Video Liking Analog Meters Doesn't Make You a Luddite (Video) 155
Chris Gordon : Alright, so I work for Intel Corporation. And what you are looking at here is our making for manufacturing table. These are two of more than 150 Galileo based proof of concepts that we have developed in our Intel factory network. What I am going to show you here is our executive dashboard. I work as part of a Data Visualization Engineering team. And so we are always looking for new and novel ways to be able to represent data. One of the personal frustrations that I have is that I spend sometimes hours a day just bouncing from one web report to another trying to pull all of these different indicators together to really understand what’s happening in my factory.
And what I’d really like is not to have to go chasing after my data, but for my data to really come to me on my own terms. So I am personally a little bit of a levied and I spend way too much time staring at a computer screen anyway. So what I wanted was really to be able to bring that data out of the PC and into something that was a little more palatable for me. So what we did is use our Intel Galileo board here to essentially act as a data aggregator. So that it goes out and pulls data from a wide variety of sources, in the case of air quality index or temperature from some public APIs or in case of the factory indicators, you see here from our internal company data systems.
So the Galileo goes out, collects all of that data real time and basically translates it into a pulse width modulation signal, so that we can take that digital output. And I will put it as an analog voltage into our meter interface circuit. So our meter interface circuit basically uses a latching op amp, so that the micro can just pulls the output voltage to the interface here and it will latch its output accordingly to actually do the heavy lifting of driving and holding those meters, so your micro is freed up to go off and do other tasks for you, it doesn’t have to burn cycles just holding the meters in place.
Now today our monkey here is tied to the Intel stock price, so that every time the stock has gone up since the previous refresh cycle, he will clap for you, but if the stock price has gone down since the previous refresh, then his eyes bug out, he bares his teeth and starts screeching. So you know things are headed in the wrong direction.
T i m: What is the good catch percentage?
Chris Good catch percent is actually a factory system that we use to record potential safety issues. And so one of the things we are interested in is what percentage of our population is actually participating in this good catch system and logging these safety good catches so that we can proactively address safety considerations in our factory.
Tim: Talk about the details of looking out to old analog meters with digital wave, so where did you get these meters and how do you actually interface with it?
Chris So it’s actually getting harder to find analog meters here since – as you know the world has gone digital on us. But a lot of these were mail ordered off of different sites, mostly from China. And as I mentioned earlier, what we are basically doing is using pulse width modulation to kind of bridge that digital to analog gap there, so that what we do is use a scale from 0 to 255 that represents the percentage of full scale deflection that you are interested in on your meter. And then the meter interface circuit just reads that as an analog voltage coming in and matches that accordingly to hold your meter in position. As you can see, all of these were hand scaled, we lovingly scaled each one of these meters by hand with pencil and paper...
Tim: And you frame them as well?
Chris Absolutely. And absolutely no expense was spared, everything was about attention to detail with this project. So everything you see here is antique oak and real brass, the monkey itself is an over 50-year-old antique symbol monkey from the early 1960s, no reproductions, even the wiring here is done in real cloth wrapped electrical tape for authenticity.
Tim: Of a toaster – reminds me of a toaster.
Chris Hopefully a safe toaster.
Tim: And I think I gave it away on that basis. So you work for Intel?
Chris I do.
Tim: And you also have accessed a lot of factory sensors and data and work bench time I am sure.
Chris Oh yes.
Tim: If someone wants to do this with a little bit less experimentation, is it packet accessible thing to do, or at this point are we still looking at monkeys and toaster wire and frames to put them in?
Chris This is super easy for anyone even with limited experience to be able to do. If you have ever done any kind of Arduino development, you are already eight tenths of the way there. This whole project from start to finish was completed in less than six weeks and probably four of those six weeks were actually spent on building boxes, getting brass hardware and actually doing the physical assembly putting this together the way we envisioned it.
Tim: Do you use any of this kind of technology of sensing at your house, at your home?
Chris I do. So maybe it’s a bit of a misnomer to say I am a luddite. I am really fascinated with the technology, but I don’t like to interface with it. I don’t like looking at wires all over my computer. I don’t want a big ugly computer block sitting in my living room. And so everything I do is to try to hide the technology so that I get the advantages of it without having to look at plastic boxes sitting all over my living room.
Tim: Like a nice tangible output?
Chris Absolutely. So this is something that we have actually developed to be flexible, so that I can just as easily take this home and repurpose this for whatever metrics I might want to track around my house. I can keep a chores remaining meter or paternal displeasure index or whatever I might like to track at home and set this whole thing up in about 15 minutes to pull from whatever data source I am interested in.
