Rowe's and Columns

June 23, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

A recent discussion on the Agilent Vee e-mail user group highlights a common problem that test engineers face: equipment obsolesence. An engineer has test systems based on old computers that use ISA-GPIB cards while others use PCI-GPIB cards. His systems run Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, and XP. Some software is written in Vee, but some is in C++ and Pascal. Should he look for PCs with ISA slots so he can keep running his existing GPIB cards and software or upgrade to all PCI-GPIB cards or perhaps go to USB-GPIB adapters? Obviously, he'd prefer not to have to write new software, but staying with existing equipment and code makes things more difficult should he need future system compatibility. It's the age-old tradeoff between backward and forward compatibility.

Have you faced a similar problem with GPIB or data-acquisition cards? What have you done about it?
Industries: Bench and Modular Instrumentation

June 14, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (3)

Well, the DTV transition happened on Friday, June 12. I've read that assorted help lines received thousands of calls. I wouldn't be surprised if many of those calls came from people who were already using converter boxes, but lost the high VHF channels 7 through 13.

I did get a call from my father-in-law, who uses a converter box, because he lost channel 7, the only high VHF channel in Boston. At midnight on Friday, WHDH switched its analog channel 7 (174-180 MHz) to digital and ceased its prior digital broadcast on UHF 42 (638-644 MHz). He just needed to run a new scan on his converter box to find the transitioned digital signal.

I have cable, but am not without issues. One TV doesn't use a cable box. Instead, the cable connects to a two-way splitter that goes to two VCRs (one is a VHS/DVD combo). The RF outputs of the VCRs go to an A-B switch to the 23-ye...Read More
Industries: Communications Test

May 19, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I just received the following e-mail from the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, calling for money or test equipment to help the University of L’Aquila engineering department, which suffered losses in the recent earthquake. In particular, the call is for test equipment.

===================

Dear I&M Society Member,

As you all know by now, on April 6, L’Aquila, Italy was devastated by an earthquake, magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale. The destruction is massive, and the death toll stands at 293, with more than 50,000 people displaced and homeless. Many of you may have wondered whether we have any I&M colleagues affected. The answer is yes.

The University of L’Aquila has suffered extensive damage. Some 10,000 to 15,000 buildings in the city were either damaged or destroyed, including the total...Read More
Industries: Bench and Modular Instrumentation, Machine Vision and Inspection

May 18, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Over the weekend, I tried to repair a USB thumb drive that contains years worth of files. The drive was inserted into a laptop and the power cord got wound around the drive. A tug of the cord resulted in the connector bending and breaking its leads off the drive's circuit board. I opened the case and tried soldering the leads back onto the board, but my soldering iron's tip was too large for such a small space. Fortunately, I regularly back up the drive. Only a few files were missing since the last backup and were in my sent mail box. In the end, nothing was lost.

Speaking of soldering irons, electronics engineers, technicains, hobbyists, and ham-radio operators aren't the only people who use soldering irons. Believe it or not, some software engineers are getting into the act. In an ...Read More
Industries: Design, Production Test, and Yield

May 13, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

My DSL speed problems persist. Every night at around 9:00, download speed drops to unusable. I've been working around it by downloading mail earlier or later. I'm convinced that Verizon has underprovisioned the DSLAM to which I'm connected. Now, someone has backed me up.

Nate Anderson accurately describes my problem in his article "Why you'll never see 200Mbps from a 200Mbps 'Net connection." Anderson spends most of the article talking about how cable modems share reqources, but he does mention DSL where he says "DSL is not a shared architecture in the last mile; each DSL link runs over dedicated copper from a DSLAM ...Read More
Industries: Communications Test