly to let you off. Travel on the train was at no cost.I got involved in this only because of the subject of critical thinking and it's general absence. In an environment where discussion is restricted because of emotional sensitivities, however silly, there is no possibility of anyone learning any sort of critical thinking skills. A woman was reportedly recently jailed in the UK for "misgendering" someone. WTF? Any restriction of discussion other than a simple requirement of civility is an absolute guarantee of the collapse of that society because that restriction carries with it the loss of the ability to examine any subject effectively. At which point science is impossible. I am a scientist. If you will not let other people examine your data and methods I must ask the obvious question. Why?Science requires transparency and Mann et al are prime exemplars of the opposite.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 09:25:02 pm
content: Quote from: rhb on February 17, 2019, 09:18:37 pmThe gases resulting from burning stuff are not toxic except for the gases resulting from burning stuff.We have always done it this way so why change?We once rode horses instead of drive cars, WTF did we start driving cars for? Technology evolves.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2019, 11:45:35 pm
content: ?I can't divine the point of your comment, Simon, but I'll try to make my statement more detailed in the hope that helps.Toxic gases from the combustion of fossil fuels is a *process* failure. It is not an intrinsic property of the fuel. They are only emitted in trace amounts in modern equipment which is operating properly.Because oxygen is essential to life processes in animals, they die if deprived of it whether by entering a closed space lacking sufficient oxygen or by drowning. They do not die from toxic effects. They die from the lack of oxygen.Several states have begun using dry nitrogen to execute condemned criminals. It does not produce the anxiety that high levels of CO2 produces. So they just fall asleep and die from lack of oxygen. Furthermore, because nitrogen is not toxic there is no risk to personnel from ventilating or entering the chamber afterwards.The collapse of linguistic and logical competence is far more of a threat to civilization than a natural geological cycle with a 15,000 year period.Modern technology has its origins in the calculus, but mathematical developments had relatively little effect on people's daily lives until abundant energy in the form of petroleum became available 160 years ago. Without the availability of that energy to mechanize the production of food, it would not be possible to support modern technology at all. Most of the population would be too busy farming. Only a very small number of people would have time to engage in science and technology.There was no technology above the neolithic level until agriculture made it possible for a single person to produce more food than they consumed themselves. But technology was relatively static for several millenia after the development of agriculture. It was an improvement in that it freed up a few people to develop technology. But technology was limited severely by the labor demands of agriculture.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2019, 12:55:28 am
content: Agreed, CO2 and H2O are not toxic -- you'll gladly sit in a chamber consisting of a pure atmosphere of both, right?The dose makes the poison; so it is with biology, so too the atmosphere.Tim