Tim: PDI does sound like an interesting index, but I don’t know what sensors will be the best for that?
Chris Child volume is at least one input.
Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when you don't need to know the exact number and you need a visual indicator that can be recognized at a glance.
Speedometers, tachometers, load balance reporting, etc...
I don't need to know the exact mbps that is currently getting pulled off my server, I need to know at a glance if my load is going into the red. I don't have the time to take my eyes off the road to read that I am traveling at 55.4 MPH @ 2571 RPMs, I just need to know that my needle is pointing up and left, and that my tach isn't pointing straight up.
That said, I want digital values for all of those things, streaming in real time through the appropriate systems, feeding logs, and populating data warehouses for later analysis.
-Rick
Re:Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:5, Informative)
But your point is just about the GUI.
Digital meters can be made to look Analog and provide that exact same feedback.
For a super stupid example, the windows task manager in the sys tray shows CPU load via a veritcal bar, exactly like an Analog vertical meter would.
So it seems to be less about the medium and more about the designed controls.
Re:Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:4, Interesting)
Digital meters don't have the slow response that d'Arsonval meter movements have, unless extra circuitry is added. The inertia and magnetic delay of old-fashioned electro-mechanical meters naturally filter fast variations in the signal, and can result in a useful reading in cicumstances where the average digital meter produces a garbage reading. Of course, it's also good to know when a signal is noisy or jumpy...
I use digital meters exclusively these days - they're convenient, rugged, light, and have a higher input impedance and better resistance reading capabilities than all but the very best of the old analog FET-VOM's. But every once in a while I wish I had a well-damped analog meter to save me from dragging out the scope.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, apart from the fact that all mechanical meters will eventually fail, being mechanical and all. Not sure how that is "more reliable". They can lose accuracy with age, due to wear on the spring & bushings, and loss of magnetism in the magnet, etc, not that that have good accuracy to begin with.
Almost everything electronic has been replaced with higher complexity, yet still higher reliability, cheaper, smaller, solid state stuff.
Re:Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:4, Insightful)
as a guy over 50 who has analog meters (triplett, simpson, stuff like that) that are nearly as old as I am, I can say with confidence that you have no idea what you are talking about.
digital meters tend to fail more! they are more complex, and unless you buy very good ones, they will suffer 'cap problems' (esp. if made in china, which nearly all things are, these days).
otoh, buy a used meter of the type I described and as long as it was not hit by a truck, it will likely work and out live YOU.
springs fail? never saw that happen. bushings fail? again, never saw that happen.
I would guess, based on your very high UID that you are a youngster and never really used or lived with such gear before.
probably better to just remain silent than to speak up and tell everyone how much you don't know.
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, don't make assumptions like that. I've got tube voltmeters that are older than you!
One of which the meter failed on. Something in the movement let a sliver go, which stuck to the movement's magnet, which the coil was then jamming on / binding with. Ended up sorting it out, but it was like brain surgery. This was on a Hickok 209A [imgur.com], circa 1940, with a gigantic 9" meter on it.
I'll stick with my 80's vintage fluke bench meters for most things. They don't look quite as cool as the Hickok, though.
I do use the
Re:Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
buy a used meter of the type I described
You're comparing old, high quality, analog meters with modern digital cheap shit from China. But that's not really realistic or fair. Nobody's going to manufacture a modern instrument, and install second hand analog meters. Instead, they'll order some cheap, shitty, analog dials from China, made from injection molded plastic instead of brass, and using a printed paper scale glued on by hand.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
He is also looking at survivor bias.
Most electronic equipment has about 3 forms of life.
1) Burns fast. Usually within warranty. This is usually some sort of manufacture defect. Lifetime of 1-2 months. ;)) Lifetime of 4-10 years
2) Med burn. Just stops working something in it busted out of warranty (usually by 1 day
3) old timers. These things do not stop working. They last decades.
When you look at old equipment you usually only come across old timers. As the first two categories were junked decades ago.
Re: (Score:2)
And I'm fairly
Re: (Score:2)
Also, don't forget "survivor bias" - how many meters of yours work vs. how many were made? I mean, everyone says "stuff was built better in the past" yet we're not flooded with antique radios, classic cars, old TVs, etc.
In fact I have a lot of old analog stuff (multi-meters, audio kit) that my father left. I am currently refurbishing his multimeter - only because the sockets for the test leads have corroded, nothing wrong with the analog galvanometer itself.
