> I had an opportunity to work with the legendary Hans Camenzind (designer of the 555 timer, among other things)
I still use 555 chips as the single most critical chip in our student CUBESAT designs. It is a fail-safe watch dog timer to CYCLE power to the CPU if it doesnt get tickled! I thank him frequently. THanks for the story. Bob, WB4APR On Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 2:18 PM, Lee Hart via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert Bruninga via EV wrote: > >> here is a brilliant idea in Norway. >> Have the lights dim to 20% when no cars or people are driving by. >> Neat! Saves 80% of light power while still providing full illumination >> when someone needs it. >> > > It *is* a good idea. Street lights are a good first application, because > they are expensive enough to afford the extra hardware, and the "bean > counters" that buy them are fanatically interested in minimizing operating > cost. > > I had an opportunity to work with the legendary Hans Camenzind (designer > of the 555 timer, among other things). He felt we were going in the wrong > direction with integrated circuits. We were making them ever more > complicated, to do BIG things. What they *should* be doing is making them > simpler, to do SMALL things very well. For example, a pocket calculator, > which has exactly one chip. Thus they are produced by the billions, easy to > use, run on solar power, sell for $1, and work for decades. > > But today's designers aren't looking for such applications. They spend all > their time designing smartphones and computers, massively complex devices > that cost a lot, eat lots of power, are hard to learn, full of bugs, and > only last a few years. > > One of his "missing products" was the smart bulb. It basically detects > people, and is on when they are near, and dims progressively as they move > away. As you move about your house, the lights are only on where *you* are. > Not like cheap motion-detecting lamps, these would smoothly dim and > brighten so the illumination where you are says about the same. > > Another was the smart doorknob. Grab it, and it recognizes you and lets > you in (or locks if you're the wrong person). > > Designers occasionally work on such devices, but wind up with massively > complex expensive solutions. The key KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid. You > don't want a light bulb that has an IP address, requires a network > connection, needs a linux computer somewhere to run it, and an IT person to > program it. You have to be able to just screw it in, and you're done. > > Designing complex things is easy. Designing simple things is HARD! > -- > Whether we or our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all > our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, > and a sterner sense of justice than we do. -- Wendell Berry > -- > Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell > <https://maps.google.com/?q=e+Hart,+814+8th+Ave+N,+Sartell&entry=gmail&source=g>MN > 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group > /NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20180107/9c27ccfd/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
