Internet commentary
What printed thing soever[1]
Keywords: Internet, Printed circuits, Education
As I write this, Microsoft is releasing the second Service Pack for Windows XP. I must admit that this is mind-boggling. There are about 200 megabytes of rehashed files and most of the modifications are because of security issues when connected to the Internet. For those of us who have to suffer from narrow band connections, it is almost impossible to download the total Service Pack –it would take over a day with a 56 kilobits per second modem, assuming there were no hitch in the connection. For this reason, Windows XP Update allows it to be done in small sections as and when you’re on line. This is not entirely satisfactory, because the updating may be taking place behind the scenes while you’re trying to use the Internet for other reasons that require all the performance that can be mustered.
There is another problem, which could arise while downloading a Service Pack in sections. It is possible to lose the use of back-ups. As various parts of the Service Pack are installed, the registry is updated. This means that, if a Windows failure occurs – and it can – then any back-up that you have may be useless because the registry will not correspond with the installed components, making it impossible to boot up. The result is potentially a very dangerous situation unless you make a new back-up after each part has been installed. The problem is all the more complex when you consider that there are four ways of backing up the Windows XP registry – and this does not count the automatic systems used for such features as reverting to the previous known good configuration. Of course, the latter will not work either, under these circumstances!
When the release was first announced, Microsoft offered a free CD with the Service Pack. This offer was withdrawn within about two days; I suppose the demand was too great! As Microsoft no longer permit the distribution of their service packs or other free software through magazine disks, it would seem that the user no longer has any choice.
It is early days yet to be able to evaluate SP 2, but it would seem that it is not without difficulties, if the enormous increase in forum activity is anything to go by. In particular, there appears to be a considerable amount of incompatibility with third party security systems. I have seen that several users have decided to remove it from the system and to go back to SP1. This does not bode well for Microsoft’s already tarnished reputation.
I don’t think it’s worthwhile for me to take the risk of installing SP 2. In previous issues, I have described my security system and this appears to be quite robust. I know that crackers and hackers are perpetually trying to enter my system from the logs of the different security devices that I use. As far as I am aware, none have succeeded so I question whether it is worth the hassle that could possibly result from installing this Pack. This is probably another case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”.
On a different tack, Microsoft and other software companies are justifiably concerned about pirated copies of their products. In the case of Windows XP,Microsoft probably thought that they had the problem solved with their ill-reputed activation system. Unfortunately, this fell down because the pirates got hold of corporate editions, which did not require activation. I receive possibly five or six invitations per day, by e-mail, to purchase these at a ridiculously low price, compared with the ridiculously high price of buying the genuine article. Some unscrupulous computer vendors supply these pirated copies with their hardware. It has recently come to my notice that Microsoft have made it very difficult for customers who have unwittingly purchased computers to subsequently install the genuine software. It is not possible to simply install it over the existing operating system or to change the product key. This must discourage users from changing from the pirated software, because there is no improvement in functionality in doing so.
I had a really horrible day recently. I normally had three desktop computers and a laptop networked together. On this day, the first thing that happened was that my laptop stopped operating. Do what I could, nothing would get it working reliably. After extensive diagnosis, it was found that the cache memory in the CPU had failed, probably as a result of a fault elsewhere. This machine was about five years old and the manufacturers had stopped supporting it. Because I have practically stopped travelling, I decided not to waste any time or money by replacing it. I was therefore reduced to three computers. Later the same day, I switched on a computer that was used for archiving files that I did not wish to totally delete and for various experimental work. Amongst the latter, I did a considerable number of experiments using Linux. Anyway, after switching it on and before I was able to see it booted up, I smelt the unmistakable odour of burning electronics. Switching it off and back to diagnostics, I found that a short circuit on the motherboard had caused the power supply unit to render its soul. As a general rule, under such circumstances I would merely change the faulty components but this unit was six years old and would therefore need a change of CPU and the memory. I costed this with my supplier and discovered that a cheap stock computer would cost less than replacing the components. Because I was not interested in high performance, I opted for this solution. Now, one of the important tasks that I did with the old computer was to compare the security of Internet working between Windows XP and Linux (not that there is much comparison!). I installed Windows XP on this and a number of applications without difficulty. I then started to install Linux, using the Fedora (Red Hat)distribution. This seemed to start off very well, until it got to detecting the graphics. After many tries and consulting various forums on the Internet, I had to give up simply because the Northbridge chipset on the motherboard was incompatible with Linux. I mention this to illustrate that many problems can be resolved by using the Internet. My usual procedure under such circumstances is to consult the FAQs on appropriate sites and then the knowledge bases that some manufacturers offer. If this fails, I then proceed to read existing posts on the forums and, finally, as a last measure, I post a “help” message on the best forum. It is very rare that I cannot find some kind of answer to a difficulty.
