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From: Peter Alfke on 16 Jan 2006 22:18 Rob, the first adult who is known to have complained about the youth of his time being lazy do-no-gooders, was Socrates, more than 2400 years ago. And each generation after him has repeated the complaint, while benefitting from the progress brought about by those youths, once they had matured. Look at the kids coming out of Stanford, starting SUN, Yahoo, and Google. Most of the detailed work in my company is done by engineers in their late twenties and thirties, obviously with necessary guidance from us more experienced folks... If kids are not interested in science, that is mainly the fault of educators, industry and management, creating a a bad learning and career environment. I prefer the original posting of this thread: How can FPGAs envigorate individual or personal design activity? Let's pool ideas, and not complain about our kids and grandkids. Many of them are smarter than we are. Peter Alfke, from home =================== Rob wrote: > Hobbyists. Now there's a term you don't often hear amongst the next > generation. If the hobbyist is going to make a comeback in this country > (US) it is going to take more than a low-cost, high capability FPGA. With > the watered down public education serving up a non-challenging, push them > through curriculum, what hope is there for technologists in this country > over the next few decades? > > Do you know how many times I've walked into a gas station and encountered a > teen who can't carry through on a simple transaction? The youth today > aren't--for the most part--go getters: they lack direction, motivation, and > personal responsibilty. They are not problem-solvers, they're > problem-makers who go though life thinking that somebody is always going to > wipe their backside. Give them a kit of parts and ask them to make it > work-ha! They might have to read a book! > > It has been reported that high school graduates are increasingly choosing > non-technical fields to major in. The technical fields are too challenging, > require too much work, and interfere with the 50hrs/week of playing video > games. Where are the Heathkitter's of the next generation? > > I've ranted long enough........................... > > > > "Kevin Morris" <kevin(a)techfocusmedia.com> wrote in message > news:1137096913.255199.239090(a)o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > > I'm writing a feature article for FPGA Journal (www.fpgajournal.com) > > about FPGAs and the re-birth of the electronics hobbyist. My theory is > > that electronics as a hobby went through a "dark age" period, maybe > > from the early/mid 1970s until recently becuase of the inaccessibility > > and cost of designing with state-of-the-art technology. Radio Shack > > shifted their focus from 50-in-1 project kits and hobbyist parts to > > selling toys, cell-phones, and stereo equipment. > > > > Now, with the emergence of low-cost, high-capability FPGAs, development > > boards, and design software, I see a new age of hobbyist activity > > beginning (as often evidenced in this group). > > > > I'm looking for a few people that would be willing to express views on > > this topic for the article. > > > > I know, Austin will probably post a strong technical argument that > > Xilinx FPGAs are uniquely attractive to the hobbyist, somebody from > > Altera will send me a Cubic Cyclonium prototyping paperweight (they're > > very cool), and Actel and Lattice people will post just to remind us > > that they have low-cost kits too, but I'm primarily interested in some > > info from real, live, "working" hobbyists. > > > > Any takers? > >
From: Rob on 16 Jan 2006 22:38 Peter: I appreciate your comments. But do you know how many great civilizations have come and gone since Socrates, including his [Socrates] own? I'm an old patriot and my response was mainly driven by my frustration of what I see as a possible future for this great country. I work for a fortune 500 company and I don't see many young Americans coming in for internships. I have also worked with one of our local well-renonowed colleges and I see a majority of students with visas filling the class rooms, not young Americans. Yes, there are many great engineers in this country ,and doubtless there will be many more, but I fear that those numbers will fall. And don't mis-interpret my message: I'm not against anyone coming to this country to get an education. To re-state, I'm just frustrated with our primary education system. My apologies for deviating from the topic--it just hit a nerve. Take care, Rob "Peter Alfke" <alfke(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:1137467887.797205.284330(a)o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > Rob, the first adult who is known to have complained about the youth of > his time being lazy do-no-gooders, was Socrates, more than 2400 years > ago. And each generation after him has repeated the complaint, while > benefitting from the progress brought about by those youths, once they > had matured. > Look at the kids coming out of Stanford, starting SUN, Yahoo, and > Google. Most of the detailed work in my company is done by engineers in > their late twenties and thirties, obviously with necessary guidance > from us more experienced folks... > If kids are not interested in science, that is mainly the fault of > educators, industry and management, creating a a bad learning and > career environment. > I prefer the original posting of this thread: > How can FPGAs envigorate individual or personal design activity? > Let's pool ideas, and not complain about our kids and grandkids. > Many of them are smarter than we are. > Peter Alfke, from home > =================== > Rob wrote: >> Hobbyists. Now there's a term you don't often hear amongst the next >> generation. If the hobbyist is going to make a comeback in this country >> (US) it is going to take more than a low-cost, high capability FPGA. >> With >> the watered down public education serving up a non-challenging, push them >> through curriculum, what hope is there for technologists in this country >> over the next few decades? >> >> Do you know how many times I've walked into a gas station and encountered >> a >> teen who can't carry through on a simple transaction? The youth today >> aren't--for the most part--go getters: they lack direction, motivation, >> and >> personal responsibilty. They are not problem-solvers, they're >> problem-makers who go though life thinking that somebody is always going >> to >> wipe their backside. Give them a kit of parts and ask them to make it >> work-ha! They might have to read a book! >> >> It has been reported that high school graduates are increasingly choosing >> non-technical fields to major in. The technical fields are too >> challenging, >> require too much work, and interfere with the 