[LAU] More Hammondology

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 09:27:28PM +0100, Folderol wrote:

> It is also probably the most woefully engineered one :)
> Hmmm, not even sure if 'engineered' is the right word.

It *is* the right word. But it's a form of engineering
that is all but lost today. It's using the imperfections
of something to advantage, it's combining different 
functions into one circuit, either by design or by
'adjusted accident'.

If today an analog electronics engineer designs e.g.
a filter he will turn up a circuit, probably using 
some opamps, that is almost perfect. Its action will
not depend on e.g. the impedances of the preceding or
following stages in the processing to which it will be
connected. Today that's easy. In the sixties, when every
transistor counted, that was not the case - there would
be unavoidable forms of interaction between parts of an
equipment, and in many cases that was exploited in quite
creative ways. It also makes emulating these circuits
in software quite difficult, they do not consist of a
series of independent logical blocks.

Software engineering tends to be almost the opposite,
with interfaces designed separately from function, and
abstraction for its own sake being praised as a good
thing.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

Io lo dico sempre: l'Italia è troppo stretta e lunga.