Design News for Mechanical and Design Engineers

Brad Stewart, Austin, TX

You left out some other important kits for the PIC series. Best value I've found: http://talking-electronics.tripod.com/cgi-bin/Buy-Pic_Lab-1-Kit.html. For those that like Basic language, some excellent tutorial kits can be found at www.melabs.com/contact.htm. Other good kits can be found at www.rentron.com/contact.htm and at www.imagesco.com/catalog/CatalogIndex.html. These kits are much more usable for the entry level engineers. It's good to walk before you run. It is amazing the amount of I/O that these PICs are capable of.

Patrick Duke, Colorado Springs, CO

Thanks for writing the article on development kits (DN 07.07.03). I have used most 8-bit micros, but I will use PIC development packages and micros. I think customer service and technical support sets Microchip apart from any other company. They have saved me many times on a project, including overnighting an emulator when I burned up the one I was using. No charge, just returned mine to them. The code samples are also important, as I often just use most of their code for LCD and other applications. Support is the most important part of a product, especially since I am with a small company and can't simply ask someone else in the company to help.

Mark Silver, Applications Engineer

Larry Zirkle's amusing piece about floating cars, "The Case of the Amphibious Avalon" (DN 07.07.03), should serve once again to remind those sporting swimming pools not to empty them casually—at least not in wet weather (or, for Florida residents, ever).

However, flotation gets around in other ways, too. Returning to the Florida example, one should never attempt to block doors to keep water out of a building (say, one's home) which is built on a concrete slab. Do so when that water promises to be more than a few inches deep, and you may not only lose your carpets, but perhaps parts of the floor as well, at least in the room with the largest clear span of slab.

Allen N. Wollscheidt Chandler, AZ

I'm afraid that I don't share your dismay at the "abuse" of the weed-out courses (DN 06.16.03). You imply that "diversity" is harmed by such tactics. In this country we have allowed the desire to include (probably better to insert "inject") everyone in every aspect of society to fog our judgment and lower our standards to the point that we no longer have any standards. The goal in engineering education should be to produce good engineers regardless of whether or not there is diversity in the sense that some "social scientist" determines is necessary. The answer is excellence in education at all levels challenging the students to always do their best and driving them to do what we as teachers know they are capable of doing. Instead we lower our standards and change our tests so the "socially disadvantaged" can pass, thereby lowering the standards even more. We have lowered our standards to be "inclusive" but in reality we have harmed everyone including those we intended to help.

Michael W. Morgan, South Holland, IL

Editor's note: I agree with you that we need to maintain high standards in our education system. But I think there is a difference between challenging students and threatening them. A statement on the first day of class about the likelihood that one third of the students will drop out has some rather distressing things to say about the admissions policy of the university, among other things.

I found a lot of truth in your article, "Trust Yourself, Not Computers" (DN 08.04.03). We use modeling software at our company to properly size automation equipment.

During training we stress the caveat that the software is not fool proof and that people still have to be intuitive enough to recognize bogus results. There is already talk of reading your article in our next software training class.

Jason Jones Design News Reader

Regarding your Flipside, "Down With Wordy Instruction Manuals"(DN 08.04.03), in my experience pictorial instructions are often equally uninspired and incomprehensible. But your reference to "traditional UNstructions" sure sums it up for most written instructions!

Barry Morse Ridgewood, NJ

I enjoyed your commentary on manuals (DN 08.04.03), and as one who is sometimes forced to actually create them, I agree wholeheartedly. I don't mean to pass the buck here, but much of the blame in this area has to land at the feet of regulatory agencies and the legal field. The manual changes required for CE and UL approval have left many of my plain English (and French, Spanish, and German) instructions reading much like your water heater example. I think this ultimately defeats the very purpose of these regulations, which supposedly create a safer product. Users take one glance at the tech-speak and incomprehensible sentences and, much like you, decide to just wing it!

Joe Corcoran Bethlehem, PA

Although you make some valid points in your article, "Down with Wordy Instruction Manuals" (DN 08.04.03), it makes no mention of others. First of all, instruction manuals are primarily written to protect a company from liability of misuse of its products. The instructions sometimes have to be written in "lega-eeze" to conform to industrial and government rules and regulations. This is by no means an easy chore. Technical writing is an art form, whereas a writer must balance the conveying of ideas with legal protection. Example: A company I previously worked for designed and installed video conferencing systems. On one occasion, they had to replace a $10,000 plasma screen. This was due to the customer leaving it on continuously (including over weekends). They wrangled a new plasma screen simply because the manual did not explicitly state to shut it down when not in use.

Another big problem in technical writing is that many writers are simply not qualified to do it. Many people who claim to be technical writers have only English or Communications degrees with no technical background whatsoever. If you do not understand what you are writing about, how can anyone else? An example of this happened to me two years ago when I was job hunting. I took a job interview with an electronic company in Somerset, NJ. The woman who held the interview held a Master's Degree in Communications and ran the technical writing department. She showed me several sample data sheets she had created for her company's electronic products. They were all poorly designed (in regards to the products) and technically incorrect. The woman did not know the basic difference between voltage, current, and resistance. My mistake was that I (politely) pointed it out.

Third point: our society has "dumbed-down" since the fifties. Reading has fallen out of favor with the advent of TVs and video games. There are high school students in our country who can't even read a newspaper. How do you expect them to read an instruction manual then?

I suggest, sir, that you do a little more research into a subject before forming an opinion on paper or electronic text. Thank you.

Richard G. Risch Lakewod, NJ

In the 07.07.03 issue of Design News, I saw two particularly interesting editorials that [proverbially] caught my eye(s).

In the first, Karen Field discussed the frequently quoted [variation of the] Million Monkey Hypotheses, about their producing the works of Shakespeare. As I remember the original hypothesis, it was opined that when an infinite number of monkeys were positioned at an infinite number of typewriters they would eventually type all the world's great books. In deference to Karen, I've read the works of Shakespeare and I honestly believe that they were written by a group of monkeys.

In the second item, Paul Teague was discussing the action of getting behind the wheel of an Aston Martin in the sloth-like neighborhood traffic around Boston, my old hometown. I've lived in the People's Republic of California (rather than Taxachusetts) for many years and I'm very familiar with traffic during the time they laughingly refer to as rush hour. Last week, I had just stopped at an intersection and was waiting for the light to change. In the adjacent lane stopped a blue BMW. You might find this hard to believe, but I looked over and behind the wheel was a good-looking blonde and she was not talking on a cell phone! Incredible.

Lou Garner Design News Reader

I really enjoyed your Flipside on the Aston Martin (DN 07.07.03). A fun read.

Steve Leibson Santa Clara, CA