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2019, 04:20:05 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on February 18, 2019, 12:55:28 amSo in your mind drowning, asphyxiation and poisoning are all synonymous?QuoteThis is nonsensical. I'd have expected a more intelligent statement from you. Without CO2 & H20 plants die. Without water people die. Since we produce CO2 we are able to tolerate it to some degree, but our bodies are very sensitive to excessive levels.The atmosphere has become highly toxic many times in the past in the vicinity of major volcanic events. Not that it matters much in the case of a caldera collapse as everything will already be dead from the white hot rock fragments raining down in the area affected by the release of H2S. At greater distances where the ash has had time to cool will kill everything out to a range of 1000 miles or more. The ash kills the plants by blocking the sunlight; the herbivores die for lack of food followed shortly after by the carnivores.The problem is not just limited to the area of the ash fall. So much superfine ash is injected into the stratosphere that large expanses of the planet are covered with snow year around. But after a few years the ash eventually settles out and it warms up. The eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815 resulted in what is referred to as "The Year Without a Summer" in 1816. Carl Sagan's nuclear winter was based on that. Mt. Tambora was big, but by no means the largest such event.The releases of H2S accompanying the great basalt floods such as the Deccan traps would have been much larger than releases related to a caldera collapse. There is a lot of H2s associated with a million cubic kilometer volcanic eruption and it is quite toxic if you are downwind of it.All of human history is the blink of an eye in geological terms. And the death toll in mass extinction events is truly astonishing, almost everything big enough to die does. Many years of effort have gone into trying to understand what happened. The earth is a *very* violent place. Organisms either adapt to the change or they die. The list of extinct organisms is *much* longer than the list of living organisms and vast numbers of organisms leave no fossil record other than some burrowing marks in the sediment.The melting of the polar ice caps over the last 15,000 years raised sea level by about 600 ft. That is an *average* sea level rise of 1/2" every year for 15,000 years. We are now at about average historical sea level high stand. Sea level has been around 100 ft higher at times. So given that our reference is mean global high stand this rise might continue at about 1/2" per year for a while longer.All of that water came from melting huge sheets of ice which had accumulated. That melting was the result of thousands of years of global warming which made it possible for the the small number of humans to move to higher latitudes. The Gulf stream brought a great deal of heat energy to Europe and making it especially hospitable.There certainly is coastal flooding caused by humans. But it's been caused by pumping oil and water out of the ground. Venice is particularly affected by ground water pumping.While sea level has been over 1000 ft below current MSL, it's unclear how much of that is the result of the addition of surface water from the release of H2O during volcanic eruptions and how much is the result of the continental plates moving around.In all of recorded history there have only been a few large geological events and *no* major events. All of this was fairly well known long before "paleoclimate studies" got rebranded as "climatology".All of this is well documented. The available data is freely accessible and various details hotly debated in the geological community in open discussions in which anyone who has an informed opinion may participate. It *is* science, so you *are* expected to know the facts and be able to justify your opinion with a logical argument which accounts for *all* the known facts. But there is no secret data and no one is going around proposing that those who disagree be put in prison.So I suggest a bit of critical thinking might be in order. I have not been significantly involved in geology for 35 years, so this is just what I remember from school. I got into reflection seismology and got entranced by all the digital signal processing involved. Any good PhD level geologist, which I am not, my geology studies ended with my MS, can cite far more issues that Mann et al ignore or misrepresent.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2019, 04:58:45 am
content: Let's please stop the climate change talk, this forum and this thread are not the places for it.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2019, 07:29:07 am
content: i have temporarily banned rhb as he started a "critical thinking" thread in general chat which was another way of saying lets disprove climate change. Hopefully he has got the message.

author: kd4ttc
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 15, 2020, 04:51:03 am
content: Yes he was. Back then the 7400 series of ICs had come out and they seemed a bear to use. What Don did in his TTL cookbook was to distill out the essential design prindiples that were needed to successfully use TTL ICs. Back then getting datasheets was not easy. No internet back then. One didn't really know all the ICs that were available in the series. After Don described the design principles he then came up with a very consistent way to describe the pinouts of the chips in the series. It was a breakthrough book for engineering. Turned out TTL was pretty eash to use, which the engineers knew, as long as you had a good power supply, used enough decoupling capacitors, and paid attention to fan-out. Once the concepts were in place he then went on a survey of very useful digital techniques. After the TTL cookbook CMOS became available, and the CMOS cookbook came out, very similar to TTL cookbook and also chock full of practical design recommendations. The CMOS is also full of great circuit ideas.Back then the folks at Birginia tech published a series of books called the Bugbooks. For bugs cuz the ICs looked like bugs and it was cute. The Bugbook I through The Bugbook VI. These came out after the TTL cookbook, but advanced the idea of outboards for prototype design. Bugbooks were college textbooks. The TTL cookbook was written for the engineer maybe moving into digital and giving advice gained from years of design wisdom. Thing is, after reading the TTL cookbook reading anything TI put out on their superb literature was completely accessible.As to Postscript, turns out there are a number of very sophisticated things you can do with it. It is really a functional language with the power of LISP but none of the safety. Don had discovered that PostScript is a general programming language with some very advanced features. Don used postscript to create the graphics in his books/ It seems that the language was so effective at creating generalized graphics which could be programmatically driven that he wanted to share his discovery. I've been pleased to follow his advice. I have a form for my business that I've updated multiple times. What you can do is create a form expressed a program. So you can change the positioning of an element and automatically have all the fonts change size, the number of rules on a form are drawn precisely and don't go of the page. The parts of a form can be moved and the right rargin of all the rules end at the right place. I had a complex schecule I had to draw. Postscript let me write a program that drew the schedule graphically, allowing me to revise it by changeng a few parameters and all the graphics go redrawn. I can't do this justice with these descriptions, but learing PostScript will let you draw arbitrary graphs with ease, but which can be changed in useulf ways with just easy parameter changes. If your learn it be sure to explore dictionaries, which let you easily send postsript functions with arguments like you would invoke functions with arguments in traditional computer languages.Go get a copy of the TTL cookbook and the CMOS cookbook. After reading them then just grab a data sheet of one of the newer families of MSI logic and you will know exactly how to use the whole family. The books are very conceptual while being superbly practical. You will have the ability to glue together any high level IC (which of course is the whole point, amazing functinality is available nowadays) with addtional parts and Analog ICs to create any electronics you need. Amazing. It's like 2-3 years of college engineering courses.

