I love being a musician who delivers to the listener in two ways. I love being an amp tech who delivers to the musician in two ways. As I have it now, there's not much more to ask for as far as comfort goes. And I'm willing to trade some comfort; my Soul only rests when I'm making strides to fulfill my potential.
Short Resume:
AMPTECHNICALby rich audio - www.amptechnical.com/home/
Craigslist services
4 years performing repairs.
Studying MIT Open Course Ware 6.002 Circuits and Electronics
Currently reading the Radiotron Designer's Handbook
Guitar Player, Male, Wild + Serious
Health Conscious
Polite and Passionate
Mission Statement: "Be the best Amp Tech/Guitar Player I can be"
The go-to guy in my area, confident and efficient.
Curriculum Sought:
Intuitive troubleshooting of Tube and Solidstate Amplifiers, and eventually Analog Synthesizers and HiFi Audio
Concepts of Circuit Design
Isolation and Diagnosis - Logic of the Troubleshooter
Best use of equipment and when to use it
Working with others who can help you
Root Cause Analysis, creating systems without flaws/bugs, redundancy
tracking Oscillations efficiently
forging what I have into a unique niche opportunity
Quick utilization of opportunities to create Assets
I have plenty of equipment, an education through online study at MIT OCW 6.002 Electronics, YouTube Leaders (for me at least) including w2aew, Mr. Carlson's Lab, Dennis Carter, El Paso Tube Amps, books and forums such as this one, and a small amount of shared experience with other technicians in person.
Please consider what you would like to see happen, and how you could benefit from my presence. Also consider what you would be willing to teach. I am located in Western Mass, and will make travel arrangements, as schedule permits.
Thank You for your time.
Richard
Short Resume:
AMPTECHNICALby rich audio - www.amptechnical.com/home/
Craigslist services
4 years performing repairs.
Studying MIT Open Course Ware 6.002 Circuits and Electronics
Currently reading the Radiotron Designer's Handbook
Guitar Player, Male, Wild + Serious
Health Conscious
Polite and Passionate
Mission Statement: "Be the best Amp Tech/Guitar Player I can be"
The go-to guy in my area, confident and efficient.
Curriculum Sought:
Intuitive troubleshooting of Tube and Solidstate Amplifiers, and eventually Analog Synthesizers and HiFi Audio
Concepts of Circuit Design
Isolation and Diagnosis - Logic of the Troubleshooter
Best use of equipment and when to use it
Working with others who can help you
Root Cause Analysis, creating systems without flaws/bugs, redundancy
tracking Oscillations efficiently
forging what I have into a unique niche opportunity
Quick utilization of opportunities to create Assets
I have plenty of equipment, an education through online study at MIT OCW 6.002 Electronics, YouTube Leaders (for me at least) including w2aew, Mr. Carlson's Lab, Dennis Carter, El Paso Tube Amps, books and forums such as this one, and a small amount of shared experience with other technicians in person.
Please consider what you would like to see happen, and how you could benefit from my presence. Also consider what you would be willing to teach. I am located in Western Mass, and will make travel arrangements, as schedule permits.
Thank You for your time.
Richard
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Bump again, I'm willing to travel and I have much to offer you in exchange for your time.
If the relationship is 100% business, I have a fresh enthusiasm and optimism to see a problem through to a solution - I am unstoppable in this way. I have a large inventory of parts and components which are available to you the same day as my visit.
I have an LCR meter, 1-10-100 ohm calibration standards, laptops, extra computer supplies, signal generators, a calibrated 150Mhz Tek scope, dummy loads, 18kV scope test probe, and more. My resume includes Accounting and Data Entry as well as 18 years of computer experience. I can install some IP based network components. I can install new speaker surrounds, work with home power AC, and troubleshoot some automotive issues.
Yes, I can cook and clean, but I don't do windows and I don't do laundry!
