DID YOU EVER:?

DID YOU EVER:

Did you ever sit and read or watch tv or just daydream, and suddenly weird phrases spring to mind? I have, and usually I just let them flow on through, just as though it was a babbling brook, that you sit beside on a warm summer day. While doing so, you watch the skitter bugs as the skate across the water, and the Dragon Flys hover and flash from flower to flower. Tadpoles are flashing here and there, while crawdads wait to pounce on an unwary fish or tadpoles. In the meantime, these weird phrases and sentences go babbling on. Here is an example of one of my babbling s;

"Here I sit on my tush,
watching Rango on my TV
wasting my time as usual,
Wishing instead, I was in the bush."

As you can see, it sort of makes sense, and it sorta doesn't make sense. I was actually watching the movie "Rango" which was rather funny, and of course a complete waste of time. But I think that sometimes, a person has to waste time, or at least appear to waste time.

Over the years I found out that taking time out to relax and let your mind wander, is actually good therapy. During these periods, I found that the solution to a problem, would present itself, and usually two or even three different solutions would be presented.

At other times, relaxing or even doing something entirely different from what I usually did would help me to relieve stress. During my working years, I was always a hard and diligent worker. Since I was always working in the Electronics and/or Space Industry, I had to keep ahead of the curve when it came to technology. During my 45 years in the Technology Sector, I was constantly learning; I subscribed to every free technical magazine, bulletin, catalog, and newsletter I could get my hands on. I'm talking about every phase and product of manufacturing and testing I could find. When I talk about products, I'm talking about pretty much everything, including, plastics manufacturing, metal stamping and fabricating, adhesives and chemical products, glass, resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, micro circuits, Integrated Circuits, audio equipment, test equipment, motors, drive shafts, drive and driven gears, machinery of all kinds, tv's, monitors, computers, and much, much more. And yes, I read and/or reviewed all of this material, which is how I was able to keep up with and usually ahead of the progress of technology over the years. Of course none of this includes all of the Quality Engineering literature that I subscribed to. In addition, I attended every product and technology show anywhere in the country as often as I could. There were two companies I worked for that assigned me and two other people the task of being the presenters of our companies products at these shows, every year. Here is a link to a current Technology Problem in the "Networking Protocols" currently having problems dealing with Open Flow products and "Cloud" usage; http://www.informationweek.com/infrastructure/management/virtualizations-urgent-next-step-openflo/231001833

I was very often described and called a "wiseass or smartass" because I usually had an answer to most any problem people would bring up during various meetings and/or product reviews.

My point in mentioning all of this is the fact that even when I wasn't actually working on my job responsibilities, I was reading and thus learning all of the time. I even brought a great deal of the literature home and read it there, after taking care of all the various chores I had to do at home.

All of this explanation leads back to my original, "Did you Ever"? just relax, daydream, take a hike, work in the garden, build a toy or piece of furniture, work on your car, or whatever?

Now! my question to you my readers is: "Did you ever?"

God Bless us all and Happy Thanksgiving,  from the gahillbilly.

 
"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"

Losing Touch With Modern Electronics Technology.

 My curiosity was piqued today when I was reading the current issue of Popular Science Magazine. One of the contributors was writing about the test equipment he used when doing his handyman work and home designed electronic projects.
At any rate, I was noticing that he was talking about the new Digital Pico Scope's. Here is a link to see what I'm talking about http://www.picotech.com/entry-level-oscilloscopes.html . After looking up what the hell a pico scope is on the internet, I decided to find out how much they cost. Lo and behold I could buy one for under $300.00 american. Like wow, I couldn't buy an analog oscilloscope in kit form for less then $300.00 over 25 years ago. In fact, I paid almost $400.00 for a Heathkit Oscilloscope over 30 years ago.

Side note; way back 50 years ago while I was married to my first wife, I had my own TV/Radio Repair business, which I worked evenings and weekends. Yes! I made money doing so. I was working for the Defense Department at the Sacramento Army Depot doing Crypto Repair work, as well as undercover spy work, but I usually worked only 40 hours a week, as the depot was locked up by 4:00pm.So this explains why I had an oscilloscope, multimeter, vacuum tube tester, Gauss meter, homemade degaussing coil, homemade electrolytic capacitance tester, and several other electronic hand tools.

What I find really fascinating is that Pico Scope's are available as portable hand held devices and as such they are mated up with a computer via a USB connection, so that you don't need a monitor or a disk drive, keyboard, etc. An analysis of an electronic device can be done using the Pico Scope and a Laptop Computer(or desktop computer).  I have plucked this information off of a website that sells these devices and as you can see, if you are interested, there isn't much they can't do.
WOW, the miracle of modern electronics.

What I really want to point out, is the fact that if you separate yourself from the field of electronics, you will become obsolete in a very short time. This is one of the reasons that I subscribed to all the magazines, bulletins, and Technical Literature I could get my hands on, while I was still working. That was how I was able to keep up with the pace of electronics, even though I did not have a formal degree in Electronics Engineering.

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  reviews

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With the PicoScope 2200 range of entry–level USB oscilloscopes you get an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer and arbitrary waveform generator all in one powerful and affordable device.

These compact, inexpensive oscilloscopes have all the power you need for your application, whether it’s design, research, test, education, service or repair. They are available with bandwidths from 10 MHz  to 200 MHz and offer the features and performance of scopes that are several times their size — and their price.

Unparalleled performance

The PicoScope 2200 range includes the first USB–powered oscilloscopes capable of sampling at one gigasample per second. Previously such high sampling rates were only available on mains–powered scopes, and never available on entry–level devices. For repetitive signals the sampling rate can be increased to as much as ten gigasamples per second using equivalent–time sampling. These high sampling rates combined with the ability to store up to 40,000 samples in the scope’s buffer memory and analogue bandwidths of up to 200 MHz make the PicoScope 2200 range suitable for use in a wide variety of applications.

• Up to 1 GS/s  real–time sample rate
• Up to 10 GS/s  repetitive signal sample rate
• Up to 200 MHz  bandwidth
• Up to 40,000 sample buffer memory
• Small footprint — ideal for field work
• Built–in Arbitrary waveform generator (AWG)
• Free software updates
• 5–year warranty

A complete test and measurement lab

Your PicoScope 2200 is not only a powerful dual–channel oscilloscope: using the same PicoScope software for Windows that comes with our high–end scopes, you can also use your PicoScope 2200 as a multimeter, spectrum analyzer, function generator and arbitrary waveform generator (AWG).

I hope folks will find this article enlightening.
yours from the gahillbilly.

"(C) Copyright by Victor Winebrenner"