A Crummy Commercial

"why'd you have to say that, impossible,  why'd you have to say that ?" source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC4efdAv1LM BTW, per Heinlein, strap on wings might allow humans to fly: on the Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menace_from_Earth https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/SF/FSF/FSF_1957_08.pdf (note that The Menace from Earth is followed by a 1 pager from Asimov: A Loint of Paw :) Other than being fun, why mention this ? Because I've always found it much easier to do a task if I know that it has been done before.  The real pioneers will either fail or they'll spend a lot of time/money on a problem.  It was so much easier to write a keyer program for an 8 pin PIC microcontroller after seeing that the fellows at Embedded Research had already created the Tick keyers.  (I did add my old favorite, the potentiometer based speed control).  After Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth it was easier for NASA to send John Glenn around 3 times.  S...

This is an interesting article about tape recording in the postwar 1940s: https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetophon-laugh-track I actually listened to the AI voiced version of the article which was good.  Although magnetic recording must have appeared to be inevitable, I suspect that having someone like Bing Crosby both use and invest in it didn't hurt.  AI also seems inevitable but very few prominent people (aside from the technologists) are touting AI - perhaps AI also needs a champion like Crosby ?  (What am I saying ?  :) I recall hearing that Bing was known as being casual in dress for his radio show but he apparently wasn't keen on doing two versions of the same show for the east and west coasts with hours in between.  I suppose another possible advantage of tape was that Bing didn't have to do the show in the evening, he could do it anytime during the week.  I knew about his investment in Ampex but had never heard about the origins of the laugh track bef...

At first I wondered if this truck was an AI creation: source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/386817055479827672/ But no, it's way too cool for AI to be involved  :) https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/are-labatts-streamlined-semis-the-coolest-trucks-ever/ source:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIHLZgkg4ZU I've been reading the book: Scale by Geoffrey West.  I'll have a more complete report when I finish it.  But I thought this point was interesting: Author West is saying that when a designer is told to optimize economy and performance the resulting car will be similar no matter the manufacturer.  They aren't copying each other, they are all moving towards the same goal.  But the results are kinda meh.   "Honest, Sgt. Friday, I can't tell one make of car from another anymore" The streamlining on the Labatt's truck may not have been functional BUT it did catch the eye and that was the main specification for a rolling Labatt beer...

Pupin source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRUsfIW1aYM     Some internet links on Pupin and the loading coil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_coil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihajlo_Pupin   Michael Pupin, from Immigrant to Inventor htm:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/66886/66886-h/66886-h.htm pdf:  https://www.eserbia.org/images/books/Michael-I-Pupin-From-Immigrant-to-Inventor-1924.pdf Note that the video doesn't mention him but apparently this guy: Campbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ashley_Campbell   had also patented the idea (at AT&T) so AT&T bought Pupin's patent to prevent any legal wrangling ?  We know that these patent and IP tussles (such as Armstrong versus RCA or Edison versus Tesla) are exhausting, expensive and time consuming. But still, I had never heard of Pupin before - and I used to work for a telephone company :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

This is really clever: https://spectrum.ieee.org/inchfab They don't mention packaging or for that matter, test.  But the concept of smaller wafers implying smaller equipment never occurred to me.  The IC fab machines that ASML makes are handling wafers which are at least 300 mm (think of something the size of an LP record).  Inchfab is using 100 mm wafers (smaller than a DVD). I remember one of the test engineers at GTE talking about when he worked at Teletype in Skokie, IL.  He mentioned that they had a 2 inch wafer fab there which really impressed me - I never knew that there were semiconductor fabs in the Chicago area.  The later Teletypes (like the model 43 ?) must have used these chips.  Think of a keyboard with a printer: I also recall him saying that Teletype worked on a 10-30 process.  Once they got to 10% yield they went into production, when they reached 30% yield it was time to advance to a newer design.  And sometimes they'd come back ...

looking at this EDN Design Idea :  https://www.edn.com/custom-diy-dmm-smd-fixture-for-low-z-measurements The thing that caught my eye was the clamp - the article calls them: Lever arm-toggling ?  Really ?  In the olden days of the 1970s/80s/90s we called them: De-Sta-Co clamps because that's what was stamped into the clamp  :)   I imagine that there are many generic versions now.   In our receiving inspection department they were used for holding a device-under-test (DUT) in place on a test fixture.  With ICs this wasn't necessary but with other items it was required to hold the DUT in place to minimize affecting the temperature or whatever.  https://www.destaco.com/clamping/manual-clamping/hold-down-clamps Where did we get them ?  why here: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/destaco-clamps/ I wonder if Destaco ever considered doing what Louboutin did with their shoes - Destaco clamps always had red handles :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Interesting video on testing ICs by Asianometry: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXULADjnO5s I think Asianometry is a "one man band" so there are bound to be some mistakes in there.  For example (a nit pick) it was Takeda Riken not Takeda Rikan :)   Also Allen-Bradley made carbon composition resistors but he showed a picture of what appeared to be a film resistor on ceramic (with the spiral pattern).   Also not sure on his diode diagrams (they look backwards to me :) And I was told it was pronounced: Shlum-ber-jay: Fairchild is easier to pronounce than Favre or Schlumberger :)   Anyway nothing wrong of huge importance.   This video is a good history of how IC testing changed over the years and which IC test companies made it into the 21st century.   Personally I worked on the Fairchild IC testers but we used Teradyne testers at GTE, too, especially for linear.  About the only thing I knew about Teradyne was that they called their tes...

