Page 21 - The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design

The Importance of Fixing

would seemingly be unremittingly pounded into me. No apprenticeship
was ever more necessary, better delivered, or, years later, as appreciated,
I cooled off, and the issue seemed irrelevant, because nothing broke
for a while. The first thing to finally die was a high sensitivity, differen-
tial 'scope plug-in, a Tektronix 1A7. Life would never be the same,
The problem wasn't particularly difficult to find once I took the time
to understand how the thing worked. The manual's level of detail and
writing tone were notable; communication was the priority. This seemed
a significant variance from academic publications, and I was impressed,
The instrament more than justified the manual's efforts. It was gorgeous.
The integration of mechanicals, layout, and electronics was like nothing I
had ever seen. Hours after the thing was fixed I continued to probe and
puzzle through its subtleties. A common mode bootstrap scheme was
particularly interesting; it had direct applicability to my lab work,
Similarly, I resolved to wholesale steal the techniques used for reducing
input current and noise.
Figure 1-1. Over the next month I found myself continually drifting away from
Oh boy, if s my research project, taking apart test equipment to see how it worked.
broken! Life doesn't This was interesting in itself, but what I really wanted was to test my
get any belter than
this.