As a result of these problems, I decided to change computers around and use the new one just for Windows applications. In fact, I am dictating this Internet Commentary on it, using IBM ViaVoice 10 and I have nothing to complain about. I have not yet fully installed what needs to be done on my old office computer,including Linux, because I want to make sure there that I do not lose anything that may be useful from its 60 gigabytes of hard disk.
In case you’re wondering, I reserve the third computer uniquely for video work. I am very heavily into this and do a lot of software beta testing for one of the biggest manufacturers in the field. This requires a very high performance computer. One job that I did recently was to translate Charles Jennings’ (of Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico) famous 1976 16 mm film of dendrite growth on printed circuits to an electronic format. For those interested, I have put it on the Internet for downloading at www.bnellis.com/dendrites.
I recently wrote an Internet Commentary, similar to this one, for our sister journal, Microelectronics International, in which I took, as the theme of my review section, undergraduate training in Microelectronics. Not surprisingly,I found a number of universities offering both undergraduate and graduate courses in the subject. This has inspired me to search in a similar vein for courses in printed circuit fabrication. I must admit that I did not expect to find very much and was rather surprised when Google came up with 84,000 responses! However, very few have anything to do with education!Notwithstanding, some of the responses are interesting – many less so. Here is a selection of a few of them.
The University of Oxford has an offshoot called Isis Licensing. The idea of this is that researchers who invent something which may be of commercial value can patent it and license it out to commercial firms. In this particular case,it is claimed by the Faculty of Engineering and Physics that a new method of the production of high-resolution printed circuits with conductor widths down to 10 micrometres becomes cost-effective. The claim includes a reduction of over-etching and of under-cutting. Unfortunately, there is no way that the method employed can be judged from what is published on this page. For this, it is necessary to go to a linked page where prospective users may apply for a licence. It is a pity that there is no more technical information available by which one could judge the viability or otherwise of the process. If the claims are substantiated, then this could be an important step forward in the fabrication of HDIS circuitry.
This link takes you to a technical paper, “Modelling, analysis, and acceleration of a printed circuit board fabrication process”. It is written by three members of the Faculties of two Indian Institutes. At first glance, it looks rather banal but a more detailed study reveals some things that could be of use to increase the productivity of any printed circuit fabrication shop. In this particular case, the authors identified the bottlenecks in the production lines, outsourcing some shortfalls, such as drilling, and analysing the productivity of each step in the manufacturing processes. The result of the study produced a 25 per cent increase in productivity with a concomitant lowering of costs. One startling conclusion is the need to refuse some orders if they would overload the production facilities, rather than simply give them a longer lead time. The aim is to keep the production lines working at as near full capacity as possible. This work was done with mathematical analyses.
Oregon State University runs Bachelor of Science and Master of Science courses in various Engineering Technologies. One branch is in industrial and manufacturing engineering and this page shows the work covered in electronics manufacturing and assembly. This includes, amongst other subjects, printed wiring board fabrication. The university claims that their graduates can start work in industry with salaries in the top 10 percentile for industrial and manufacturing engineers. Obviously, the undergraduates learn about many other things than PCB fabrication but this is probably the nearest one can get to a valid undergraduate training in the subject. One wonders how polyvalent the graduates become, as this is so essential in our industry.
If you live in Alabama, you may have heard of Auburn University; I confess my ignorance by saying that I hadn’t! Ever curious, I found it was in a small town of some 44,000-odd souls (that was before the hurricane Ivan hit it) and you can see at www.auburnalabama.org/statistics/default.htm that the University is the biggest employer. Back to business: it would seem that this University has a small workshop to make prototype PCBs for internal use, judging from this page. I would seriously suggest that this type of internal workshop is not only an anachronism but also a total economic disaster, probably producing an atrocious quality of product. Today, we can obtain prototype quantities for next-to-nothing, with a next-day service, from hundreds of specialised shops with much better equipment than is listed here. In addition, most of the larger factories also have an express line.