author: kd4ttc
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 15, 2020, 04:57:40 am
content: Quote from: JPortici on November 09, 2018, 04:26:43 pmNow we can run LTSpice on our PCs, design circuits on a computer, then send files out and get a circuit board in a few days, perhaps even populate the the parts. Sooooo much better than hand drawn circuits, making state diagrams of the digital signal sequencing, making trace diagrams, coating boards, exposing, etching away the copper, drilling, and finally building. Just amazing now. Or the rub on transfers to make circuits. Oh my, those were the days ... that we are so happy we have surpassed!

author: Non-Abelian
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 10:04:50 am
content: Quote from: In Vacuo Veritas on November 06, 2018, 08:01:15 pmNot sure what his obsession with postscript is, but postscript is a great language.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 01:38:26 pm
content: I don't want to reignite the debate about anthropogenic climate change, but some myths have been posted, other than the usual ones I can't be bothered to debunk. I feel compelled to post this because these myths are widely believed to be fact.Quote from: rhb on February 18, 2019, 04:20:05 amCO2is toxic. Not hugely so, but it is true that if a human is placed in a sealed chamber, they would die from CO2 poisoning, before oxygen levels drop dangerously low. High serum CO2levels cause the pH of the blood to fall to dangerously low levels.QuoteNo it doesn't. The main reason why Europe has milder winters, for its latitude is because it's downwind of a large expanse of ocean. The Atlantic absorbs heat during the summer, which is released in the winter as the wind blows over it. A similar pattern is seen in North America, with the Pacific Northwest having similar mild winter temperatures to Europe. On the eastern side of large landmasses, winters are much colder, as the wind has travelled over the freezing continent.As long as the prevailing wind direction is westerly and Europe is to the east of the Atlantic, it will remain much milder, than Eastern Canada.In cold winters, blocking highs cut-off the mild wind over the ocean, occasionally turning the wind into the east, giving Europe a taste of real winter. When this happens, other areas become abnormally mild. These weather patterns are unusual and normally don't last longer than a week. There's a grain of truth in some of the scare stories about Europe freezing, in that a changes to the global aptmospheric circulation pattern and weakening of the jetstreem, might make winter blocking highs more common, but it simply isn't true we'll be plunged into the freezer.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 02:30:46 pm
content: did you post that in the right thread?

