A small rant about the 555 :-)

[pimpom]

The people who designed the 555 timer should be given medals for
coming up with a deceptively simple device that is still seeing
so much use after nearly four decades. They also deserve to be
tarred and feathered for the pin-out configuration.

I don't know about you others, but I shudder every time I want to
draw a schematic with the pins of the 555 in their relative
positions as well as when I need to design a pcb for it.

And with that, I'm going to bed. It's almost 3:30 am here. Good
night.

 

[krw]

The people who designed the 555 timer should be given medals for
coming up with a deceptively simple device that is still seeing
so much use after nearly four decades.

Tell that to Slowman.

They also deserve to be
tarred and feathered for the pin-out configuration.

Pinouts never bothered me. That's the layout guy's problem. ;-)
After a few BGAs they don't sweat the small stuff either.

I don't know about you others, but I shudder every time I want to
draw a schematic with the pins of the 555 in their relative
positions as well as when I need to design a pcb for it.

You obviously know nothing about electronics. Just ask Slowman. ;-)

And with that, I'm going to bed. It's almost 3:30 am here. Good
night.

Funny. I'm not tired at all.

 

[krw]

John Fields would be more interested. It has never turned out to be
useful for the work I've done.


I hate engineers who don't think about the layout they are effectively
asking for. Any circuit where stray capacitance or inductance can be a
problem should be designed with the layout in mind.


He seems to know more about electronics than krw does, but that isn't
unexpected.

I don't have any problems finding a job. What are you doing, Slowman?
Still whining about your station in life, I see.

 

[krw]

I probably shouldn't be saying this, but if some individuals spent a
little less time feeling embittered and sorry for themselves and instead
tried to get on with people, they would find many willing to help out
and give them work.

Except that no one "gives" anyone work. It's a contract like any
other. You have something to offer that someone else needs. Slowman
obviously doesn't fit the bill and projects his incompetence on
others. That's the leftist weenie way.

If you don't respect yourself and hold the line re your own worst
sentiments, how can you expect others to ?...

When you have nothing to offer, whining is all that you can do. A
politician, somewhere, will cater to your whining, and trade you a
biscuit for your soul.

 

[krw]

I can't say that I've got anything to whine about. I'd prefer to have
a job, but I can get by without one.

Yet you project your inadequacies on others. ...and whine. Trypical
leftist loser.

 

[krw]

It is a pity krw won't pay any attention to your well-intentioned
preaching.

Regardless of the misplaced pronouns, he ain't preaching at me,
dumbass. I'm not the unemployable one.

 

[pimpom]

I've never had trouble arranging the connections of the LM555.
The 8
pin DIP doesn't contain enough "corner paint" to cause major
concerns. There are lots of other chips that are more trouble
to lay
out.

I didn't really mean that it's a "major" problem. What I meant
was that, for a simple circuit serving a simple purpose, albeit a
useful and versatile one, the illogical placement of pins makes
things more difficult than they could be.

For example, if pin 8 is Vcc, it would be better if ground was 5,
and the control voltage terminal at 4. Then connecting the bypass
cap from pin 4 would also be easier. Since the reset pin is often
tied to Vcc, it could be allocated to pin 1. It wouldn't cause a
problem with external triggering. I'd also interchange 2 and 3 -
that will make a straight track from 2 to 6 in astable mode. So
this is what I'd do:
_________
Reset 1-| |-8 Vcc
| |
Output 2-| |-7 Discharge
| |
Trigger 3-| |-6 Threshold
| |
Control 4-|_______|-5 Gnd

Of course, all this is academic since the 555 has been around as
it is for almost 40 years. But just visuallise drawing a
schematic or designing a pcb with my mythical IC. I think you'll
find that it's much easier.

 

[Rich Grise]

The people who designed the 555 timer should be given medals for coming up
with a deceptively simple device that is still seeing so much use after
nearly four decades. They also deserve to be tarred and feathered for the
pin-out configuration.

I don't know about you others, but I shudder every time I want to draw a
schematic with the pins of the 555 in their relative positions as well as
when I need to design a pcb for it.