Outside of business, I have a background in Soil Science, and 8+ years of Organic Farming Experience. I can get soil test results for your home garden, analyze them and make excellent recommendations. Nutrient dense food like you've never had before, with higher levels of Zinc, Boron, Cobalt, Molybdenum and Chromium. Best tasting tomatoes ever with sufficient Sulfur! All essential oils (aromas and flavors) are increased. No Till practice will encourage microbial life.
I can teach your children how to make yogurt, kimchi, saurcraut, real pickles, and Kombucha! I can help people with cancer, MS, and other issues. NOTE: I didn't say cure, but I am saying that what I know is extremely valuable to those in need.
If the relationship is 100% business, I have a fresh enthusiasm and optimism to see a problem through to a solution - I am unstoppable in this way. I have a large inventory of parts and components which are available to you the same day as my visit.
I have an LCR meter, 1-10-100 ohm calibration standards, laptops, extra computer supplies, signal generators, a calibrated 150Mhz Tek scope, dummy loads, 18kV scope test probe, and more. My resume includes Accounting and Data Entry as well as 18 years of computer experience. I can install some IP based network components. I can install new speaker surrounds, work with home power AC, and troubleshoot some automotive issues.
Yes, I can cook and clean, but I don't do windows and I don't do laundry!
Outside of business, I have a background in Soil Science, and 8+ years of Organic Farming Experience. I can get soil test results for your home garden, analyze them and make excellent recommendations. Nutrient dense food like you've never had before, with higher levels of Zinc, Boron, Cobalt, Molybdenum and Chromium. Best tasting tomatoes ever with sufficient Sulfur! All essential oils (aromas and flavors) are increased. No Till practice will encourage microbial life.
I can teach your children how to make yogurt, kimchi, saurcraut, real pickles, and Kombucha! I can help people with cancer, MS, and other issues. NOTE: I didn't say cure, but I am saying that what I know is extremely valuable to those in need.
The problem you might have if audio is that it is an art form. Organic farming is not a bad place to start from ( been there, done that in the 1970's before it was called Organic, only 27 acres that made money, 6 was lettace which was the bigger deal ) . Never think that money is the answer to making a project work. Hard work and an ability to understand what others want is important. Unlike people who write here the public simply like how things sound. Often the two sides of the story can meet. I would almost say if something sounds good despite measuring well it is a big victory. That is not as weird as it seems. Many SE tube amps sound very like real music yet due to wrong thinking are assumed to be less than worthless by many. Many forget that the microphones that capture the sound could be considered to have bad sound also. It is the bad sound that sometimes works with a voice to make that person sucessfull. A great example of this is RIAA phono stages that seem to completely ignore how a LP works. For example the lower bass end can be tuned by ear to the way your speakers work. Since CD speakers often don't suit LP reproduction. I find even CD works better with speakers that suit LP. Doing what's usually done is fine. What you will get is what you easilly can buy. If you like conventional farming at it's best if lucky.
Instead of a mentor find people you can move along with who don't cloud your vission. It's of no importance if others share your ideas here. Be faithfull to your likes. If others like it also that's a bonus. Sid smith was the man you should have known from Long Island, alas taken from us.
Instead of a mentor find people you can move along with who don't cloud your vission. It's of no importance if others share your ideas here. Be faithfull to your likes. If others like it also that's a bonus. Sid smith was the man you should have known from Long Island, alas taken from us.
I want to give you another example of how thinking differently might work. A very unusual gentleman from Germany I know makes a very good sounding phono stage. On paper it is a 1970's design that is transistor that could equally be valves. He gets all the things right one should, but has an obsession with power supply design. Even so it all looks old hat. It is only when talking at length one finds he has considered all of the angles. Then the bombshell. He states that the Shure pick ups detest 47 K loading and sound poor if used. His advice is to use 1M ohm and then use a calibration LP to set the EQ. Whilst I wouldn't like to say if wrong or right he is the ony one I met who thought this worth saying. His claim is Shure will outperform most when correct. I won't mention his name as that would greatly upset him.
