[sdiy] Metric vs imperial, was: My new Moog 960 sequencer clone module project.. slowly but surely ..

[sleepy_dog at gmx.de]

Am 11.11.2020 um 19:48 schrieb Ingo Debus:
>> Am 11.11.2020 um 16:28 schrieb thresholdpeople via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>:
>>
>> And hell, aren't nearly all electrical component pin spacings in standard?
> These days the pin pitch of many ICs is 0.5 mm. Metric connectors (FPC connectors for instance) are also very common.

Even my Peavey amp, an US product, connects its boards with 2.0mm spaced
pin connectors, for some reason :)

This idea of
   1) a system that has specialized for-purpose units that are
intruitive to humans vs.
   2) one that translates well between orders of magnitude sounds like a

false dichotomy,

due to cultural bias. Same for cable widths etc.

We over here buy cables with 0.75mm² cross section, none of this AWG
nonsense, it's fun, try it some time.

Everyone knows what 1mm is, or 1cm, or 10 or 30 or 50 or 75 cm - current
King's forearm length not required at all.
Also what 1 km is. Or how many x 1m² your appartment is big. Or to
volumes, a liter aka cubic decimeter, or 1m³ for lager volumes.
And imagining the in-betweens between orders of magnitude is actually
feasible without head-aches - actually it's just smooth and a no-brainer.

Thus, in fact, these, in the minds of the everyday person, *are*
"specialized" for-purpose units, which happen to be *also* easily
convertible without thinking between orders of magnitude.
When someone measures his fingernail width with a caliper he does not
think of it as 0.6*10^-3 m, he thinks millimeter.
But when it becomes necessary, one can think of it that way and
conversion to make several things the same unit is childsplay, often you
do it right in your head for a bunch of things.

Not to forget, not only among each other these orders of magnitudes are
aligned the same way - they also are all aligned with the frickin
numerical base-10 system everyone, including Don, is using - hah!
That's what I call a *sane* system.

The idea that metric wasn't any good "for engineering" sounds as
preposterous as saying that air wasn't all that good for breathing, or
water for boiling eggs.
Ask a mechanical engineer here what he thinks of that proposition.
Especially one who deals with designs where the smaller realm interfaces
with the larger realm, just for the size units not being arbitrarily
partitioned.
And then you add, to the length units, also forces, torque etc - metric
is not only not "bad" for this, it's super duper for this.

This just never gets old, and I am not sorry :D  (even though it is
meant to be fun and makes some cultural assumptions of itself)
https://i.imgur.com/MQ7LVC3.jpg