And with that, I'm going to bed. It's almost 3:30 am here. Good night.

USENET is open 24 hrs. a day. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Jamie]

Sloman is a rare bird here - intelligent, educated, authoritative. His
only obvious fault is that he wastes too much time in this
increasingly irrelevant N.G., irrelevance that appears to correlate
with the progression of J.T.'s dementia. Quite sad really.

10-4

 

[krw]

Move to the Netherlands and you certainly would be unemployable.

Who in their right mind would move to that hell-hole?

 

[krw]

Fittng in the bill in my case would mean being a few years younger. If
I suffered from krw's restricted skill set, I'd need to be about 20
years younger. Being a little more flexible, I did manage to get a job
here when I was 57, which was widely held to be something of a
miracle.

If you "suffered" my restricted skill set you wouldn't be
unemployable. Obviously. I am. You can't.

So, if somebody has a time machine ...


Who is whining?

You. Incessantly.

 

[krw]

Care to quote an example of this behaviour?

Look in a mirror, Slowman.

Or would you prefer to remain labelled as a "trypical" right-wing
liar?

No liar here, Slowman. You are the prototypical leftist loser.

 

[Jamie]

No, that was after my time at Motorola. I did, however, design a
couple of LVDS devices for Fairchild (Portland, Maine, ~2001).

...Jim Thompson

I find it hard to believe that you had any involvement in PortLand, Me?
or Maine in general. After all, you do know what they say? We're all
related !

Have a good

 

[Rich Grise]

Who in their right mind would move to that hell-hole?

Potheads? ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[krw]

You may not have noted that you are in the USA, where age
discrimination is illegal, and I'm in the Netherlands where it is
institutionalised.

A. A good reason not to live in that hell hole you live in.
B. More whining.

The krw we know and love. No evidence to support his lying claim and
no shame about repeating it. A right-wing nitwit's right-wing nitwit.

See above for more whining. IOW, you're projecting your useless life
on others, again.

 

[krw]

Family responsibilities.

Translated: His wife won't support the loser anywhere else.

 

[krw]

An evasion, rather than a quotation. Once again krw comes up empty.

I can't help it if you're blind, Slowman.

krw can just about manage baseless assertions. His skill set doesn't
include reasoned argument from facts to conclusions.

I can't help it if you're blind, Slowman. Everyone else here sees,
but you.

 

[krw]

Like I said, krw can just about manage baseless assertions. Credible
baseless assertion would be something that he might aspire to.

Nothing baseless about it, Slowman. All you have to do is take
fingers to keyboard. Your incompetence and negativity gushes out.
It's no wonder you're an unemployable leech. That's what you are.

 

[krw]

As krw has mentioned, our interpretation of other people situations
does tend to be coloured by our own experience. The personality that
krw exhibits here isn't one that would equip him to establish or
sustain an aimiable and mutally satisfying relationship.

That must be why I've been married for 38 years. IOW, another case of
Billy Slowman projection.

BTW, are you a cuckold too?

 

[krw]

Since krw only knows about fpga's, I may look incompetent - and
consequnetly unemployable - to him.

Wrong again, Slowman. You're unemployable because no one will hire
*you*. It has nothing to do with me, though you're wrong here too.
FPGAs are just a small, though quite interesting, part of my
experience. IOW, add in your AGW religion and you're competing with
DimBulb for the AlwaysWrong title.

Back in the real world, I got my
first commercial job a few months before I handed in my Ph.D. thesis,
back in 1969, and was continuously employed from then until 1991 when
my - technically successful - electron beam tester project was
cancelled. I got short term work within fours days, though to took a
couple of months before I got into the job that kept me busy until my
wife moved us to the Netherlands at the end of 1993. I was fifty at
the time, and the Dutch really don't like hiring people who are older
tha 45, but my age didn't outweigh my competence for another ten
years. At 67 I'm almost certainly unemployable in the Netherlands, but
we won't be here forever.

You always revert to the past and have excuses for your current
failings. <shrug>