Electronic abbreviations.

[ChrisGibboGibson]

Is it just me getting old or are other engineers offended by the hi-jacking of
some of our old abbreviations?

PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board, it does *not* stand for poly whatever
poisonous chemical. It doesn't now, and it never will do in my mind.

USB is Upper Side Band, it always has been and always will be. It is *not*
Universal Serial Bus. It never will be.

What next? VOLT for Voice Operated Literature Technology?

AMP for Automatic Mobile Prototcol?

WATT for Which Asshole Took The pSeudonym (well it almost works)

The whole thing is getting ridiculous.

Young upstart computer kiddies stealing my favourites and reinventing them.

</RANT>

I feel better now.

Gibbo

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

And of course that should have read "WATTS" not "WATT"

Gibbo

 

[Joerg]

Hi Chris,

AMP for Automatic Mobile Prototcol?

Actually, AMP is what kiddies refer to as the huge box that goes into
the trunk of a lowered Honda with mag wheels. It enables them to slowly
cruise through your neighborhood and treat everyone within a few miles
radius to a presentation of "che-booom...che-booom". They are only cool
enough when the headlight dim a bit with every che-booom.

It's not all that bad for engineers. After all, someone has to design
all those hearing aids when these kiddies turn 40.

Regards, Joerg

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

Hello again Joerg

I sometimes wish I'd said nothing.

One of our distributors sells heavily into the emergency services market.
Apparently they have the "AMPS"....... Ambulance Modular Power System.

One of our products is a part of that system. A techie just emailed me to bring
it to my attention.

Foot in mouth etc.

Gibbo

 

[John Larkin]

Is it just me getting old or are other engineers offended by the hi-jacking of
some of our old abbreviations?

PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board, it does *not* stand for poly whatever
poisonous chemical. It doesn't now, and it never will do in my mind.

USB is Upper Side Band, it always has been and always will be. It is *not*
Universal Serial Bus. It never will be.

What next? VOLT for Voice Operated Literature Technology?

AMP for Automatic Mobile Prototcol?

WATT for Which Asshole Took The pSeudonym (well it almost works)

The whole thing is getting ridiculous.

Young upstart computer kiddies stealing my favourites and reinventing them.

</RANT>

I feel better now.

Gibbo

What really annoys me is people who make up idiotic reference
designators, like CON3 for a connector, or TR4 for a transistor (or
transformer!) or RLY2 for a relay, or RV9 for a pot. I just barely
allow D, as opposed to CR, for a diode, but that's the limit.

A TR4 is a terrible old British sports car, after all!

And how about CD's? A CD-R is "Recordable"; CD-RW is "rewritable";
what happened to Read and Write?

Grrrrr.

John

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

What really annoys me is people who make up idiotic reference
designators, like CON3 for a connector, or TR4 for a transistor (or
transformer!) or RLY2 for a relay, or RV9 for a pot. I just barely
allow D, as opposed to CR, for a diode, but that's the limit.

A TR4 is a terrible old British sports car, after all!

Now a TR7 would have me *really* worried.

And how about CD's? A CD-R is "Recordable"; CD-RW is "rewritable";
what happened to Read and Write?

Grrrrr.

I'm glad there's someone else as old fashioned as me.

Gibbo

 

[Rich Grise]

Young upstart computer kiddies stealing my favourites and reinventing them.

Yucks! My Fart!!

</RANT>

I feel better now.

Me, too.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Ken Smith]

What really annoys me is people who make up idiotic reference
designators, like CON3 for a connector, or TR4 for a transistor (or
transformer!) or RLY2 for a relay, or RV9 for a pot.

I think you mean "VR9". After all for maximum confusion you want a
voltage regulator.

I just barely
allow D, as opposed to CR, for a diode, but that's the limit.

"D" works better for a diode than "CR" because some people don't read past
the first letter.

VAR means Volt Amps Reactive not some silly sales term.

There are less than 18000 TLAs so some people need to use more letters.

 

[John Larkin]

Now a TR7 would have me *really* worried.

My first car was a 998 cc Sprite. It was a lot of fun, until two big
American cars ganged up on it and scrunched it down to about the size
of a washing machine, with me inside. After I recovered I took the
insurance money and bought an 1100 cc MG Midget. That was the last
good Midget, because the later 1275's, with the Triumph engine, drove
like trucks. I sold the MG to an artist who painted the sea all over
it and keeps it for display.

Here it is:

http://www.adrianart.com/mg.html



John

 

[Paul Burridge]

A TR4 is a terrible old British sports car, after all!

It's actually a *classic* terrible old British sports car, John. I
used to have a TR6, which was a great improvement over the 4 & 5.