Meaurements are for checking lets say that example A is like example B, that is a duty of care to the customer. Some go further and almost let it be the flavour one promotes. If so we are mere photographers. Everything has errors, make them work for you is the big deal.
Meaurements are for checking lets say that example A is like example B, that is a duty of care to the customer. Some go further and almost let it be the flavour one promotes. If so we are mere photographers. Everything has errors, make them work for you is the big deal.
The one thing I understood from organic farming was it was easier. We didn't do it exactly as the religious version as when the Organic Movement. We were 80% and could have converted if asked. The 80% was because we got better results. The 80% was 95% very often in the summer. The only non organic was for the beef cattle which were Angus and some Hereford crosses, even so we were as organic as possible using clover to boost the yields. The cattle were the 21 other acres making the waste product we used. In the UK Organic was just starting as a business concept then. The main problem being the Soil Association sometimes were not very logical. What we called our farming was best practice. We had absolutely no interest in who was right. All we knew was what we did gave most profit. We did not sell to anyone via our beliefs. We just pushed the quality. I discovered in later life Mr Bishop the farmer was a metalagist. It should have been obvious as he knew too much. The farm was his home until his father died. He left Morris Motors as the head of metalergy at the radiator plant to run the farm ( they did much more, anything that bolted on really ) . His quote to me " no wise farmer wastes money, inputs cost money and often are less stable ". We bought our seed from the Avon Research Centre. Very expensive and always gave top results. I could imagine some would reject that.
I was at college at the same time doing electrical engineering which had electronics as an endorsement subject. I think farming made me think Audio to be the same. 80% bit to me is the way perhaps most at DIY Audio dislike. That is if it sounds better to me I frankly don't give a damn what another person would say. It's for my pleasure only. The 20% is to know what it does in conventional terms and be able to go back to that for reference or to build a clone. In my way of thinking most audio is like conventional farming. A real science that will do all it sets out to do. If that's all there is to that is for you to descide.
To be clear. I always suspected what works best with organic food is the care taken. If the organic zealots went to run a normal farm with normal methods I suspect they could produce exceptional results if their minds allowed it. Same in audio.
If I was to mentor this gentlemen it would be this one idea. Find a specifaction you think works. Do not allow yourself to compromise. This will take time. Do it with as few pieces as possible. This is the hard bit because mostly few will think this valid. You can cheat a bit by using op amps and off the shelf voltage regulators. Try to find the point where the design starts to fail and go back to the point when it didn't. Simplicity alllows Kirchoff rules to apply rather than Gauss. With an op amp it is Gauss, however often what we might do is worse in that respect as it will be larger ( ??? ). The analogy would be harmful rusts in organic farming which can harm humans.
MJR7-Mk5 Mosfet Power Amplifier
RH Amplifiers
I designed an amplifier in the Alex Kitic style. At college we did valves, this was my first go at a design 35 years later. At the end it had virtually nothing in common except simplicity. In the mid phase it had many transistor current sources and current sinks to get my bench marks. 8 watts 1% THD no loop feedback 1.6 watts 0.2 %. In addition the harmonics drop on a curve that looks exponential. The noise level -88 dB reference 1 watt. AC heaters as DC wasn't really better. One criticism I had to face was the amplifer would be impossible to mass produce. This was based on a fatal oversite. They assumed I was using the valves as they had always been used with load lines saying how I would do it. I had one advantage. Someone had collected a bucket of these valves that should have been junked. In my circuit they mostly had a second life. The worse was 1.5 % THD and the usual harmonics. There were many makes also so the sample was reliable. I never got the same results as Alex with his design so had to reject it. I still repect him for his insights. I wouldn't recomend valves to a newby as they are the real organics and are not always happy to work with off the peg speakers etc.
Motorcycles were my other passion. When I wasn't so fat I always wanted a low tune 500 cc single with switch on supercharger. OK it would take your teeth out when fast due to vibration, otherwise soft like an old BSA. Now I think a hybrid might do better based on the Isles of Man TT racers. 5 miles of stored power would be enough and a nice soft tune single. It would charge the battery when in soft mode. I wish hi fi was so easy to talk of the dream. Most seem to wish against anothers ideas rather than join in the passion. Alas this makes people with passion keep quiet. Passion often means wrong. As long as one finds out where is the harm?
