using new technology on old machines. Was: PDP-12 Restoration at the RICM

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jun 15, 2015, at 13:46 , Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 04:55:57PM +0000, tony duell wrote:
>> 
>> Unfortunately I believe you. Use at least a thousand times more components than
>> you need to.
> 
> Actually it's just two, a Teensy and a usb cable. (Sorry, I couldn't 
> resist).

LOL! I must admit that I used to scorn those durned kids using Arduinos to do the job of a 555. But then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized that times change, nowadays a microcontroller is as cheap and common component as a 555 was when I was a snotty kid, and the new-fangled "maker" movement with its Arduinos and serial-controlled addressable LEDs and conductive thread is keeping younger people designing things and making them instead of just being dumb consumers. It's all good stuff! And once I got a better idea of how much it costs to keep an engineer breathing for an hour, I also realized that it often makes more sense to overkill the heck out of a task with a $20 micro board than it would to spend even a half hour longer doing it the "right" way.

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/