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| Will our engineering resources become dominated by Chinese design? |
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| Smokey:
--- Quote from: coppice on November 16, 2023, 10:02:25 pm --- --- Quote from: Smokey on November 16, 2023, 09:17:39 pm --- --- Quote from: coppice on November 15, 2023, 06:53:25 pm --- --- Quote from: dobsonr741 on November 15, 2023, 06:23:07 pm --- --- Quote ---I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework --- End quote --- To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China. --- End quote --- If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies. --- End quote --- I'm sorry but outsourcing your core development tools to "the community" is lazy, not honorable. Same goes for "official community forum support". --- End quote --- I think engineers are plenty evenly split between the "vendors should do all the software' camp, and the "vendors are so hopeless they should facilitate us making the tools function well" camp. --- End quote --- I don't think that holds though. It's one of those situations where they have amazing hardware designed and fabricated by amazing ee and production engineers that can consistently and reliably perform to spec... But.... I guess there are no good software engineers to be found??? Who could have possibly predicted that after all that hardware effort we would need software guys too!! Hardware is only half the job. If I release a circuit board with no firmware I can't expect my customers to write it themselves. |
| Simon:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on November 16, 2023, 09:40:59 pm ---I'm not sure what the point of this thread exactly is in the end. China has been on an economic growth that we haven't experienced in decades, so obviously they have a major edge currently in terms of development and investments, while we are in a downwards spiral. Cycles. Does that mean that it's all rosy over there? I don't think so. It's a totalitarian regime, so of course that helps "focusing", but the price to pay for that is very high. Historically speaking, no totalitarian regime has ever lasted forever, so China's current regime won't either. Meanwhile they'll reap all they can while it lasts. And, we are on some level acting as though we were committing suicide in the western world. Maybe that's just part of the cycle too. While China (and others outside of the western world) invests pragmatically, we have cut down investments a lot on similar things, while focusing on investments that will "save the planet" (mostly dead-end projects), except maybe the arms industry. And then we whine. Kind of pathetic. As to China vs. open source, that's a pretty odd relationship actually. Open source could only have started in a world where IP was a core value, if you really think about it. This is not the case in China for the most part, and they do not care much about neither IP nor open source. They use open source as they see fit, while often reluctantly sharing back, if at all. When they do it properly, that's often the exception rather than the norm. --- End quote --- Basically it's all about the economics and the output in the west. We are paid more and do less for it, economics has rules for that. Obviously once you have cornered the market of unskilled labor the only avenue for growth is to take on the more skilled stuff . |
| coppercone2:
--- Quote from: Bicurico on November 15, 2023, 10:19:18 am ---I visited China 6 years ago (Hong Kong and Shenzhen). My perception, as a European, was as if I was in the future. Engineering wise they are on par or beyond Europeans. As an example: I collect TV field meter and have a respectable collection with devices from most manufacturers like Kathrein, Sefram, Televes, Rover Instruments and Promax. All are European. But the best field meter I own is the Deviser S7200. It features a full spectrum analyser and has all measurements you can think of, together with the best TS analyser implementation. It is fully developed and manufactured in China. Now think of Rigol and Siglent. And the upcoming automotive revolution. What happend is that Europe got lazy and busy with stuff like Gender, socialism and what not, while China was investing in infrastructure and planning ahead 10-20 years. We Europeans are planning ahead in 2 year cycles, to match the 4 year election cycle (2 years to steal all money and 2 years to do campaign for the nex election). Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything. Europe either changes to a right wing governance and thrives for independence of China, or we are indeed doomed. --- End quote --- What technologies do you see being developed by the military that warrents throwing money at them to see economic growth? The trend is not to do general research since the Mansfield amendment in 1970. Materials they develop stay super classified. Alloys, plastics, etc. Anything made for hypersonic and stealth related projects (big spending) is going to be highly classified for a long time because of national security. I am not sure what you think the military is on the verge of discovering that's going to improve general industry. Air logistics is something that is big spending, but its a nightmare to get benefits from this because of laws, ordinances, noise, danger, etc. Amazon is having shit luck at developing it. And it goes with robotics, its so easy to weaponize, they won't be doing anything really cool and available till they have good counter measures. Its probobly treated like having air superiority, or bot superiority. probobly means most of the developments are hush hush and restricted. Cyber capabilities is god knows what, military unix admins. again cutting edge national security, the source code, algorithms, etc... highly classified and compartmentalized. Walmart aint gonna get the developments in database sorting and shit from them unless its some kinda encrypted service. On the plus side it means that infrastructure will be modern and maintained, which is important. Kind of like how the highway system (eisenhower) had some crazy original plot that was 'landing strips everywhere in ww3'. hypersonics - yeah right, the materials are likely treated like stealth bomber skin (terribly classified) directed energy weapons - maybe some bulked up degraded performance transmitters can be used for space RF beam down power one day. That is a super delayed return. I bet the first phase is gonna be about as successful as Indium internet sats (now its taking off with musk, but the first attempt was a really grievous financial failure) 3d printing - seems like the most useful development for general industry. robotics - it seems the enemies of the USA are apt at using robotics. the military learned in ukraine that giving people robots means robots will be used against you. Not much barriers to it. Probably gonna be stunted. AI was supposed to be awesome or whatever but it turns out right off the bat their paranoid as hell about it being used against them. I feel like the military has a poor return on investment due to lack of general research, which seems most useful. All the stuff they want needs to be largely classified to retain a operational advantage in war..... too many people are ready to implement it globally. I think its wise to maintain reasonable spending here, but IMO its definitely not a way out of financial crisis. if you increase their budget too much, then press them for returns after massive tech development, their gonna end up giving away some really dangerous stuff thats hard to use and causes instability. the technology won't be useless but that is not an efficient or wise use of money. if non military uses that extra money to make.. normal ? basic? technology, then you just have a general improvement. its kind of like getting weird ass food instead of more normal food. and the food is ghost pepper chocolate bars that give you a massive stomach ache |
| Boscoe:
--- Quote from: Smokey on November 16, 2023, 10:09:02 pm --- --- Quote from: coppice on November 16, 2023, 10:02:25 pm --- --- Quote from: Smokey on November 16, 2023, 09:17:39 pm --- --- Quote from: coppice on November 15, 2023, 06:53:25 pm --- --- Quote from: dobsonr741 on November 15, 2023, 06:23:07 pm --- --- Quote ---I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework --- End quote --- To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China. --- End quote --- If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies. --- End quote --- I'm sorry but outsourcing your core development tools to "the community" is lazy, not honorable. Same goes for "official community forum support". --- End quote --- I think engineers are plenty evenly split between the "vendors should do all the software' camp, and the "vendors are so hopeless they should facilitate us making the tools function well" camp. --- End quote --- I don't think that holds though. It's one of those situations where they have amazing hardware designed and fabricated by amazing ee and production engineers that can consistently and reliably perform to spec... But.... I guess there are no good software engineers to be found??? Who could have possibly predicted that after all that hardware effort we would need software guys too!! Hardware is only half the job. If I release a circuit board with no firmware I can't expect my customers to write it themselves. --- End quote --- I couldn't agree more, you need both for an effective product. I guess a manufacturer could get away with not suppling any SW in the past when an MCU had jus ta few k of memory and odd comms peripheral however these days microcontrollers are now performing at levels personal computers were 40 years ago. |
| Simon:
My go to is a SAMC micro controller with an M0+ ARM processor running at 48MHz, the ROM memory access speed is limited to 24MHz and I believe the RAM will run at 48MHz, it costs £1.50 The original ARM CPU in the Archimedes PC that it was originally designed for was running at a few MHz |
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