Much of that old stuff did not "die", people threw it away because they assumed newer stuff was better, or because the old stuff becomes incompatible. Marketing droids see to the first, and as an example of the second I threw away a tube TV only because it would n
Re: (Score:2)
I am currently refurbishing his multimeter - only because the sockets for the test leads have corroded, nothing wrong with the analog galvanometer itself.
Unless you want to use it to check that your 100K resistor is not a 101K resistor.
Re: (Score:2)
When analog meters were the standard, you were lucky to get a 5% resistor. 1%ers (as are common today) were exotic.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As an Instrument Reliability Engineer working in industry, your experience represents a very small subset of scenarios where your meters have a better failure rate. Then you use words like "cap problems" which leads me to believe you're comparing quality made in USA gauges with cheap Chinese electronic imports and are basing your conclusion on that. Unfortunately your experience goes against all reliability literature and statistics that have been collected around the world.
The GP was right. Analogue meters
Re: (Score:3)
Almost everything electronic has been replaced with higher complexity, yet still higher reliability,
Half right. Stuff does tend to become more complex over time. But not necessarily more reliable or more usable. For example, some of our kitchen appliances are indeed more usable than those I grew up with in the 1950s. Some are cluttered with unnecessary, weird, or incomprehensible "features". There are a couple of companies whose products I won't even consider any more when making purchasing decisions b
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking more in terms of replacing simple electro-mechanical systems with more complicated transistorized ones. Not adding excessive touch logic BS to stoves :)
For example, prior to the early 60s, cars had generators. No silicon in them at all. The voltage regulator was basically two relays, and a bit of electro-mechanical trickery. very simple. If one contact failed, stuck on, a parked car would kill it's battery, if the other stuck on it would overcharge the battery when running.
Generator output ha
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That's the reason why even if I own a really nice Multimeter, I still use an old analog one from time to time (because of the too-fast response time of Digital)
Re: (Score:2)
That's the reason why even if I own a really nice Multimeter, I still use an old analog one from time to time (because of the too-fast response time of Digital)
I bought a mid-range digital multi-meter and was disappointed to find there is no damping on the readout. Even such a simple thing as reading a battery voltage the display acts crazy until you press the probes on really hard and keep dead still. As a result I still reach for an old, really cheap (it was from Tandy) little analog meter for most jobs unless I want particular accuracy or something out of the analog meter's range.
I would put a damping circuit in it myself if there were any means of doing
Re: (Score:2)
So it seems to be less about the medium and more about the designed controls.
Exactly. If designers want to do internals with digital bits, that's their decision. If they even have a decision. But the output should be adjusted or adjustable to user needs. Which is hard, because frankly we techies suck at interface design and .experts on interface design seem to be, if anything, worse than non-experts at producing usable devices. For situations like trying to adjust for maximum or minimal level, digital
And they can even be adjustable (Score:2)
Pro audio software all has analogue like meters, but they are all digital of course being computer software. You can adjust how they respond, tell them how to integrate the data they get, how fast to respond, etc. So you can tailor the output to what is most useful.
Also as a converse back in the day some high end analogue audio meters were made to try and quantize data. They'd be designed to segment the display to 1dB increments around the clipping/saturation point so that the engineer could make more usefu
Re:Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:5, Interesting)
The other place analog (or analog-style) gauges shine is when the rate of change is more important than the value. Speedometers and tachometers are good examples: You usually care more if you are speeding up, slowing down, or keeping the same speed than whether you are going 65 or 66mph.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Analog displays are better in some situations. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the average human being can actually read it better off of a changing analog-style dial than they can understand a bare number. It has to do with us being well developed at judging distances for throwing and jumping. (And an analog dial allows you to read both off of one instrument.)
Re: (Score:2)
I can glance at the tach and see that I need to shift RSN, as the rate of approaching the redline is pretty close. :)
Analog is much better than a digital display that updates every few dozen mS with a number that is interpreted by a different part of my Brain. :)
Re: (Score:2)
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
no video (Score:2)
"He says he's no Luddite" (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, and although I weigh over 300lbs that doesn't mean I'm obese... because I say so...
Claim is BS. (Score:5, Informative)
There's plenty of analog meters being made every year. Just look at any automobile dashboard. They experimented with digital dashes back in the 80s and quickly abandoned them. Even Teslas, which have an LCD screen in the dashboard, have analog meters; they're just done in software, no different that a phone or PC that has an icon of an analog clock face.
