Author Topic: Does instruments have feelings? (Read 4625 times)

CrazyTiger · « **on:** February 16, 2019, 12:21:54 pm »

Tonite I am supposed to get a DPO2024B, got it cheap for about 200USD. To prepare for a bandwidth test, I fired up my TDS380P to verify the amplitude of a 200MHz Signal, to my sadness and it gave me errors, it failed self-test and SPC Test

(it was fine yesterday).

Which made me wonder, maybe the feeling of my TDS380P got hurt with an arrival of a baby brother

Anyone else come across this situation, you get a new and shiny Instrument and the older one starts throwing tantrums?

nctnico · « **Reply #1 on:** February 16, 2019, 12:33:49 pm »

Yup. Ordered a 'new' RF generator and the old one stops to work the same day.

Zenith · « **Reply #2 on:** February 16, 2019, 12:56:01 pm »

I haven't noticed that.

What I have seen is that test equipment fails in the middle of a difficult repair, when you least want it to, presenting you with another difficult repair you have to do before you can continue with what you are doing. I think it resents the attention given to something else and does something outrageously naughty to make itself centre stage.

metrologist · « **Reply #3 on:** February 16, 2019, 01:01:12 pm »

I'm glad this thread is within sanity. I had a coworker that literally believed water had feelings. He put his water in a glass bottle and would set it next to a plant and play music for it. He would talk to his water. He would hold some kind of rock on a string over it and observe the perturbations and believe the water was communicating back to him. In all other respects, he seemed like a normal guy.

When I was younger, I would curse my equipment and call it foul names, and threaten it with demolition. It never twitched, not once.

Zenith · « **Reply #4 on:** February 16, 2019, 01:18:54 pm »

Years ago I worked on an HP3000 mini computer. Just occasionally, always late on a Friday afternoon, doing a long compilation, the compilation would stop with a long strange error report. It wasn't a compiler error, it wasn't an operating system error, it wasn't in any manual, it didn't identify itself clearly, but it wasn't gibberish, it wasn't repeatable.

I always thought the HP3000 had been at it all week, it was close to home time on Friday afternoon, it was looking forward to the weekend, and its mind wasn't really on it.

GilbouFR · « **Reply #5 on:** February 16, 2019, 01:43:36 pm »

A Hellene · « **Reply #6 on:** February 16, 2019, 02:03:38 pm »

I hope you are kidding, by asking whether (cold dead) instruments (been made of metal, silicon and plastics) having feelings or not!

Well, if you are not, the answer is straightforward:
Not even humanoids (meaning: not humans ['anthropoi'], but human-like [bio-robots or 'spartoi' just like the ones Prometheus, Cadmos, Deucalion & Pyrrha, etc. created]) have any feelings; they might have senses by their sensory organs (as instruments having sensors might have a vague picture of their environment) but they do not have a psyche at all!

So, yes, they might be able to be sensing some things but they are totally unable to be feeling.

-George

TiN · « **Reply #7 on:** February 16, 2019, 02:08:23 pm »

Yep, they do feel. Every time I browse for another dead 3458A, my working ones produce 0.2ppm blip in readings... When once in a year I power off the calibrator, all meters die from sadness a little.

David Hess · « **Reply #8 on:** February 16, 2019, 08:35:54 pm »

I foresee an animated movie featuring test equipment as the characters. Or perhaps a live action movie which is more like Christine.

Echo88 · « **Reply #9 on:** February 17, 2019, 08:20:15 pm »

Wolfgang · « **Reply #10 on:** February 17, 2019, 10:50:22 pm »

Quote from: CrazyTiger on February 16, 2019, 12:21:54 pm

Tonite I am supposed to get a DPO2024B, got it cheap for about 200USD. To prepare for a bandwidth test, I fired up my TDS380P to verify the amplitude of a 200MHz Signal, to my sadness and it gave me errors, it failed self-test and SPC Test (it was fine yesterday).

Which made me wonder, maybe the feeling of my TDS380P got hurt with an arrival of a baby brother
Anyone else come across this situation, you get a new and shiny Instrument and the older one starts throwing tantrums?

My instruments dont (I hope). I *do* have feelings about them (if they dont do what I want). Nothing than can be duplicated here, just general obscenity and foul language

David Hess · « **Reply #11 on:** February 18, 2019, 01:15:34 am »

That is one of my favorite "adult" animated movies Echo88, maybe because it is very non-Disney.

Wolfgang · « **Reply #12 on:** February 18, 2019, 01:51:26 am »

Where from is the video ?

TheSteve · « **Reply #13 on:** February 18, 2019, 05:03:20 am »

They must, why else would you need to constantly pet the watch-dog?

Inverted18650 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 18, 2019, 05:43:45 am »

Its a blend of the word feelings and karma, but they certainly sense whats going on around them.

RoGeorge · « **Reply #15 on:** February 18, 2019, 06:10:18 am »

Quote from: David Hess on February 18, 2019, 01:15:34 am

That is one of my favorite "adult" animated movies Echo88, maybe because it is very non-Disney.

