Zibb

Senior Technical Editor Martin Rowe covers topics relating to general-purpose instrumentation, compliance, communications test, and anything else that comes along.



   Advertisement

Profile

RSS Feed

  • Add this blog to your RSS newsreader!

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Most Commented On

Archives

By Category

Blog

Monday, August 24, 2009

What's obsolete in test, and what's not?

Aug 24 2009 12:05PM | Permalink |Comments (0) |


PC World recently published a piece called "Obsolete Technology: 40 Big Losers" citing things such as VHS tape, phone booths, dial-in bulletin boards, holding up a lighter at a concert, and getting an AOL disk in the mail. Well, VHS is alive and well in my home, but holding up a light is certainly out, at least at the Bruce Springsteen concert I recently attended.

In the test business, technology takes a long time to become obsolete. Here's a list of things that I would call "obsolete" that are likely still in use somewhere.

* Parallel-port instruments
* Test equipment with red LED displays
* Resistance boxes with mechanical dials
* Digital oscilloscopes with CRT displays (new analog scopes still have them)

Technology that seems to live forever
* GPIB
* ISA instrument cards (yes, theire still manufactured and sold)
* GPIB
* RS-232
* GPIB
* Vertical and horizontal sensitivity knobs on oscilloscopes
* GPIB

Care to add to these lists?


Related entries in: Data Acquisition | Instruments | Meters | Oscilloscopes | Test & Measurement | 


Post a comment



Display Name

Change Image
Before submitting this form, please type the characters displayed above.
Note the letters are NOT case sensitive.


ADVERTISEMENT

©1997-2009 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Use of this Web site is subject to its Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Please visit these other Reed Business sites