Interestingly, though, modern cars with analog meters actually have them driven digitally; the indicator is really a servomotor, driven by digital information over a vehicle bus.
The reason analog instruments still prevail is because they can be interpreted easily at a glance (by looking at the position of the needle, rather than reading numerals and having to decide if those numbers are within a good range), and also because they show trends and rates of change which digital gauges do not.
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty of analog meters being made every year. Just look at any automobile dashboard.
While the majority of those dashes do still use analog needles, the trend is toward LCD screens replacing the gauge cluster completely. Only a few idiot lights are retained, and those only because it is required by law, like the MIL and high-beam indicator. And only raw sports cars will wind up retaining analog gauges, for nostalgia's sake. Not tomorrow, but soon.
On the other hand, there's no shortage of analog gauges. They are available in abundance.
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing my point (see especially my comment about the Tesla). Regardless of the actual mechanics of the instrument (moving needle vs. LCD screen that depicts an image of a moving needle), analog gauges aren't going away, probably ever. Yes, we'll probably just have LCD screens for our dashboards soon, but they're still going to show us images of analog gauges, because they're inherently more useful than a numerical readout.
Re: Claim is BS. (Score:2)
The LCD version also has the advantage of not having parallax problems when reading. Different heights of drivers look at the dials from different angles and if the needles are, say, a millimeter in front of the backing, different readings result. The fuel gauge when close to empty is one case where this can make a difference.
(Personally I prefer numerical gauges: I all faster with numbers than interpolation, and I prefer to look at speed on the GPS than the dashboard.)
Re: (Score:2)
analogue fuel gauges are way too inaccurate for parallax to be an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Many of those gauges are driven by stepper motors and so are not really analogue in the true sense.
In fact one of the common complaints of one of the cars I own is that the water temperature and oil pressure gauges are "computer stabilized" such that as long as the car thinks the temperature and oil pressure are within acceptable parameters, the needles will always point at the exact same spot. So the first thing you know if something is going wrong is that the gauges suddenly jump from "Everythings copacet
Re: (Score:3)
nopee. an analog dash is nice and classy and it always will be.
Analog gauges' fate is sealed by two things. The first thing is that they are larger, heavier, and more prone to failure than an LCD display, and more difficult to replace as well. They also take up more space in the warehouse. The second thing is that they are now "old" because they are too slow for the fastest-revving cars. Even aircores can't keep up with the RPMs. This doesn't matter in the average car, but the absolutely highest-performance cars have to have a digital tacho. The highest-luxury cars (an
Re:Claim is BS. (Score:5, Insightful)
A dash doesn't need to be analogue. It just needs to appear analogue.
Case in point have a look at the well designed cockpit of an A380. Gauges everywhere... err no, 4 big LCD monitors displaying gauges everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
A dash doesn't need to be analogue. It just needs to appear analogue.
Exactly. Something is lost, however, in the case of some of those gauges. It takes next to nothing to power a typical analog voltmeter, which is what most electrical analog gauges boil down to — again, except for the air cores often used to drive the speedo and tacho. Assorted enthusiasts have driven these from Arduinos and such. It is simpler to drive these sort of gauges. Thing is, pretty much everyone is already putting some sort of multifunction display in the middle of the cluster. At that point,
Re: (Score:2)
"and more prone to failure than an LCD display"
at -30C your LCD might not react properly until it has warmed up.
As for analog gauges being more prone too failure, I wouldn't be so sure about that
Re: (Score:2)
At much higher temeratures than -30C, your physical analog gauges will have frozen up, or started sticking and giving inaccurate readings. Inaccurate readings are worse than no readings.
Re: (Score:2)
Eh? "Fastest-revving cars"?
Perhaps you could explain why analogue tachos on pre-computerised motorcycles were able to cope with 2K powerbands and redlines in excess of 10K RPM. You know, the tacho driven by a cable from the engine.
People used to win races with those "slow" tachos.
In any case, if you're driving a high-performance vehicle anywhere approaching its peak performance, you won't really be watching the dials very much.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you could explain why analogue tachos on pre-computerised motorcycles were able to cope with 2K powerbands and redlines in excess of 10K RPM.
Sorry, I should have said quickest-revving. If you don't want the needle to lag behind the engine on the quickest-revving engines, you have to ditch the needle.
In any case, if you're driving a high-performance vehicle anywhere approaching its peak performance, you won't really be watching the dials very much.
Irrelevant. It's a status symbol, nothing more.