I was at college at the same time doing electrical engineering which had electronics as an endorsement subject. I think farming made me think Audio to be the same. 80% bit to me is the way perhaps most at DIY Audio dislike. That is if it sounds better to me I frankly don't give a damn what another person would say. It's for my pleasure only. The 20% is to know what it does in conventional terms and be able to go back to that for reference or to build a clone. In my way of thinking most audio is like conventional farming. A real science that will do all it sets out to do. If that's all there is to that is for you to descide.
To be clear. I always suspected what works best with organic food is the care taken. If the organic zealots went to run a normal farm with normal methods I suspect they could produce exceptional results if their minds allowed it. Same in audio.
If I was to mentor this gentlemen it would be this one idea. Find a specifaction you think works. Do not allow yourself to compromise. This will take time. Do it with as few pieces as possible. This is the hard bit because mostly few will think this valid. You can cheat a bit by using op amps and off the shelf voltage regulators. Try to find the point where the design starts to fail and go back to the point when it didn't. Simplicity alllows Kirchoff rules to apply rather than Gauss. With an op amp it is Gauss, however often what we might do is worse in that respect as it will be larger ( ??? ). The analogy would be harmful rusts in organic farming which can harm humans.
MJR7-Mk5 Mosfet Power Amplifier
RH Amplifiers
I designed an amplifier in the Alex Kitic style. At college we did valves, this was my first go at a design 35 years later. At the end it had virtually nothing in common except simplicity. In the mid phase it had many transistor current sources and current sinks to get my bench marks. 8 watts 1% THD no loop feedback 1.6 watts 0.2 %. In addition the harmonics drop on a curve that looks exponential. The noise level -88 dB reference 1 watt. AC heaters as DC wasn't really better. One criticism I had to face was the amplifer would be impossible to mass produce. This was based on a fatal oversite. They assumed I was using the valves as they had always been used with load lines saying how I would do it. I had one advantage. Someone had collected a bucket of these valves that should have been junked. In my circuit they mostly had a second life. The worse was 1.5 % THD and the usual harmonics. There were many makes also so the sample was reliable. I never got the same results as Alex with his design so had to reject it. I still repect him for his insights. I wouldn't recomend valves to a newby as they are the real organics and are not always happy to work with off the peg speakers etc.
Motorcycles were my other passion. When I wasn't so fat I always wanted a low tune 500 cc single with switch on supercharger. OK it would take your teeth out when fast due to vibration, otherwise soft like an old BSA. Now I think a hybrid might do better based on the Isles of Man TT racers. 5 miles of stored power would be enough and a nice soft tune single. It would charge the battery when in soft mode. I wish hi fi was so easy to talk of the dream. Most seem to wish against anothers ideas rather than join in the passion. Alas this makes people with passion keep quiet. Passion often means wrong. As long as one finds out where is the harm?
I apply the same care to a field as I do to my desire to seek like-minded individuals and groups that have surpassed my understanding of a particular skill or philosophy. All skill requires teachers - even when "self-taught", there must be the Muse of innovation, inspiration, and a good intuition.
Please bump this post and allow this process to continue, with PASSION!
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I have a '46 Rock'ola Jukebox amp that came in with a bad interstage transformer. Rather than have it rewound, I built an ax7/au7 preamp card and replaced the poorly designed tone controls with a Bax-style TS. I have had this project for 4 months, it is a paying job and the customer really deserves this amp back.
I need a hand from someone to reduce the 120Hz output hum. It may be a grounding issue or a layout issue, but I've got over 100 hours into this thing. Whether you are in New York or New England, please contact me if you have some time. Thank You.
