It’s human nature to look at the technological achievements of the ancients — you know, anything before the 1990s — and marvel at how they were able to achieve precision results in such benighted times. How could anyone create a complicated mechanism without the aid of CNC machining and computer-aided design tools? Clearly, it was aliens. […]
We rarely take a moment to consider the beauty of the components we use in electronic designs. Too often they are simply commodities, bought in bulk on reels or in bags, stashed in a drawer until they’re needed, and then unceremoniously soldered to a board. Granted, little scraps of black plastic with silver leads don’t […]