Don't underestimate analog devices (Score:2)
The first thing is that they are larger, heavier, and more prone to failure than an LCD display, and more difficult to replace as well.
I think you greatly underestimate the reliability of analog gauges. You also may be surprised to find out that they are generally rather easy to replace as well. Not to say digital displays don't have their (ever increasing) place but don't be so eager to throw out analog devices that work exceedingly well at their specific task.
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty of analog meters being made every year. Just look at any automobile dashboard.
Your dashboard is receiving a digital signal from the PCM, which in turn tells your *digital* meter where to point the needle.
Re: (Score:3)
No, it's an analog meter. It's receiving digital information, and using that to control a servomotor to position a needle, and looks a lot like old-time all-mechanical meters, but it's still analog in the sense that it's displaying information in an analog fashion, rather than as a numerical readout.
Re: (Score:3)
You are absolutely correct. And I should have read your original post more closely.
Cheers!
Looks are irrelevant (Score:3)
It's receiving digital information, and using that to control a servomotor to position a needle, and looks a lot like old-time all-mechanical meters, but it's still analog in the sense that it's displaying information in an analog fashion, rather than as a numerical readout.
If it is receiving digital information then it is by definition a digital meter. What it physically looks like is irrelevant. That's like saying my iPod is analog because it's playing music in an analog fashion. It's not the same thing. If it isn't working directly with an analog signal it is NOT an analog device regardless of how old-timey it looks.
Re: (Score:2)
Context is important. When things are ambiguous, it's better to qualify than get into a semantics argument. I'd divide them into three categories
Digital
Digitally driven analog
True analog
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty of analog meters being made every year. Just look at any automobile dashboard.
And yet mixing the analogue and digital world is nearly impossible because people are obsessed with numerical displays. There are plenty of cars now where an analogue speedometer isn't an option. Furthermore there are no current industrial instrumentation manufacturers on the market which will provide you with a full analogue display with a digital transmitter.
This has been a source of great frustration for me over the years as there's nothing worse to put on a positive displacement pump from a safety point
Re: (Score:2)
There are plenty of cars now where an analogue speedometer isn't an option.
Have you been to a car dealership since the mid-1980s? I can't think of many cars which have digital speedometers only. Perhaps the Honda CR-Z, but that isn't exactly very popular (in fact, it's a flop; I'm surprised they still sell them). And even those cars still have analog tachometers (which is arguably much more important to be analog than the speedometer, because the tach changes so much faster).
Re: (Score:2)
What did they expect? It was supposed to be the successor to the CRX and (first-gen) Insight, and was way worse than either of them. They should have made it out of aluminum, at the very least.
Re: (Score:2)
What did they expect? It was supposed to be the successor to the CRX and (first-gen) Insight, and was way worse than either of them. They should have made it out of aluminum, at the very least.
Even so, I really don't understand how it came out so bad. It's underpowered, but gets terrible gas mileage. I can go get a Mazda3 that's much bigger (4-door hatchback), and way more powerful (2.4L SkyActiv engine) and faster, and still get the same mpg (38). WTF? And the Mazda isn't even hybrid! It's just a gas
Re: (Score:2)
There are plenty of cars now where an analogue speedometer isn't an option.
Have you been to a car dealership since the mid-1980s? I can't think of many cars which have digital speedometers only. Perhaps the Honda CR-Z, but that isn't exactly very popular (in fact, it's a flop; I'm surprised they still sell them).
About 5-10 years ago the CRV, the Civic and the Jazz shipped with digital only speedos. It was a fad Honda was going through. Many of those cars weren't flops, the Jazz especially is quite popular still. Toyota had their share of cars with digital speedos in the 90s too, the current model Yaris has one as does the Prius, and it's part of the "luxury" model Echo (never mind that the standard Echo also has the analogue speedo in the middle of the dash rather than behind the wheel). The top end Mazda 3 2014 mo
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Tachos are cool but completely non-essential unless you're deaf or your engine is incredibly well sound insulated.
Re: (Score:2)
See Lexus LFA (I know, it's a fringe car/argument) - they went with a digital cluster because they determined that an analog gauge couldn't keep up with the fast revving engine.
Re: (Score:2)
Ridiculous on at least two levels.
Digital imitaing analog != Analog (Score:3)
Even Teslas, which have an LCD screen in the dashboard, have analog meters; they're just done in software, no different that a phone or PC that has an icon of an analog clock face.
