From: muratlanne@gmail.com   
      
   "Richard Smith"  wrote in message news:m11pinekna.fsf@void.com...   
      
   "Jim Wilkins"  writes:   
      
   > "Jim Wilkins"  wrote in message news:10mnke2$2ful0$1@dont-email.me...   
   >   
   >>..learned it mostly by studying the data sheets for   
   > new devices, which went beyond what anyone had learned in school."   
   >   
   > Here is an example that I studied when asked to design a controller   
   > for the new small hard drives in the early 80's.   
   > https://deramp.com/downloads/floppy_drives/FD1771%20Floppy%20Controller.pdf   
      
   This is the manual-read which saved someone's life   
   https://twindisc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MG-MGX-Operators   
   manual-1016313_RevL_0818_CD.pdf   
   Labelled Pages 3-5 to 3-8.   
      
   Not on your level of sophistication, but the "stripped" diagram was what   
   conveyed what the things do and how they work.   
      
   A few days later a boatperson got caught in the bight / loops of their   
   own rope on a nearly 30m work-boat...   
   I knew the fingers of one hand had more digits than there were seconds   
   for whatever needed to be done to have been done...   
      
   Having seen that diagram, I knew the answer in that moment - get along,   
   hail the skipper and get the boat to power astern into the current until   
   the boatperson could climb out of their own rope.   
      
   Manuals can be the raw information source which provides "the penny   
   drops" moment.   
      
   -----------------------------------   
   Shifting to neutral would still have allowed the propeller to continue to   
   pull in the rope from the current flow?   
      
   Understanding the electrical schematic of my car saved me from a lawsuit. It   
   was a habit acquired from designing automotive electronics test equipment. I   
   also quickly realized that a leaking thermostat was why the torque converter   
   wouldn't lock up in cruise on my present car.   
      
   I saw that the low fuel level sensor was a negative temperature coefficient   
   (NTC) thermistor (variable resistor) on the fuel pump in series with the   
   dash warning lamp. Immersion in fuel kept the thermistor cool and high   
   resistance, when exposed it would heat up, the resistance drop, and the   
   current rise enough to light the bulb, which then limited the current and   
   further heating.   
      
   That process had been claimed to be a trade secret of the previous employer   
   of the developers of the machine I was working on, though the thermistor   
   maker had published how to design it, a tricky balance of temperature,   
   varying resistance and heat loss to air or liquid. Heat conductivity tapped   
   into my Chemistry and Physics training, the power division between variable   
   loads in series is a Calculus problem.   
      
   The lawyer asked me innocent questions at first and then where I got the   
   idea for my no-moving-parts liquid level detector circuit to which I could   
   immediately answer "Oh, that's how my car's low fuel light works", which   
   cleared me of the Intellectual Property theft charge. The rest of the   
   lawsuit crippled the company and ended the project. I had lost the previous   
   job the same way. The cost and distraction of fighting a suit is enough to   
   ruin a small company putting its resources into new product development,   
   whether they would win or lose.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)