I need a hand from someone to reduce the 120Hz output hum. It may be a grounding issue or a layout issue, but I've got over 100 hours into this thing. Whether you are in New York or New England, please contact me if you have some time. Thank You.
BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, Second Side Up - a Life Captured in Radio
This is someone I knew when he started in the 1970's. This was the first time anyone ever gave him air time. We who know him understand, others don't. All the same he did it himself. It really is a shame he didn't have a mentor. He doesn't know the first thing about electronics. Out of need he has learnt what he needed to learn and fixed things I would think impossible.
From what I see you are getting there yourself. The problem is the ones who could have been mentors are dead or keep what they know to themselves. I notice many come here to learn, few truely give. There are a few.
Often rotating a transformer helps. Sometimes in the air on a bit of wood is the amswer. Ears work just as well as a scope for hum. Sometimes with hum best is what sounds best. It can be that slightly more hum sounds nicer. I do mean very slight. On a scope the harmonics are lower whilst 60 Hz might be slightly higher for that choice.
Any scope is better than no scope. I have PC scope and posh scope, then others. The one I use most is a 10 MHz scope often used in schools, scope No5. It is OK in my damp workshop which is no small thing. Even if the problem is > 10 MHz often something is seen. That's when the posh scope takes over. I have become so intuitive when I see fizzy waves I almost always work out the problem without using my posh scope.
This is someone I knew when he started in the 1970's. This was the first time anyone ever gave him air time. We who know him understand, others don't. All the same he did it himself. It really is a shame he didn't have a mentor. He doesn't know the first thing about electronics. Out of need he has learnt what he needed to learn and fixed things I would think impossible.
From what I see you are getting there yourself. The problem is the ones who could have been mentors are dead or keep what they know to themselves. I notice many come here to learn, few truely give. There are a few.
Often rotating a transformer helps. Sometimes in the air on a bit of wood is the amswer. Ears work just as well as a scope for hum. Sometimes with hum best is what sounds best. It can be that slightly more hum sounds nicer. I do mean very slight. On a scope the harmonics are lower whilst 60 Hz might be slightly higher for that choice.
Any scope is better than no scope. I have PC scope and posh scope, then others. The one I use most is a 10 MHz scope often used in schools, scope No5. It is OK in my damp workshop which is no small thing. Even if the problem is > 10 MHz often something is seen. That's when the posh scope takes over. I have become so intuitive when I see fizzy waves I almost always work out the problem without using my posh scope.
There was a swap meet near you last year (or 2), I went and got rid of projects I'll never finish. Lot's of folks there that could help. There's a forum for that why not search it for the organizers?
From a practical point of view, a "mentor" proper may be hard to find.
Second best (in the long run amounts to the same) and more realistic might be to get a tech position (consider it an apprenticeship) working with a very busy shop which might need an extra hand.
Location can be a problem, any potential "boss" will certainly want you to either work at his shop or, worst case, have you pick/deliver broken stuff.
Not so sure you can find much of that around New England; while NY, Nashville, Vegas or LA sound like busier places.
Third option would be to drive within 50 miles around (or whatever you feel comfortable with) , visit Music Shops, including GC and such, and offer your services as an independent Tech.
A large shop might even offer you set up somehing in a back room , or you could pick and deliver.
Second best (in the long run amounts to the same) and more realistic might be to get a tech position (consider it an apprenticeship) working with a very busy shop which might need an extra hand.
Location can be a problem, any potential "boss" will certainly want you to either work at his shop or, worst case, have you pick/deliver broken stuff.
Not so sure you can find much of that around New England; while NY, Nashville, Vegas or LA sound like busier places.
Third option would be to drive within 50 miles around (or whatever you feel comfortable with) , visit Music Shops, including GC and such, and offer your services as an independent Tech.
A large shop might even offer you set up somehing in a back room , or you could pick and deliver.
These guys, The New England FrankenFest Audio GTG is this Saturday 10/22 in Walpole MA. It was in Clinton when I went, you can search the Clubs & Events forum for some member ID's
Over the years I have built up a group of friends who talk about Audio. Many are highly skilled. The funny thing is we don't really talk engineering. We just share the fact we all sort of understand the conversation. I often solve problems without help because they are they if I couldn't.