author: DrG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 02:48:51 pm
content: I came across this thread late. I think that within the first 10 posts, the OP’s question/issue was answered/rebutted unequivocally. I just want to relate an anecdote and make a small point or two. I am talking about the original topic.Back in the late 70s early 80s, I had absolutely no hardware experience and only a smattering of software experience. I had a TRS-80 Model 1 (which I still have). As purchased, there are no lower-case descenders on the video. Adding a single RAM chip could give you lower-case descenders.Lancaster wrote an article about how you could do that (either Kilobaud or one of the first issues of 80-Micro, as I recall). The prospect of doing that scratched me where I itched. I got the RAM chip and some wire-wrap, but I could not understand where the chip was going to get power from. I was able to solder the chip as a piggy back as per instruction, but couldn’t figure out where to connect Vcc and GND. I had never been inside the machine before, it was a huge expenditure for me and, quite frankly, I was as insecure as a puppy dog.I actually called him up on the phone. We spoke for maybe five minutes. Him basically saying, “take them from anywhere” and me saying “huh?”. I figured it out and it worked and it was amazing.From then on, I paid particular attention to whatever I found that he wrote. I bought a hardcopy of the TTL cookbook (which I still have). I came to admire him and I still do.The “guru” label was probably a bit of an unfortunate marketing choice, but as I recall, it was not used until much later. Tinja quests and the like were stylistic and a testimony to his openness.For me, from my perspective, he was quite influential. He took electronics out of the realm of a subset of engineers and into a realm that I could feed on – it was simple as that. Sure, I guess I could have taken engineering classes, but I was knee-deep in other things that I preferred and were, to me, more important and therefore, more demanding.I put him alongside Forest Mims (the HS or Undergrad teacher that I longed for) and Steve Ciarcia (the time I spent reading and trying to understand his circuits, was always rewarding even though I didn’t always realize that). Not for content similarities or expertise per se, but for the impact of feeding me at the right time. The right time was when I was ready and able to eat what they were serving.No claim here as far as data concluding importance, just anecdotal. You may certainly feel that I don’t count because I am just a hobbyist (or whatever). I don’t necessarily expect people to fully understand or appreciate his impact if they were not there because it is too difficult to communicate how little information was easily available.I often wonder if that same excitement is still out there…those same “first time” adventures…and of course the answer is a definite yes and I search for them all the time.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 03:13:44 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2020, 02:30:46 pmYes, I replied to thethis postin the current thread. I admit it's off-topic, but if you don't want people replying, then why not remove it?Anyway, as far as the orignal topic is concerned. Who is Don Lancaster? I've never heard of him. Going from what I've Googled, he isn't some kind of electronics genius, but someone who's very good at explaining things, from a non-technical point of view. The title is also wrong, by using the word was, which implies he's dead, when as far as I'm aware, he's still alive and well.The original post is controversial. Someone posting their strong opinion about an author's articles being "content-free, typo-filled, hyperbolic, self-aggrandizing prattle" will result in an arguement, as many people will disagree with it. I'm not surprised the orignial poster was banned.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 03:51:10 pm
content: Quote from: kd4ttc on December 15, 2020, 04:51:03 amYou must have read a different book than I did. The TTL Cookbook I know has some trick circuits that you should never use, but just about nothing about how to design a system.QuoteThat's not what I remember at all. It was pretty easy to call the local TI sales office and get a TTL Databook (or a whole box of databooks), even if you were a student. That was free, unlike Don's books and electronics magazines.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 04:11:08 pm
content: Quote from: edavid on December 16, 2020, 03:51:10 pmAs well as the databooks full of data sheets, there were lots of applications books available from the silicon vendors. These ranged from basic information about using TTL ICs, to things like the AMD books on how to use their 2500 and 2900 family parts to efficiently build ALU and DSP architectures (the great works of Mick and Brick). Whatever you were looking for, for serious engineering, the silicon vendors had a better alternative to people like Don Lancaster. His forte was explaining things in simple terms to beginners.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 04:53:33 pm
content: The two previous posts correctly describe why Lancaster was not the best resource for engineers. Different story for hobby folk, and unfortunately for a fairly large number of professionals.Also, while sales reps for the various companies were pretty generous with handing out their stuff, they weren't easy to locate for everyone. Yellow pages worked if you were in the Silicon Valley, but where Don is holed up and thousands of similar places finding who to ask was a journey of its own.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 05:36:25 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on December 16, 2020, 03:13:44 pmHe was a prolific author contributing to American hobby electronics and personal computer magazines throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, as well as a number of books. If you were into electronics and lived in the USA during that period it was almost impossible to be unfamiliar with him. In the rest of the world all bets are off, I don't know if Radio Electronics, Popular Electronics and others were widely distributed elsewhere.IMHO it's unfair to judge his content through the lens of today, I feel old saying this but it was a different world back then. Yes, professional engineers and engineering students had access to datasheets and whatnot but that was never Don's audience. His target was hobbyists, the people who today would typically be called "makers" or whatever. People who tinkered in their garage and repurposed salvaged and surplus gear, you couldn't just hop online and buy cheap gadgets from China back then, or search online and find thousands of hobby projects to build. Your choices at the time were pretty much limited to magazines, books and clubs. I really don't think someone who wasn't around during the pre-internet era could even relate to how different everything was. It's like comparing before and after the industrial revolution.