50hrs/week of playing video >> games. Where are the Heathkitter's of the next generation? >> >> I've ranted long enough........................... >> >> >> >> "Kevin Morris" <kevin(a)techfocusmedia.com> wrote in message >> news:1137096913.255199.239090(a)o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... >> > I'm writing a feature article for FPGA Journal (www.fpgajournal.com) >> > about FPGAs and the re-birth of the electronics hobbyist. My theory is >> > that electronics as a hobby went through a "dark age" period, maybe >> > from the early/mid 1970s until recently becuase of the inaccessibility >> > and cost of designing with state-of-the-art technology. Radio Shack >> > shifted their focus from 50-in-1 project kits and hobbyist parts to >> > selling toys, cell-phones, and stereo equipment. >> > >> > Now, with the emergence of low-cost, high-capability FPGAs, development >> > boards, and design software, I see a new age of hobbyist activity >> > beginning (as often evidenced in this group). >> > >> > I'm looking for a few people that would be willing to express views on >> > this topic for the article. >> > >> > I know, Austin will probably post a strong technical argument that >> > Xilinx FPGAs are uniquely attractive to the hobbyist, somebody from >> > Altera will send me a Cubic Cyclonium prototyping paperweight (they're >> > very cool), and Actel and Lattice people will post just to remind us >> > that they have low-cost kits too, but I'm primarily interested in some >> > info from real, live, "working" hobbyists. >> > >> > Any takers? >> > >
From: Jim Granville on 16 Jan 2006 23:10 I've had some interesting conversations with Tutors, and one point they make for the lack of inflows, is the 'appliance' nature of much of the electronics. No one enters tertiary education expecting to design a stereo, or TV, plus much of what potential students see is disposable, or close to disposable. Then the Dot-bomb tended to tar all technology companies with the same brush, and the industry is still clawing back from that. That's why I believe such 'early/wide student' demos, need to have at least one block that has a wide audience. ie something they can show their parents, or apply to a club, or sport. GPS-option Stopwatch is one such item : Give them time displays to the low ns, just to remind potential students of the reach of the time-domain. - and make it simple enough for even schools to run as 'canned examples'. -jg Peter Alfke wrote: > Rob, the first adult who is known to have complained about the youth of > his time being lazy do-no-gooders, was Socrates, more than 2400 years > ago. And each generation after him has repeated the complaint, while > benefitting from the progress brought about by those youths, once they > had matured. > Look at the kids coming out of Stanford, starting SUN, Yahoo, and > Google. Most of the detailed work in my company is done by engineers in > their late twenties and thirties, obviously with necessary guidance > from us more experienced folks... > If kids are not interested in science, that is mainly the fault of > educators, industry and management, creating a a bad learning and > career environment. > I prefer the original posting of this thread: > How can FPGAs envigorate individual or personal design activity? > Let's pool ideas, and not complain about our kids and grandkids. > Many of them are smarter than we are. > Peter Alfke, from home > =================== > Rob wrote: > >>Hobbyists. Now there's a term you don't often hear amongst the next >>generation. If the hobbyist is going to make a comeback in this country >>(US) it is going to take more than a low-cost, high capability FPGA. With >>the watered down public education serving up a non-challenging, push them >>through curriculum, what hope is there for technologists in this country >>over the next few decades? >> >>Do you know how many times I've walked into a gas station and encountered a >>teen who can't carry through on a simple transaction? The youth today >>aren't--for the most part--go getters: they lack direction, motivation, and >>personal responsibilty. They are not problem-solvers, they're >>problem-makers who go though life thinking that somebody is always going to >>wipe their backside. Give them a kit of parts and ask them to make it >>work-ha! They might have to read a book! >> >>It has been reported that high school graduates are increasingly choosing >>non-technical fields to major in. The technical fields are too challenging, >>require too much work, and interfere with the 50hrs/week of playing video >>games. Where are the Heathkitter's of the next generation? >> >>I've ranted long enough...........................
From: Kolja Sulimma on 17 Jan 2006 03:54 Tobias Weingartner schrieb: >>so there are reasons for keeping the bitstream non public. > I happen to disagree. We are all entitled to our opinions of course. > If the vendors would have a well defined format to "compile" to, and > a good library/port for a program to be able to take this format and > then generate a bitstream, that would be a start. Note, I'd want to > have the source available to be so that I could port this last bit of > "technology" to my favourite OS (by choice or necessity). > > I can't believe that these things are anything but simple portable ANSI > C (or some derivative)... JBits is a solution to all this. Maybe not a particulary good one, but you can read, modify, write bitstreams in a platform independant way. There is no source code available, but java bytecode that you can essentially call by any language you want on any platform you want. There are even people at xilinx working on a virtual file system to mount and modify the configuration of a virtex-4 by the embedded PowerPC. Kolja Sulimma
From: Symon on 17 Jan 2006 05:08
"Scott & Brenda Burris" <slburris(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message news:MPG.1e35a2bc8d29b5c7989680(a)news.west.earthlink.net... > I'm also one of those rebirth hobbyists. > > I was a hobbyist up until the mid to late 80's. Probably the most > ambitious stuff I tried was a 68020 board with dynamic ram, running at > 16Mhz, all on a big wire-wrap board. Back then, the board was stuffed > with LSTTL chips. The board was none too reliable -- flex it the wrong > way, and something broke. But on a good day, it worked. > Scott, I'm genuinely surprised. In my experience, wire-wrap boards were the most reliable boards I've ever had. Especially if you took the time to train the technician how to wire-wrap properly. The hardest point was trying to stop them grouping the wires together into "crosstalk-of-death" busses instead of just connecting them point-to-point. Second hardest was banging into their heads to connect multi-drop traces every other section first, so you can rip up and re-route easier later on. Happy days! Cheers, Syms. |