The type of converstions we might have is. " I have converted my tape deck to a dircect RIAA input ". The converstaion then goes. " Why did no one think of that " . Then the obvious," Because it would have said it's for copying which was illegal ". Then we all nod and say " Maybe I should do that ".
People who know me at DIY Audio know I make things with as few parts as possible. I still keep to the 1947 standard of < 0.1% THD and ideally where the harmonics fall as music harmonics do. The rest is for other people and not me. One day I was called by some of my friends to Ibeza for a holiday. All I had to do was buy an aeroplane ticket. On the penultmiate day I was taken to a broken TV studio. The guy had been abandoned with most of the equipement taken as wages. I put together a studio for him with two Electrovoice mics ( too bulky I guess, supurb quality ), 4 way mixer ( he had a more sophisticated one that wasn't nice sounding ). Cameras and the lighting that had been left. The studio was if you like a 1960's one. An Apple computer as Mission Control. My proudest moment was my friend Martina saying. " If anyone can sort this out Nigel can ". In truth is was 10 minutes work. We had to order him some building site transformers as much of the gear left behind was USA 117V. We got them through Farnell Spain as the shipping was free ( About $50 each and a supurb way of doing it ). We all had a marvellious adventure doing that and a few $ in the pocket ( 500? and a holiday ). We saved this guy's future also. That's when these imformal groups work.
BTW about 60% of the things in that TV studio were unused even though the staff took most of his 230 V gear. The surplus all went on eBey. The truth is the staff milked this poor fellow and killed their cash cow. I showed him he could run it with just him and his director. All the big cables went, that kept the floor clear and available. However the lighting was 100% what it had been and I said he needed more. I would have had a weeks work if that had been removed. The holiday was at this exact time of year and was splendid. Team work is the best work if the team works! The weird bit of this story is none of the team knew I had TV experiance as I had never said. They took a lucky guess. If I remember right they said to Martin " Nigel is our expert who has come to help ". I wasn't told any of this until we all turned up! I guess by expert they meant confident when the going gets tough. The fact that so much was missing or not ideal made it easier. He had not a penny to change that which was ideal. How many times have I saved the day only to find the problem reinstated later. Not this time.
To become Mentored here why not start a project? Some of the people at DIY ( not me ) are as high up the tree as is possible to go. If the project is real they often will teach. Some get too technical which to me means they didn't understand that someone is learning. Just remind them as you go.
One of my early projects that comes to mind was a Reslo ribbon microphone a friend was given. Designing a preamp was hard work as usually a transformer was used. In the end the simplest amplifier possible worked and was built against the rules text books gave, it was a common base type. The Internet was not there to help me, only section 621 of Oxford library. I learnt a lot from that, not least that text books may not descibe the problem I have. It had one defect that I could solve now. It found cables under the street. The sound was very real and in the end low hiss. Find something that you could use when finished I would say.
The type of converstions we might have is. " I have converted my tape deck to a dircect RIAA input ". The converstaion then goes. " Why did no one think of that " . Then the obvious," Because it would have said it's for copying which was illegal ". Then we all nod and say " Maybe I should do that ".
People who know me at DIY Audio know I make things with as few parts as possible. I still keep to the 1947 standard of < 0.1% THD and ideally where the harmonics fall as music harmonics do. The rest is for other people and not me. One day I was called by some of my friends to Ibeza for a holiday. All I had to do was buy an aeroplane ticket. On the penultmiate day I was taken to a broken TV studio. The guy had been abandoned with most of the equipement taken as wages. I put together a studio for him with two Electrovoice mics ( too bulky I guess, supurb quality ), 4 way mixer ( he had a more sophisticated one that wasn't nice sounding ). Cameras and the lighting that had been left. The studio was if you like a 1960's one. An Apple computer as Mission Control. My proudest moment was my friend Martina saying. " If anyone can sort this out Nigel can ". In truth is was 10 minutes work. We had to order him some building site transformers as much of the gear left behind was USA 117V. We got them through Farnell Spain as the shipping was free ( About $50 each and a supurb way of doing it ). We all had a marvellious adventure doing that and a few $ in the pocket ( 500? and a holiday ). We saved this guy's future also. That's when these imformal groups work.
