It's worse than that. Most people in electronics today don't even have a
good understanding of basic components such as diodes, transistors,
capacitors etc. A good example was the guy on this list that claimed
A lot of people don't understand _wire_ properly ;-). Of course that is
one of the most complex parts of your circuit in general.
voltage didn't matter in a power supply, only
current. VERY few of the
I once had a row with an idiot who decided that the 100 off 100nF
decoupling capacitors I'd shown across the supply lines (this was a large
board...) could be replaced by a single 10uF electrolytic mear the power
connector. This was on a board of ECL clocking at 100+ MHz.....
people that I know that have Electrical
Engineering degrees can even read a
color code or can identify simple parts such as a resistor from a diode. I
Most people with EE degrees over here can find and solve the equations a
lot better than I can, but have no idea what they mean, or why they're
applicable, or what the components actually are. Somebody once asked me
for a 362.8 ohm (or something like that) resistor to use as an LED
current limiter because that's what the formula had told him to use...
I've had exactly the same things happen here. I wonder if it's this bad
in all the MODERN countries?
Joe