That's not analog strictly speaking. That is a digital device imitating an analog display. Nothing wrong with that but it isn't the same thing. To be an analog device it has to operate on analog (continuous) signals. Digital devices by definition cannot do more than an approximation of a continuous signal. Possibly a very good approximation but an approximation nonetheless.
Interestingly, though, modern cars with analog meters actually have them driven digitally; the indicator is really a servomotor, driven by digital information over a vehicle bus.
If they are doing that then the meter isn't actually analog. Analog means something rather specific. If you run an analog signal
Re: (Score:3)
> That's not analog strictly speaking. That is a digital device imitating an analog display.
Technically true, but I think you're missing the point. In fact, the arguments here about whether this meter is "true analog" or that one is "digital" miss what the original poster was trying to say.
Whether I play my guitar and record it directly, or use a digitized sample or even a modeled guitar sound, the end result sounds like a guitar. Likewise, it's entirely possible to emulate an analog meter with digital t
Re: (Score:2)
many cases this adds a lot of cost for little/no added benefit
On the contrary. Precision digital equipment is usually cheaper and simpler than analog. Keeping 120dB SNR in the digital domain is trivial. In the analog domain, not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. My power amp has a pair of big, blue meters on it. It's only about six years old, but McIntosh certainly hasn't stopped using them. Indeed, the trend has been towards ever larger meters. My truck - 2012 Peterbilt - has fourteen or fifteen analog gauges, (and six digital gauges). It would be more costly to use a display large enough to accommodate that many gauges, which you want to have visible at a glance. While it's certainly feasible in a car, I notice some manufacturers, like Cooper, have opted for
Re: (Score:3)
No one, outside of some small specialty manufacturers (including some old-time avionics makers), makes analog meters implemented mechanically any more, if you mean something where a cable turns some gears which turn a needle. They're all electrical and digitally-controlled now, and have been for some time, and for good reason: mechanical meters simply aren't as reliable or accurate.
SCUBA still has analog ... (Score:2)
No one, outside of some small specialty manufacturers (including some old-time avionics makers), makes analog meters implemented mechanically any more, if you mean something where a cable turns some gears which turn a needle. They're all electrical and digitally-controlled now, and have been for some time, and for good reason: mechanical meters simply aren't as reliable or accurate.
Depends on the domain. Analog gauges are still popular in SCUBA diving. No batteries required. An analog pressure gauge telling you whats in the tank. Another analog pressure gauge telling you your depth.
... but while on a dive boat about half the divers had analog and half had dive computers. Guess which group the programmers and electrical engineers tended to be in and which group the lawyers and accountants tended to be in? :-)
OK, this was a while ago
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the domain. Analog gauges are still popular
Sorry, you're right. I should have specified I'm really talking about cars here. For simple/low-cost applications, they still use analog mechanical gauges. For instance, the gauge on any air compressor is just a cheap mechanical gauge.
Also, mechanical gauges do tend to be very rugged. That's not a useful trait in a car, but for scuba gear it certainly is.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, cause digital dive computers are 6-10-30 times the cost of analog gauges. :)
Value of Analog (Score:5, Insightful)
I like analog meters because most digital meters suck. Digital meters sample, and most of them sample poorly. Good ones sample much faster than they update the display, and average per display update.
Analog meters, on the other hand, mechanically integrate and give some information about the frequency and range of a rapidly varying input. Additionally, they noticeably twitch better than many digital displays and give a much better awareness of rate of change than do digital gauges.
All of these problems are taken care of in good digital gauges. Not at all ironically, the good ones aggressively emulate analog gauges. The newer 747s I fly have tapes and gauges on glass that work very, very well. I have no complaints about them. Outside of aviation, though, the only digital gauges that don't suck are digital speedometers, and that's with a ton and a half of dampening.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
These are all good reasons to prefer analog gauges over crappy digital readouts. Somewhat hysterically, this guy misses all that with his "analog meter" - which is a clapping monkey toy.
"Now today our monkey here is tied to the Intel stock price, so that every time the stock has gone up since the previous refresh cycle, he will clap for you, but if the stock price has gone down since the previous refresh, then his eyes bug out, he bares his teeth and starts screeching. So you know things are headed in the w
Re: (Score:2)
Improvement versus fads (Score:3)
Liking the command-line doesn't make someone a Luddite either.