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 06:08:33 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on December 16, 2020, 05:36:25 pmDon's audience was much broader than that. From the preface of the CMOS Cookbook, second edition:The first edition states pretty much the same.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 06:15:45 pm
content: Well something else to remember is that CMOS ICs were brand new, so there were a lot of engineers who got their education in the 1950s and were accustomed to working with vacuum tubes and later discrete transistors. I could see there being quite a few seasoned engineers who'd had no exposure to this entirely new class of components.Either way his largest audience was hobbyists of one level or another.

author: jfiresto
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 06:45:44 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on December 16, 2020, 06:15:45 pmThat's as may be, but that does not diminish Don's broader audience. I do not have to remember: I bought the CMOS Cookbook when it first came out.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2020, 07:28:55 pm
content: Don Lancaster, Forrest Mims, Walt Jung, Doug Self and many others wrote books and articles which bridged the enormous gap between full academic textbooks and elementary hobby-grade publications.For that I am grateful.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 17, 2020, 06:39:06 am
content: Come to think of it, it's his fault I have a Tektronix 547.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2020, 11:57:38 am
content: Sigh. A couple of things...the OP reads too much, and too "modern" a usage, into the term "guru." Before it had a "top expert" vibe, "guru" had more of a "teacher of arcane knowledge" connotation to it. Lancaster certainly fell (falls!) into that category.I've got very dog-eared copies of 1st Edition TTL, CMOS, and TVT Cookbooks. I built a computer terminal, back in the late 70s. The video part was actually Z8-based and bought, but it needed an ASCII keyboard, which I built using basically the circuit (and some of the tricks) from CMOS cookbook.The "prestigious Ivy League University" I attended had a class that used CMOS Cookbook and TTL Cookbook as textbooks for one of its classes. Not EE; as other have pointed out, these were "cookbooks" and not "rigorous engineering." Just the thing for "wait - how do I build a divide-by-three circuit out of flipflops that fundamentally divide by two?" The class was a Graduate level Chemistry class about building lab equipment!He was clearly an early proponent of what we now call "Open Source", long before it was called that. And still is. Most of his books are downloadable for free from his site.I think he had two blind spots. First, he seems to have been a big believer in "a bit of extra technical knowledge can make you a successful business", without realizing how much marketing and sales and business knowledge would also be needed (I dunno. I haven't actually read "Incredible Secret Money Machine." But I remember him being very "buy a postscript printer, learn postscript, and do desktop publishing for profit!")The second (and related) was the failure to internalize just how fast Moore's Law was going to change things. "Micro Cookbook" (1982. At least partially online as "Machine Language X") has this quote in its preface: "Why machine language? Because, as it turns out, virtually all win­ning and top performing microcomputer programs run only in machine language. The marketplace has spoken. It has not only spoken but is shouting: BASIC and PASCAL need not apply!" (isn't that quaint! Mind you, that was probably written before the IBM PC debut, and was mostly about the Apple ][. But Turbo Pascal and "good" C compilers on 16bit machines were only a couple of years away. And I don't think he every caught up.I like postscript. Yeah, it does neat things. I think I've got first edition postscript books as well, and I've written raw seething postscript. From a desktop-publishing point of view, though, your $7000 laserWriter didn't really stay ahead of $3000 LaserJets with more primitive printer SW, and "adequate" document-prep software. (And it was probably the Apple Mac that did away with a lot of the need for postscript knowledge.) (See (6))Anyway, the MAIN thing I wanted to say is that much of Lancaster's writing is online and downloadable for free. From his own website...https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtmlThey cover a lot of things that are just not taught any more - Machine Language, basic logic circuits, how a UART or a keyboard works. There are good reasons that this stuff is harder to find now - you can just throw a microcontroller at most of those, without needing to understand many of the nitty-gritty details. But they're worth downloading and skimming!

