On Sun, 02 Aug 2015 11:18:17 -0700, Don Y wrote:

On 8/2/2015 9:16 AM, Jim Thompson wrote:
I think it's time I upgraded my 'Spice' machine... my present machine
is as follows... no laughter please... I've successfully done at least
at least 20 chip designs on this machine. What modern equivalent
should I replace it with?

A lot of that depends on how you work. I have friends who are perpetually
upgrading -- trying to eek out the last epsilon of performance, never
considering the time spent in the upgrade process (reinstallling software
and then reconfiguring it for the various "options"/preferences you had);
nor the "losses" that come with it (e.g., peripherals and applications that
no longer work).

But, if you look at their work process, they sit and *watch* their
machine, waiting for it to cough up a result. So, in their minds,
every increase in performance (if not counteracted by inefficiencies in
software "upgrades") is a net improvement.

OTOH, I prefer to wait a bit for each action I expect from my machines.
This gives me time to reorganize my thoughts: what will I do *when*
the machine is finished? what is my next priority? how will I verify
that the machine has done what I expected of it? etc.

Likewise, if the time involved is "more than a cup of tea", I can move
to another machine (or chore) and make some progress there. No need
to sit and wait for a machine to do the job it *will* perform.

So, the trick is finding the right amount of "wait" -- too little and
you can't get started on something else; too much and you risk the
task taking too long for your schedule, etc.

I got a new PC on Friday, and I'm going through the awful process of
installing all my existing apps and settings and projects and desktop
stuff. Old HP XP, new monster Win7 Dell with 4x the ram, 30x the disk,
gobs of horsepower. Such a trauma is worth it every 3 years or so,
certainly not much more often.


In the 80's, I had a pair of 25MHz 386's. It would take a full 24 hours
to render some of my 3D CAD models. I'd turn off the monitor (save
power) and put a note on the keyboard: "Do not turn off" (lest I
forget in a moment of distraction). Then, move to the other machine
and keep working on mode models, or a schematic, or a layout, or some
software, or assembling a prototype, or ordering components, or office
supplies, etc. Always *something* that could be done in the time waiting
(without it feeling like you're "waiting")

I occasionally run a Spice sim on the old 5-year-old HP that take many
minutes per run, so design iterations are slow. That's about the
slowest thing I do, and most circuit sims take a second or two. I can
spin a SolidWorks 3D model essentially instantly. Doing a design rules
check on a big PC board might take 10 seconds, so I don't often need
more compute power. Webbing is connection speed limited.

Why does Microsoft keep changing the way Windows works, for no
apparent reason? Most annoying.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
lunatic fringe electronics

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com