What's the name of the movie, please?

Berni · « **Reply #16 on:** February 18, 2019, 06:39:56 am »

On another note i have a haunted HP 8566A

It was sitting there in the rack powered off, but then all of a sudden all of its fans started running, nothing came up on the front panel apart form a few LEDs, clicking the power button back and forth did nothing and kept going until i eventually pulled the plug for the rack.

After some time i pulled the heavy bastard out of the rack to take a look and found only a blown fuse for the standby power rail(used to hold the oven warm and such). Turns out this thing is using the standby rail to hold the relays for the rest of the rails open, so if the standby rail fails all the other rails come up regardless of the power switch position, but the instrument doesn't boot because of the missing standby rail.

med6753 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 18, 2019, 08:31:08 am »

Quote from: RoGeorge on February 18, 2019, 06:10:18 am

Quote from: David Hess on February 18, 2019, 01:15:34 am
That is one of my favorite "adult" animated movies Echo88, maybe because it is very non-Disney.

What's the name of the movie, please?

"The Brave Little Toaster"

CrazyTiger · « **Reply #18 on:** February 18, 2019, 01:30:51 pm »

Update:

My TDS380P that died has a dead Dallas DS1644-120 NVRAM, now I am sourcing for a replacement chip.
The "new" DPO2024 arrived, the best part is the run time counter states only 60 Hours of usage, it even smells new..yay

IDEngineer · « **Reply #19 on:** February 18, 2019, 06:40:28 pm »

Allow me to slightly reword this comment:

Quote from: Zenith on February 16, 2019, 12:56:01 pm

What I have seen is that test and development equipment fails in the middle of a project, when you least want it to, presenting you with a difficult repair you have to do before you can continue with what you are doing.

1000% THIS!!! I can't count the number of times I'm deep in some development project and suddenly a scope gives me trouble, or I reveal some hitherto unknown bug in the compiler or IDE, etc. My head is buried in the project's details, it's all organized in my brain, I'm "one with" everything that's happening, I can feel that the answer is moments away - and then my development environment has an issue that stops the entire process dead. POW, the mindset is lost... I have to unwind the mental stack and switch contexts to work on my freakin' R&D gear just so I can get back to what I was actually supposed to be doing. Even if the fix only takes a few minutes, it can take an hour or more to re-establish the environment and get my head completely back into the game.

Tools are supposed to HELP with development, not hinder it.

I've told myself that if I ever start another company, I'm going to hire someone whose primary responsibility is to keep all R&D equipment properly functioning, with hot spares ready to go at a moment's notice. If I'm that deep in development and a problem arises, this person will temporarily rectify the problem so I can keep my brain phase-locked rather than lose all of that focus. I won't have to think about what's wrong... I won't have to switch gears into "fix-it" mode... I'll just yell someone's name and they will swap out equipment until things start moving again.

Hey, allow me this one fantasy, OK?

Fungus · « **Reply #20 on:** February 18, 2019, 07:16:14 pm »

Quote from: IDEngineer on February 18, 2019, 06:40:28 pm

Quote from: Zenith on February 16, 2019, 12:56:01 pm
What I have seen is that test and development equipment fails in the middle of a project, when you least want it to

1000% THIS!!! I can't count the number of times I'm deep in some development project and suddenly a scope gives me trouble, or I reveal some hitherto unknown bug in the compiler or IDE, etc.

Selective memory?

IDEngineer · « **Reply #21 on:** February 18, 2019, 08:03:52 pm »

I don't think so. I generally factor in "quirks" of equipment or software tools. I even make note of accommodations for known issues in my source code comments, for example.

Mr. Scram · « **Reply #22 on:** February 18, 2019, 09:29:18 pm »

Animism is one of the most primal and primitive forms of belief system or religion. Although I have to admit I've cursed at my car or computer at times too, I think it's more a matter of having more patience to deal with problems when you think there's something sentient on the other side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism

rsjsouza · « **Reply #23 on:** February 18, 2019, 09:36:16 pm »

Quote from: IDEngineer on February 18, 2019, 06:40:28 pm

Allow me to slightly reword this comment:

Quote from: Zenith on February 16, 2019, 12:56:01 pm
What I have seen is that test and development equipment fails in the middle of a project, when you least want it to, presenting you with a difficult repair you have to do before you can continue with what you are doing.

1000% THIS!!! I can't count the number of times I'm deep in some development project (...)

Tools are supposed to HELP with development, not hinder it.

Exactly. They will HELP you when they FEEL like it.

Mr. Scram · « **Reply #24 on:** February 18, 2019, 09:41:53 pm »

Quote from: Fungus on February 18, 2019, 07:16:14 pm

Selective memory?

Plus the weight of the issue. If you experience a quirk without anything being on the line the issue is much smaller than when it's crunch time during an important project.


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Author Topic: Does instruments have feelings? (Read 4625 times)

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