Re: [OT]: Re: Horowitz... On-the-fly design by Robert Rolf .

"T.C. Phelps" wrote: > > UAlberta? Greetings from Calgary, fellow Albertan. :)> Yeah, scary how many people I run into saying that they'd seen me on the PICLIST. Who knew that this was a best seller list <G>? > > Hence my point about THOUGHT being important. > > Yeah, in years past I've jumped into projects without > thinking too much and wound up starting over. That was > before discovering the immense value of designing > something first instead of trying to build and design > at the same time. ;) There is something to be said for designing on the fly. It gives you a chance to test key parts of a design to validate your ideas before you get too far along. It also lets you use what you have. If you have sufficient experience, you can get to the end result more quickly, such as when I used to stop at Active Electronics on my way to work, and designed circuits for a 'we need it right now' project to use what they had in stock. Now that Active stocks bugger all, I am forced to do a full design just so I can order all the parts I'll need the first time around. /rant on If I find a nice part for a project, I -may- be able to get a sample, but if I need 10, I'm S.O.L because everyone is only interested in 5k+ piece orders. MOQ (minimum order quantities) are killing basic research and development by hobbiests. Thank goodness for Digikey, even if they are pricey. But if the big mail order houses don't carry a part, you're out of luck unless you have deep pockets and can afford to waste 90% of a MOQ order. /rant off Robert -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.