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I guess the "olden days" were better. For my BSEE 1978 from UC Berkeley,
we had an analog lab where I built a VCO based on a old PAIA 2700 schematic
for my term project - built a PCB and everything (got an A). My digital
class, we designed built an LED Pong game with TTL. I had both those
classes one quarter - man, that was a busy quarter.
<br>For my analog IC class (taught by Meyer of Gray& Meyar) we did
Spice simulations (on mainframes). I stayed away from the communications
and power electronics.<u></u>
<p><u>Thomas Holley wrote:</u>
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><u>I will have to agree with both of you. My degree(BSEE
1979) included making</u>
<br><u>diodes on a hot plate but mostly it was math. So little hands on
experience</u>
<br><u>it is shameful. I learned most real engineering on my own by burning
up lots</u>
<br><u>of old circuits before figuring out what not to to. I learned nothing
of</u>
<br><u>tube circuits though. Only transistors in a rather primitive way.
Now I much</u>
<br><u>prefer tubes and am working to design a modular system with mostly
tube</u>
<br><u>circuits.</u><u></u>
<p><u>Thomas</u>
<br><u>----- Original Message -----</u>
<br><u>From: "Tom May" <tom@tommay.net></u>
<br><u>To: <synth-diy@dropmix.xs4all.nl></u>
<br><u>Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 2:01 PM</u>
<br><u>Subject: Re: [sdiy] Horowitz/Hill</u><u></u>
<p><u>> "jhaible" <jhaible@debitel.net> writes:</u>
<br><u>></u>
<br><u>> > Funny, even though my education was called study of electrical</u>
<br><u>> > engineering (Elektrotechnik), most books were not on electronics,</u>
<br><u>> > but on mathematics, system theory, circuit analysis (means:
RLC</u>
<br><u>> > circuits), Electrodynamics (E and H fields ...) and digital
signal</u>
<br><u>> > processing.</u>
<br><u>></u>
<br><u>> Funny or sad, that is pretty much my experience exactly (BSEE
1987),</u>
<br><u>> except we had a small amount of digital. But no tubes.
The analysis</u>
<br><u>> was heavy, design and practical considerations such as resistor
power</u>
<br><u>> ratings and setup and hold times and power supply decoupling was</u>
<br><u>> sorely lacking. Even the digital stuff was mostly analysis
of how the</u>
<br><u>> gates worked. I learned almost everything I know about digital
making</u>
<br><u>> a 7400-series TTL ALU as a 9-year old, and interfacing things
to</u>
<br><u>> computers in high school. I have a friend with a philosophy
degree</u>
<br><u>> who is much better at digital than I am based on what he picked
up and</u>
<br><u>> was allowed to do hands-on in high school and continues to do
to this</u>
<br><u>> day.</u>
<br><u>></u>
<br><u>> > And when, after 2 years of maths, the first active circuits
were subject</u>
<br><u>> > of the lectures, the prof came up with tubes instead of transistors.</u>
<br><u>> > I still have vivid memories of the shock when feedback theory</u>
<br><u>> > wasn't taught to us on transistors, but on tube circuits.</u>
<br><u>> > "It's a good exercise to learn it on tubes and then apply your</u>
<br><u>> > knowledge to transitors". Bastard!</u>
<br><u>></u>
<br><u>> I think we learned feedback theory as exactly that: theory, with
black</u>
<br><u>> boxes full of system functions. My own shock, learning about
tubes on</u>
<br><u>> my own years later, was finding that most or all of the stuff
we</u>
<br><u>> learned on transistors had been worked out decades before on tubes!</u>
<br><u>> No one ever mentioned this. It was like electronics started
with the</u>
<br><u>> transistor. The things those old timers could do with a
handful of</u>
<br><u>> tubes, like making a TV, blows me away.</u>
<br><u>></u>
<br><u>> Tom.</u>
<br><u>></u></blockquote>
<u></u><u></u>
<p><u>--</u>
<br><u>Scott Bernardi</u>
<br><u>sbernardi@attbi.com</u>
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