14 Dec
2015
14 Dec
'15
2:16 p.m.
And think of all the PDP-8s *still* buried in the control units of
factories across the world. The majority of these machines had no
displays, not even teleprinters. Some had custom controls wired in through
stock or custom modules, and some had no more "UI" than the front panel
("set switches 2 and 3 to the 'on' position and press the 'run'
key").
Some didn't even have that - the stock 8/m was a turnkey system. The
reasoning was the same as that behind the microcontroller replacing the
555: complex behavior could be modeled in software rather than intricate
analog elements, and it was easy to change things if you needed to (e.g.,
if you changed out an instrument or effector. -- Ian
On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Mike
<tulsamike3434 at gmail.com> wrote:
--
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu>
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens
Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org>
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org>
University of Washington
There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."
> On Dec 14, 2015, at 12:34 PM, Chuck Guzis
<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
>
> The subject brought up the thought of how many display-less computers
we
encounter every day without giving it a thought. I think that probably
100 would be a safe bet.
> Looking over past this screen, I see my
network hub, mouse, keyboard
and heaven knows how many display-less computers
inside the actual shell of
my PC.
.... if you think about it almost everything we touch has some kind of a
computer
cycle! ! ! GREAT POINT!!!
Even lighting... I've pulled (and reused!) 8-pin PIC microcontrollers
out of discarded emergency lighting. "In the old days", a switching
supply might have a 555 timer for an oscillator. These days, an 8-pin
uC is cheap ($0.75 or far less) and allows the behavior to be changed
without a soldering iron, or allows the hardware design to be
completed and sent out for manufacture before the software is
complete. If you want to change the frequency of a 555 oscillator,
you have to design in a potentiometer or remove and install different
value components. If you want to change the frequency of a uC
oscillator, you reprogram it (or if you have enough pins, design in
some removable jumpers).
Short version is, even the cheap and simple 555 has been replaced in
many products with a cheap-as-or-cheaper-than microcontroller, not
because it's simpler, but because it allows for greater flexibility
and reduces the overall product cost.
-ethan