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

[Tor Arntsen]

On 15 June 2015 at 22:55, Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
>
>> 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[..]

I think I'm reasonably well into the pragmatic camp (ref. Chuck G.'s
post). But one point about 555s and Arduinos is that I couldn't build
a 555 more easily than I could build the MCU on an Arduino board (a
more relevant comparision might be a 555 vs a Propeller chip) -
they're all black boxes to me. Even a transistor, to some extent - I
know exactly how it works, well, as much as any other EE anyway, but I
couldn't build one. Or a vacuum tube..