EDN community,
With great sadness, I inform you of the passing of Dan Strassberg, technical editor extraordinaire. He was 83.
Dan was technical editor and senior technical editor covering test & measurement from 1987 until his retirement. I met Dan in 1992 upon joining EDN's then sister publication, Test & Measurement World. Over the next dozen or so years, Dan and I attended numerous press briefings on new test products at the Cahners Publishing offices in Newton and Waltham, Mass. Dan was always full of questions and I could hardly get a word in.
The 1988 EDN masthead on the left was one of the first with Dan's name. He also appeared in the masthead of EDN's last print issue in 2013 (right). Click to enlarge.
Dan would challenge everything, often arguing with the presenter why his or her claims were impossible—Dan was often right. I wish I had a dime for every time someone replied to Dan's question with, “I'll get back to you.”
Strassberg and T&MW's Rick Nelson examine a Tektronix TDS6604.
Marketers—and especially the PR people who often accompanied them—who didn't know Dan that well would often leave our meetings with their heads between their knees. Dan showed no mercy for those who wasted his time. On one occasion, two people came in with a data-acquisition product. The problem was, the people were so proud of their product and knew it so intimately that neither of us could figure out what the product was. “Stop,” Dan shouted. “Tell me exactly what your product is or don't bother to continue.” At that point the presenters realized their mistake. They learned from their experience with Dan, as did others over the years. One marketer told me that they often wanted to start press tours with Dan, for they knew the rest of the tour would be easier.
For all of Dan's questioning and arguing, he was also constructive. I recall two occasions where the companies delayed releasing their product to redesign it after visiting us. One such product was the HP Logic Dart, a handheld logic analyzer. After Dan and I saw the awful user interface, HP completely redesigned the UI. When the company returned with the new version, we declared it ready for production.
Another such episode occurred with Capital Equipment Corp's TestPoint software. Intended as a test-development platform to compete with LabVIEW, TestPoint was initially so confusing—especially to Dan—that the company also redesigned the product before releasing it, but only after receiving Dan's blessing.
To describe Dan as “feisty” is an understatement, yet he could be humbled. While Dan knew everything about oscilloscopes and much about other bench instruments, he was out of his domain when it came to modular instruments. When a company came to demonstrate its new PXI products, Dan was nearly silent. Finally, it was my turn to ask the questions.
Besides writing about products, Dan also wrote the kind of in-depth technical features that put EDN at the top of the heap. The list below takes you to some of Dan's best work. In 1992, he wrote a three-part series called “Designing it right” where he looked at three classes of products, the first being DMMs. He also wrote an introductory editorial, “Designing it wrong: The fax machine from hell,” which we posted in 2016 as part of EDN’s 60th anniversary. You must read this column . It's classic Dan.
Lauterbach, Nelson, Strassberg, and Martin T Miller from LeCroy participate in the scopes trial (2002).
As much as Dan loved oscilloscopes, he also loved radio. I'm convinced that he knew the location of every AM, FM, and TV station in the country, as well as the coordinates of their antennas, the height of their towers, and their effective radiated power.
—Martin Rowe covers test and measurement for EDN and EE Times. Contact him at martin.rowe@AspenCore.com 
EDN articles by Dan Strassberg (a small sampling)
- Designing it wrong: the fax machine from hell
- Stay off the HOT SEAT when choosing temperature sensors
- The scopes trial
- Home-automation buses: Protocols really hit home
- Digital oscilloscopes: For best results, understand how they work
- Jitter measurement: Pinning down timing at the leading edge
- Choosing a waveform generator: The devil is in the details
- IEEE 488: not dead yet?
- DSOs: The banner specs tell only part of the story
- Eyeing jitter: shaking out why signals shake
- Digital buses, analog problems
- 62.8-GHz-bandwidth DSO has 75-fsec-rms jitter-noise floor
- Testing batteries: The more things change, the more they stay the same
- Testing UWB: Don’t try this at home!
- The changing shape of PC-Based test and measurement
“How ironic that this week, a new record was set for real-time oscilloscope bandwidth. dan is smiling.nnhttps://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/rowe-s-and-columns/4461120/Memories-of-Dan-Strassberg”
“Thanks for sharing this article. I met Dan on a number of occasions and really enjoyed the discussions with him. He put me straight a couple times on what I was saying about scopes. I do believe Dan is smiling as well.”
“I worked closely with Dan when i joined EDN as analog editor. Not only did he mentor me in the ways of the technical trade press in general and EDN in particular, but beneath his naturally crusty exterior was a “softie” interior–especially when he foun
“Alas, I'm sure I was one of those young PR pups who suffered Dan's disdain and dismissive comments. There was more than one meeting where we all left shaking our heads, both frustrated by Dan but secretly aware that he was asking smart questions that we
“Thank you, Martin, for sharing these memories . I was one of those young product managers many years ago who was first intimidated by Dan, but came to respect him and ultimately schedule him first on our press tours to make sure we had a rock solid pitch
“I've just returned from Dan's burial. He's back with his wife now, though it took him 30 years to get there.”
“Martin, you and Dan were a duo like no other in the industry. I was also one of those young PR people who grew in confidence over the years as a result of our meetings with you both. My experience sitting through press meetings with you two made me a bett
“Dan was one of a kind. I had the pleasure of sitting in the cubicle next to him for many years; a unique vantage point from which to learn how — and perhaps how not — to be an exceptional technical editor. As Martin and others have shared, Dan knew enou