Actually it does make you a luddite (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with an analogue like display, either a needle (like a speedometer) or a bar drawn on a monitor or the like. However the display itself is probably not analogue these days. The monitor is an LCD and while the pixels are small, they do quantize. The needle is analogue, but it is probably driven by a PWM controlled motor and takes digital inputs. It is a sensible way of doing thing, it makes for more precise meters, more error free transmission, and the ability to display the same data w
It depends (Score:2)
Both have their place. If something represents a percentage of a total, then analogue displays are the best. If something has indefinite range, then digital is best. In the end the best solution should allow for getting essential information with minimum of effort, but it will also depend on the given context.
There are some places where is t is hard to decide which is best. One example is time, since at least for me, context of use makes a difference.
And... (Score:2)
Using slide rules for your calculations does not make you a luddite either.
Re: (Score:2)
no but to pull it off you also need to wear a white labcoat, smoke a pipe and have a thing for tweed.
BS (Score:2)
which gets a little harder every year because hardly any new analog meters are being manufactured.
I call BS. Most cars come with analog readouts for speedometers, temperature and gas tanks. Most portable electronics use analog readouts to sow remaining battery power as well as signal strength for WiFi. My expensive air pump readout is also analog.
The volume setting on my laptop and ipod is analog too. My watch is analog, after the short spell in te late 70s and early 80s when we went digital. So is the clock on the wall in all the rooms that have one, both at home and the work place.
Analog readouts are
Not analog (Score:2)
Most cars come with analog readouts for speedometers, temperature and gas tanks.
You may be surprised to find out that many of those are now actually digital. The gauges look all old-timey and appear analog but the actual signal being communicated is a digital signal and thus so are the gauges technically speaking.
Most portable electronics use analog readouts to sow remaining battery power as well as signal strength for WiFi.
Those are digital too. Does not matter at all how it looks.
The volume setting on my laptop and ipod is analog too.
Not it is not. It is digital imitating analog. Not at all the same thing. The volume on those devices increases/decreases in discrete amounts and hence it cannot be analog by definition. No continuous signal = No
Re: (Score:2)
Most cars come with analog readouts for speedometers, temperature and gas tanks.
You may be surprised to find out that many of those are now actually digital. The gauges look all old-timey and appear analog but the actual signal being communicated is a digital signal and thus so are the gauges technically speaking.
The video was about hooking analog gauges into the analog outputs available on an Intel dev board. By that logic, they would be digital outputs just the same.
Human Machine Interaction Science (Score:5, Insightful)
It is very interested to watch trends in HMI design over many years, especially in the process industry.
In the 60s it was all about chart recorders. The exact pressure / temperature didn't matter, what was critical was a short term trend and operating roughly in the right place. They were easy to interprate and somehow entire refineries were run without fancy control systems.
Jump to the 80s and it was all about dotting numbers all over a screen in the name of progress.
At the turn of the century the numbers started getting longer. The worst case I saw was a differential pressure transmitter which displayed flow through a pipe in kg/h to 6 significant digits (yeah right).
In the last 5 years there's been a rise of what the industry is calling "High Performance HMI". And it's taking everything back to basics, back to what it was before some vendor gave people the option of plastering pretty graphics and numbers on a display. The move is now about removing all distractions, removing the colours, displaying short term graphing trends, limiting the numbers to only essentials and never more than 2 decimal places unless it's critical.
The inspiration of HpHMI is .... the airline industry. The A380 cockpit has 8 large LCD displays, yet what they display on them are analogue gauges.
Analogue gauges ignore the exact number in favour of quick and easy glances at current operating states. More importantly analogue gauges provide one thing that digital gauges never will, quick and easy rate of change information. Rather than calculating in your head you can simply see the needle move. It's an important bit of info that can't be shown any other way.
Take a look at any cockpit.
The autopilot heading: digital. The exact number is important. It doesn't change quickly. If it does change quickly then it's not important to know about it because likely something else is currently going wrong.
The altitude: analogue. The exact number is not important. Its rate of change is important.
We need to go thaw some designers from the 50s and 60s and put them back in charge to kill this obsession with numbers that seems to have crept in in the past 30 years.
Re: (Score:2)
More numbers are also not necessarily more accurate either...
Couldn't agree ore. In my specific example differential pressure to flow conversion in an ideal case it's accurate to 1% with a turndown ratio of about 15:1. In most general purpose cases you're looking at a 10:1 turn down at the most and an accuracy of 5%, and that's not taking into account corrosion and damage to the flow orifice or incorrect assumptions about the state of the fluid.
5 of the 6 numbers on the display were absolute garbage. I put through a change request to change the display from reading k
Analog advantages (Score:2, Informative)
There are two things that analog meters do very well that (most*) digital meters do either not at all or very badly.