Want a post-graduate MSc degree in printed circuitry? Just kidding! However,the University of West Indies, in Mona, Jamaica does offer one in Digital Technology and it seems from the Recommended reading and Reference lists that the humble printed circuit is not forgotten in the more exotic world of integrated circuits. Our bible by Coombes is mentioned and I can think of only one better book, or rather two, to give a good background knowledge and those are the very weighty tomes edited by William MacLeod Ross, sadly no longer with us.
Remember what I said about Auburn University in the last-but-one paragraph?Well, Stanford University seems to agree with me. This page gives a list of internal and external prototyping services of all types. For printed circuits,they recommend a professional prototype shop. What surprises me is that it is some distance from Stanford, in fact in Calgary, Alberta, which must be 1,500 kilometres away! Nevertheless, there is also a link to a page of others but, woe is me![2], it comes up with an http 404 error, page cannot be found. Stanford University, you have failed!
This page leaves me flabbergasted, totally flabbergasted. Murray State University in Kentucky has a required four hour course entitled “Electronics Skills Lab” as part of a degree in Telecommunications Systems Management. In it, you learn all that is to be known on:
- 1.
General drawing practices and equipment
- 2.
Electrical drawings
Block diagrams
Logic diagrams
Schematic diagrams
Wiring diagrams
- 3.
Packaging/assembly drawings
- 4.
Printed circuit board design, drawings and prototype fabrication
- 5.
CAD applications
- 6.
Cable preparation techniques
In four hours? P-L-E-E-E-E-Z-E! I doubt whether 104 hours would be sufficient for just a rudimentary background. Surely, this is not a good advertisement for the University, or am I misreading the data?
The King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia offers a three-year diploma course to qualify as an electronics maintenance technician. The total course seems quite comprehensive. In the second semester of the middle year (the first year being preparatory, essentially in English and Mathematics),there is an Electronics Workshop: “This course introduces basic printed circuit artwork layout, printed circuit board fabrication, component assembly and printed circuit board dip soldering. Further experience is gained in the area of sheet metal fabrication, wiring, reading specifications, quality control and testing”. As this is over a semester, it must surely be more comprehensive than is offered in the previous one. Yes, I know comparisons are insidious.
This one will be short and sweet. Notre Dame University Microelectronics Lab has a “T-Tech printed circuit board milling tool operating under Accel Technologies EDA layout software is used for complete system design.”[sic!]. This may be a way to prototype simple boards, avoiding the problems I outlined for Auburn University and outsourcing.
Cape Technikon appears to be an advanced technical college in Cape Town. This page is an often-hilarious account of how a printed circuit fabrication department was set up and evolved from slim beginnings (“For obvious reasons this step was undertaken outside in the backyard under the wary eyes of the family dog. A number of successful and an even larger number of unsuccessful boards were produced by this process.”) in 1976 through to the late 1980s,when the department became moribund from lack of funding and obsolete equipment. I enjoyed reading this and I’m sure a lot of old-timers will be able to identify themselves with the dilemmas that the author faced. For PCBFab “newbies”,they will only be able to open their eyes with wonderment that real printed circuits could be made with the most rudimentary equipment.
This long page is also funny, in places. I don’t know why it turned up in my search because it has nothing to do with Universities. It describes an amateur’s way of making PCBs using a laser printer. Some of the advice sounds mighty hazardous, though!
Want further proof of what I said before? Well, I started with Oxford University and I’ll end with Oxford University, but on a totally different note. This page and the others accessible by the menu on it illustrate the University’s prototype PCB fab department, a simple print and etch facility. Apparently, this has a staff of three. As a guess, and judging by the rather primitive boards they illustrate, each board must be worth its weight in gold, if all the equipment has to be amortised, salaries paid and materials purchased. For me, this is just a ludicrous waste of public money, especially as there are two or three professional fabricators within a reasonable radius of the University.
The above selection is quite an array of subjects, “printed things soever”, all starting out from the same key words. It shows the good and the bad parts of interfacing printed circuits with educational institutes. I venture to suggest that we can all learn something from reading them; I didn’t know that you could use an ordinary laser printer as a means of image transfer,for example (not that I can think of much use for it, but that’s another story)! If you are a fabricator, it may be worthwhile to find out whether you can successfully undercut your local University or Technical College, if they have a DIY PCB fab department. It could be good business.
Brian EllisCyprusb_ellis@protonique.com
Note
- 1.
Thomas Carlyle (∼1876), “What printed thing soever”, Past and Present, Book ii, chapter 3.
- 2.
I know that “woe is I” is grammatically better, but “woe is me” sounds more convincing!