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2020, 02:27:27 pm
content: Also, his fascination with magic sinewaves. I don't know that he ever had a concrete application in mind. I don't recall any circuits to generate timing. Presumably just counters and gates -- or an MCU and timer -- which, quantization completely wrecks the timing required to null all those harmonics.As it turns out, people do use those techniques today; they're somewhat more mundane (and perform not nearly so much better than plain old PWM or S-D, to displace either one), and way,waymore computationally intensive than perhaps he ever envisioned. Yup, upside to all the CPU power we have these days: you can solve the trig polynomials in real time, say every few cycles* or so, making actual dynamic control possible -- the pulses and timings are all completely dependent on output waveformand amplitude, so it's a rather useless thing to try and precalculate a couple of operating points, when what you really want is something you can vary continuously (and perhaps not always have the best results, but to have it clean most of the time greatly saves on harmonic energy and therefore filtering and EMI).*Cycles of whatever waveform you're synthesizing, that is. Not like, CPU or timer clock cycles...Also an aversion to solar power, at least back in the 90s and 00s. Specifically that it would never be a net energy producer, but here we are, looking it up I see a 2012 powerpoint showing the industry either on track for, or achieving, break-even (more power produced than consumed), and another 2018 article showing we've also cleared total production (net energy producer including development and capital costs), and also that wind has an unusually quick payback time (less than a year!).I haven't read tinaja.com recently enough to know if that position has been updated, I assume it has.Just some peculiar contours to a smart and complex individual.Tim

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2020, 01:37:22 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on December 24, 2020, 02:27:27 pmI'd like to suggest you read the paper Joseph Fourier presented in 1810-1812. It led Gauss to remark, "If that's true you can synthesize any arbitrary function."All Don was doing was attempting to describe the Fourier transform to people who didn't understand it in school or never encountered it,Don Lancaster is a consummate technical writer. I know of no one better and I own and have read a lot of books and took a course in techncial writing along the way. . Very few people, Bob Pease, Jim Williams, Walt Jung and a handful of others were in the same class.It's easy to go, "Meahh", 40+ years later, but Don told me the "TTL Cookbook" sold around 1.2 million copies. If that's not success I don't know what is.Don understands it. He chose to make a living explaining it. And happily did very well.Did not predict advances in the abysmal solar of the day? Give me a break!Have Fun!Reg

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2020, 04:23:23 am
content: Quote from: rhb on December 30, 2020, 01:37:22 amIt also allowed Gauss to work out an FFT algorithm and then promptly bury the information so it only came to light well after Cooley and Tukey had published their paper on a similar form of FFT algorithm.

author: lrak
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 13, 2022, 07:03:23 pm
content: Lancaster's books were read by anyone doing design work in the 1980s-2000 - he had a knack for making complicated topics understandable..Even today, his active filter book would be mandatory if you are going to design an analog filter. His TTL and CMOS cookbooks are still a great way to learn about discreet logic.I'm an old fart - never met any competent EE's that didn't know of Lancaster.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2022, 05:32:55 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on December 30, 2020, 04:23:23 amI had the pleasure of meeting an old geophysicist who “invented” the FFT before Cooley & Turkey. It’s just a reordering of addition and multiplication after scaling to the interval minus Pi to Pi. There is now a record in the literature on some of the people who did this. They were better mathematicians than most and simply thought the idea was obvious to anyone who did their calculations with a desk calculator.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2022, 05:39:24 pm
content: Don and his wife are fine folks, retired but still active.His "cookbooks" were very good introductions to many electronic topics.He can be considered a guru as he was pioneer in several fields and popularized knowledge with his handbooks,Jon