 

[Don Pearce]

It's actually a *classic* terrible old British sports car, John. I
used to have a TR6, which was a great improvement over the 4 & 5.

Apart, of course, for the tendency for front wheels to drop off - and
the dreadful handling and lack of speed.

d
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

 

[N. Thornton]

Is it just me getting old or are other engineers offended by the hi-jacking of
some of our old abbreviations?

PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board, it does *not* stand for poly whatever
poisonous chemical. It doesn't now, and it never will do in my mind.

USB is Upper Side Band, it always has been and always will be. It is *not*
Universal Serial Bus. It never will be.

What next? VOLT for Voice Operated Literature Technology?

AMP for Automatic Mobile Prototcol?

WATT for Which Asshole Took The pSeudonym (well it almost works)

The whole thing is getting ridiculous.

Young upstart computer kiddies stealing my favourites and reinventing them.

</RANT>

I feel better now.

Gibbo

The same thing happened when you were young, you just didnt notice.
PCBs havent been around forever after all. Nor have Hz, they were cps.
IC, etc. Its annoying to have to relearn something because some idiot
changed it, but thats the way the world is.


NT

 

[John Larkin]

It's actually a *classic* terrible old British sports car, John. I
used to have a TR6, which was a great improvement over the 4 & 5.

Sorry, I'm an MG guy all the way.

John

 

[N. Thornton]

On 15 Oct 2004 21:38:38 GMT, [email protected]
(ChrisGibboGibson) wrote:


What really annoys me is people who make up idiotic reference
designators, like CON3 for a connector, or TR4 for a transistor (or
transformer!) or RLY2 for a relay, or RV9 for a pot. I just barely
allow D, as opposed to CR, for a diode, but that's the limit.

What else would you call them? Thats how I was always taught to do it.

Personally I dont see the need to have one rigid across the board
standard. I've used cct diags with dotted connections, ones with
loops, ones with fading wire ends, and ones where all the wires go
into one line, transistors marked TR and transistors marked Q, tranny
meaning transistor and tranny meaning transformer, valves and
trannies, D diodes and CR diodes, silicon and germanium diodes,
selenium and copper oxide diodes, PCs and non-PCs, red lives and brown
lives, AGC and AVC, diode detection and grid leak detection, and so
on. I have yet to find it all a problem.

No, I tell a slight omission, there is one convention I have no
patience for, and that is that d--- Vcc, Vee stuff.


Regards, NT

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

[email protected] (ChrisGibboGibson) wrote in message


The same thing happened when you were young, you just didnt notice.
PCBs havent been around forever after all. Nor have Hz, they were cps.
IC, etc. Its annoying to have to relearn something because some idiot
changed it, but thats the way the world is.

That's not the point. Hz wasn't stolen. It wasn't *already* in widespread use
for something else. Like USB was. And PCB was.

It's the hijacking of existing ones that is annoying.

New ones are a completely different issue.

Gibbo

 

[John Larkin]

The same thing happened when you were young, you just didnt notice.
PCBs havent been around forever after all. Nor have Hz, they were cps.
IC, etc. Its annoying to have to relearn something because some idiot
changed it, but thats the way the world is.


NT

I still miss mhos. Who was Dr Mho, anyhow?

John

 

[Rich Grise]

That's not the point. Hz wasn't stolen. It wasn't *already* in widespread use
for something else. Like USB was. And PCB was.

It's the hijacking of existing ones that is annoying.

New ones are a completely different issue.

Apparently you can't see the difference between "adding to" and "trashing".

USB still means Upper SideBand, if you're at a hamfest. PCBs are still
Printed Circuit Boards, if you're an electronics manufacturer.

In fact, your whole rant is specious - i.e., name one acronym that used to
mean one thing, that doesn't mean that any more, in the same context.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

Rich Grise wrote:

[snip]

USB still means Upper SideBand, if you're at a hamfest. PCBs are still
Printed Circuit Boards, if you're an electronics manufacturer.

In fact, your whole rant is specious - i.e., name one acronym that used to
mean one thing, that doesn't mean that any more, in the same context.

No it's not.

I can't wait to see the new Icom multimode transceiver with buttons on the
front labelled LSB, USB, AM, CW, FM and a small flat socket on the back
labelled USB.

Gibbo

 

[Robert Baer]

I still miss mhos. Who was Dr Mho, anyhow?

John

Dr Mho died because he got Less.

 

[N. Thornton]

I still miss mhos. Who was Dr Mho, anyhow?

John

It Hertz to think of poor Dr Mho, I AM fairly sure the CPS caught up
with him in the end. He WAVed as they LED him off that AM. They said
he poisoned someone with PCBs, but I never believed IT.

NT