One is rate of change. An analog meter in a wild overload condition will begin traveling very very fast, potentially giving you the opportunity to shut down before catastrophe occurs A digital meter will simply update its display a few times without any of the sense of urgency, and it's kaboom.
Another is getting a reasonable estimate from a dithering signal. A digital meter dithering betwe
Huh? (Score:3)
he likes analog meters
I thought they were called "yards."
graphical display (Score:2)
A graphical display is easier to read than a digital readout. This has nothing to do with whether or not the display is analog.
Context dependant (Score:2)
A graphical display is easier to read than a digital readout.
The truth of that statement depends strongly on the nature of what is being communicated. Sometimes a graphic is far more informative. Sometimes a number is more helpful. But the choice of either is context dependent. You can easily find examples where each is preferred in a particular circumstance.
blech. (Score:2)
I read that as "licking analog meters", I think it's time for me to turn off the computer so I can turn my full attention to my drinking.
Re: (Score:2)
Before I go, let me leave you with some REAL analog Meters:
http://youtu.be/VPjZ_KpwXH8 [youtu.be]
If you can make it through that cut without shaking your fat bottom, you better head straight for the doctor.
RF circuit alignment (Score:2)
What about nixie tubes? (Score:2)
Oh.
Slashdot Video (Score:4, Informative)
Liking Flash instead of supporting HTML5 video doesn't make you a Luddite.
Re:Slashdot Video (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe not, but it does make you evil.
For radio alinement there is nothing better. (Score:2)
In this application, the accuracy isn't important - and you are adjusting for a peak value or null. Digital meters try to compensate with a bar graph, but it just isn't the same. And I don't like analogs here out of nostalgia.
I use both kinds of meters - analog meters are poor at accuracy, but if I have to peek circuits, I'm going to use an old analog meter.
There is one more advantage to analog meters - they are low impedance compared to the fancy meters - and that can fool the user if there is electromag
Analog Guages Will Always be Better (Score:2)
I am a pilot and for the most part every guage in the plane points straight up to 12 o'clock when things are normal
With one glance I can tell that everything is running fine, I don't have to think, I just look and in a busy cockpit that can mean the difference between life and death. If I am shooting an IFR approach down to minimums I have a very rapid scan of a very few instruments and every 5th scan or so it is a full panel scan so I know that among other things, the vacuum pump suction level is correct,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All is well. Or the screen was just blanked by WiFi [reuters.com].
Hmmm?
Re: (Score:2)
Well besides being a single point of failure I can't really see what could possibly be wrong with that.
In an airliner you have several screens that can display and particular set of indicators, and as was previously mentioned, as analog guages, in a small plane you are lucky if you have two, but generally speaking you only have one and they are not so very big.
Of all the studies of human factors in operating hi performance equipment in possibly dangerous situations airplane cockpits are probably the most i
Ignore if Allergic to History (Score:2)
"This is related to another aspect of changing the problem. I was once solving on a digital computer the first really large simulation of a system of simultaneous differential equations which at that time were the natural problem for an analog computer—but they had not been able to do it and I was doing it on an IBM 701. The method of integration was an adaptation of the classical Milne’s method, and was ugly to say the least. I suddenly realized of course, being a military problem, I would have
God Tier (Score:2)
Magic eye tube here.
Null indicator on a General Radio 1611A [conradhoffman.com] capacitance bridge.
Why bother with cheap? (Score:2)
I'll take a good dial caliper over the cheap digital ones I've had.
Why bother with the cheap digital ones? If the measurement is important get a good gauge whether it be digital or analog. What's important is whether it tells you what you want to know for a price that makes sense.
Re:Analog! (Score:5, Funny)
Digital! When arbitrary precision is mistaken for accuracy!
Re: (Score:2)
My first oscilloscope was one of those. Tiny little round screen, black crinkle finish... I got it in 1960 or 61; WWII surplus. Found it at some sort of hamfest or other electronics swap meet.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, unfortunately it is hard to get hold of electronic components from the 30s-40s. There was a surge in the 90's to 00's, when a lot of ex-USSR stock was sold. Nixie tubes, valves, analogue meters, old WWII equipment. The lot. As the USSR stayed with bakelite far longer than the NATO pact, you have a more items available that used it, over a greater year range.
And yeah, there was a renaissance at the time, as people built nixie clocks, displays, and did all sorts of nice things with the neon tubes and va