BTW about 60% of the things in that TV studio were unused even though the staff took most of his 230 V gear. The surplus all went on eBey. The truth is the staff milked this poor fellow and killed their cash cow. I showed him he could run it with just him and his director. All the big cables went, that kept the floor clear and available. However the lighting was 100% what it had been and I said he needed more. I would have had a weeks work if that had been removed. The holiday was at this exact time of year and was splendid. Team work is the best work if the team works! The weird bit of this story is none of the team knew I had TV experiance as I had never said. They took a lucky guess. If I remember right they said to Martin " Nigel is our expert who has come to help ". I wasn't told any of this until we all turned up! I guess by expert they meant confident when the going gets tough. The fact that so much was missing or not ideal made it easier. He had not a penny to change that which was ideal. How many times have I saved the day only to find the problem reinstated later. Not this time.
To become Mentored here why not start a project? Some of the people at DIY ( not me ) are as high up the tree as is possible to go. If the project is real they often will teach. Some get too technical which to me means they didn't understand that someone is learning. Just remind them as you go.
One of my early projects that comes to mind was a Reslo ribbon microphone a friend was given. Designing a preamp was hard work as usually a transformer was used. In the end the simplest amplifier possible worked and was built against the rules text books gave, it was a common base type. The Internet was not there to help me, only section 621 of Oxford library. I learnt a lot from that, not least that text books may not descibe the problem I have. It had one defect that I could solve now. It found cables under the street. The sound was very real and in the end low hiss. Find something that you could use when finished I would say.
Would anyone like to take a shot and allow me to learn beside you while working on a project? I know that you value quality products and serviceability, and if these skills aren't passed down they will be forgotten or become entitlements of a very select few (they already are!).
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Learning something new...
In the eighties I decided to get into computing.
The first attempt
I bought Sinclairs ZX81 mikrocomputer.
It came with Basic on board and a basic textbook with programming examples. I had a look at it, but it did not catch my interest. All in all this adventure soon turned into boredom...
The second attempt
At that time microcontrollers based on Intels 8048 architecture were coming up and with them small systems that decoded the DCF-77 reference time signal. This caught my interest.
I found an assembler code example from Siemens, a data book from Mitsubishi with an op code table and began hex coding on paper sheets. Additionally I designed my own hardware with receiver, CPU, EPROM and 7-segment display.
Later on I got acces to an apple-computer with I/O extension so I could peek and poke the hex code into my EPROM simulator.
It took several months to complete, but at the end my radio-clock worked fine. And I had done my first code the hard way.
By that I learned for myself that if there is a project with a real target it is much easier (for me) to enter a new domain of knowledge.
In the eighties I decided to get into computing.
The first attempt
I bought Sinclairs ZX81 mikrocomputer.
It came with Basic on board and a basic textbook with programming examples. I had a look at it, but it did not catch my interest. All in all this adventure soon turned into boredom...
The second attempt
At that time microcontrollers based on Intels 8048 architecture were coming up and with them small systems that decoded the DCF-77 reference time signal. This caught my interest.
I found an assembler code example from Siemens, a data book from Mitsubishi with an op code table and began hex coding on paper sheets. Additionally I designed my own hardware with receiver, CPU, EPROM and 7-segment display.
Later on I got acces to an apple-computer with I/O extension so I could peek and poke the hex code into my EPROM simulator.
It took several months to complete, but at the end my radio-clock worked fine. And I had done my first code the hard way.
By that I learned for myself that if there is a project with a real target it is much easier (for me) to enter a new domain of knowledge.
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