Working at GTE consisted mostly of desk work or debugging on the Sentry IC Tester (when I had scheduled time).  But there were also meetings.  Not that many but I do remember one regular interdepartmental meeting - I can't remember exactly what the goal of the meeting was but it was run by a "lab guy", person "A" - a supervisor.  I'm sure this person was really smart but just not easy for me to understand - at times it almost sounded like "gobble-gobble" to me.  At those times the 2nd in command labster, (person "E") would step in with: "I think what "A" is trying to say is:" and then proceed to actually run the meeting.  I thought of person "E" as the prophet (or maybe a translator or management whisperer) who furnished the interface to the incomprehensible person "A". It was sort of like on Sanford and Son, when the cops, Smitty and Swanny  (or Smitty and Hoppy) would show up:   source:  https://w...

At GTE I used to work on Fairchild Sentry IC testers like this Sentry 21: The test head of the Sentry had pin electronics cards arrayed around a circle: source:  https://caeonline.com/buy/final-test/schlumberger-fairchild-sentry-21/9267919 Here is an interesting paper on testing the Z-80 with a Sentry 610: substack:  https://mtsi.substack.com/p/testing-the-z80-chip-with-a-1970s   article repeated here:  https://mitsi.com/case-studies/z80-chip/ One thing that were used on the pin electronics cards were small reed relays, either Zestrons: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/296449132308 or Coto relays: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/394476842759 The reed relays were also used on "performance boards" which were the interface between the test head and the device under test - the relays were usually used for applying loads or power to a pin.   One thing with the reed relays, they weren't soldered onto the boards, we used small pin sockets like these: ...

This was an interesting intro article: https://spectrum.ieee.org/dairy-robots  Which pointed to this article: https://spectrum.ieee.org/lely-dairy-robots The Lely promo video on their robotics: source:  https://youtu.be/g-zYshsAg1E These raised two questions for me:  what do they do in the spring and summer when the cows are outside on the pasture ?  And, why aren't robots like this made in Wisconsin ?  The University of Wisconsin practically invented modern dairy for Wisconsin after the wheat depleted the soil.  UW Madison also has an excellent engineering program in addition to agriculture.  Why didn't some kind of synergy develop ? My folks used to raise sheep but gave it up.  No milking involved but still you had to feed them or move them to fresh pasture.  Also make sure they had plenty of water.  And of course everyone would always count them :)  Lambing time could also be a middle of the night job.  And there was quite ...

This article: https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-eraser reminded me of the time someone got the idea at GTE to re-use EPROMs - maybe there was a supply problem ?  - one problem was that we had been printing the part numbers on the chips with epoxy ink.  So I started looking through the McMaster-Carr catalog to find ways to clean off the ink, we tried soaking the chips in thinner and then used electric erasers to clean off the marking. What a nightmare ! It didn't work very well, they had extra people come in and after using the eraser they had to use a rag wetted in solvent to try and wipe up the residue. We eventually changed from printing the part number with epoxy ink to somewhat expensive impact printed labels from the WH Brady company.  I remember the sales rep for WH Brady was the slowest walker - the plant was BIG, I didn't have time to waste strolling along :) The erasers we used were AC powered and bigger but similar to this: source: https://www.mcmaster.com/prod...

This was interesting from Ars: https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2024/12/nasa-says-orions-heat-shield-is-good-to-go-for-artemis-ii-but-does-it-matter/ The thing that struck me was that the skip approach to landing the Orion capsule was what caused the problem of the big cavities in the Orion heat shield.  This was supposed to minimize the highest temperatures (and also g-force on the astronauts) but that ironically led to the problem by causing the internal heating of the shield.  To me this means that while the shield was tested on the ground for extremes, it wasn't tested as NASA decided to use the shield.  As I recall the original Apollo re-entry did NOT use the skip method so that might be why this wasn't seen before. This reminds me a little of IC testing.  We always did the tests at the databook limits but never at levels either below or above the limits.  One thing that we could do on the Sentry IC tester was employ what was called Schmoo plots (named...

As has happened before, fell asleep during this NOVA broadcast, Building Stuff, Change It : source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvkXxB9_JMw Luckily it was on Youtube today so I was able to finish watching it.  Stories about engineering projects should be holding my interest but nope !  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I previously mentioned the IEEE in this post: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-ieee.html Recently I noticed that the always amazing Worldradiohistory site has added old issues of IEEE Spectrum magazine: https://worldradiohistory.com/IEEE-Spectrum.htm For either good or bad some of these are cut down scans, excluding a lot of the advertising. The issue on AM stereo looks interesting: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-IEEE/1978/IEEE-Spectrum-1978-06-.pdf Worldradiohistory also has many of the proceedings from the IRE, one of the predecessors of the IEEE. https://worldradiohistory.com/IRE_Proceedings.htm I wonder if Worldradiohistory will start scanning the IEEE transactions and proceedings ?  That would be really neat.  I know there are some articles on radio and consumer gear in the IEEE publications, for example the CB transceiver kits from Knight-kit.  But these are now behind the IEEE paywall: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6499381/ Best Regards, Chuck,...

In a way the IEEE is a little like the ARRL.  The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers was formed in the 1960s from the merger of the IRE (International Radio Engineers) and the AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Electrical_and_Electronics_Engineers The organizations are alike in that they are member supported, publish magazines and books, are technically inclined.  But the IEEE is for engineers working in industry while the ARRL is an advocacy group for hobbyists. I've never joined the IEEE.  Maybe like some hams who've never joined the ARRL ?  I just never saw the value in joining.  I read the magazine (Spectrum) in college and could look at the various transactions papers but even the student membership pricing was high.  When I graduated the membership price went up and it was even less of a deal for me.  Also engineers at the time could get tons of free trade publications (whi...

There was a small study hall on the 2nd floor of the UW-Milwaukee engineering building.  One day I came in and this was on the blackboard: a proclamation from the 20th century I had to record it for posterity, would have been some time during the period of fall 1973 to spring 1977. That's all for today :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm