John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

[janneman]

Originally Posted by myhrrhleine

that's why we get nowhere in the discussion.
i can't prove it
therefore i can't hear it

Sorry myhr, I have no idea what this means. Are you trying to put something in my mouth?
So far the only thing that has been claimed is that when you can't prove it, it's unproven. Is that incorrect?

jd

[Steve Eddy]

Originally Posted by zinsula

What an insulting and presumptuous statement.

Not presumptuous at all.

Over the years John has routinely misstated, misquoted and misrepresented things that I have said, even when he'd read what I had said just moments before.

So why should I put any faith in his recollection of what someone said to him 40 years ago?

se

[janneman]

Originally Posted by zinsula

What an insulting and presumptuous statement.

It's not presumptious at all. It recognizes that memories 40 years old are notoriously unreliable. John should be more careful as well to state off the cuff what happened 40+ years ago.
SE was the one that looked up the stuff. He found evidence for a 'thought experiment', a 'hypothetical' box. Nowhere is evidence that it was ever build (I looked hard as well).
The box would have a computer of which John himself says that it would not exist 40+ years ago. So far the overwhelmimg evidence is that indeed it has not been build.
Couple that with the mentioned notorious unreliability of memory and it is unavoidable that John's recall of it is flawed.
Why would that be insulting? We're all subject to these things, one time or other.

jd

[Steve Eddy]

Originally Posted by janneman

We're all subject to these things, one time or other.

What things, Bob?

se

[john curl]

This is amazing. Richard Heyser has been dead for approximately 25 years. Whether he actually made the box or not is of lessor importance than the concept.
However, the idea that it would be based on any computer analysis is absurd, because computers were not in the home at the time, and we generally relied on batch processing or modems, where you would call out to a central mainframe. We didn't even have electronic calculators to any extent.
I recall Richard Heyser telling me about the 'box' and challenged me to figure out how it worked. I couldn't figure it out, so he told me. What I don't recall is what he actually did to make the relay trip with asymmetrical circuits. I suspect that it was some sort of diode steering network, but I couldn't do it off hand.
Richard Heyser was like that, and he was brilliant. He often went over our heads in explaining something, but sometimes he could be very patient in conveying a difficult concept. Richard Heyser was the first person to warn me that standard measurements were very limited, and that negative feedback was a big problem. I wish he were still with us.

[janneman]

Originally Posted by Steve Eddy

What things, Bob?

se

Errr... forgot, Bill.

jd

[SY]

Originally Posted by john curl

Whether he actually made the box or not is of lessor importance than the concept.

"Truthiness," I like it.

[SY]

Originally Posted by jacco vermeulen

Phil the sub voicing Proctologist, right ?

That's just the box. Inside, I'm tan and handsome!

[Speedskater]

I too, remember reading about that box a long time ago. It was a rather simple circuit, but the magic was none of us can remember how it worked.

[john curl]

I can't either, but I will look into some old textbooks for clues. Usually, today, we rely on either IC's or computers to do things for us, that we forget how someone may have solved the problem when active devices were bulky or hard to get.