This is only a preview of the March 1998 issue of Silicon Chip. You can view 43 of the 96 pages in the full issue, including the advertisments. For full access, purchase the issue for $10.00 or subscribe for access to the latest issues. Articles in this series:
Items relevant to "Sustain Unit For Electric Guitars":
Items relevant to "Multi-Purpose Fast Battery Charger; Pt.2":
Items relevant to "Command Control For Model Railways; Pt.3":
Items relevant to "PC-Controlled Liquid Crystal Display Board":
Articles in this series:
Articles in this series:
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PUBLISHER'S LETTER
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Production Manager
Greg Swain, B.Sc.(Hons.)
Technical Staff
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
Robert Flynn
Rick Walters
Reader Services
Ann Jenkinson
Advertising Manager
Brendon Sheridan
Phone (03) 9720 9198
Mobile 0416 009 217
Regular Contributors
Brendan Akhurst
Garry Cratt, VK2YBX
Julian Edgar, Dip.T.(Sec.), B.Ed
John Hill
Mike Sheriff, B.Sc, VK2YFK
Ross Tester
Philip Watson, MIREE, VK2ZPW
Bob Young
SILICON CHIP is published 12 times
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ISSN 1030-2662
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2 Silicon Chip
Getting on top of
the correspondence
mountain
As I write this editorial, it is Aus
tralia Day. I have spent most of the day
answering letters to readers. It’s been
good really, because I have had the
whole day to do it without interruption
from the telephone or other workday
distractions. It’s been good too because
it drives home to me just how enthu
siastic readers are about SILICON CHIP
and electronics in general. It’s good to
be appreciated.
But today I have had to finally admit that I and we at the magazine have a
big problem with correspondence from readers. Quite a few letters have gone
unanswered in the last year and there is little prospect that I can answer some
of those older letters. I apologise here and now to those readers but perhaps
I can explain why it has happened.
Everyday there is a batch of letters from readers and many of them can be
answered quite readily, although not necessarily on the same day. As you
can imagine, there are times during the magazine’s production cycle when
there simply isn’t any time at all to answer letters; the magazine must take
precedence otherwise we will miss deadlines and the magazine will go on
sale late. Generally though, most letters are answered within a week or so of
their arrival in the office. Some miss out though and I would like to explain
how this comes about.
Some letters get passed over merely because they are too long to read at the
time. They can easily be three or four (or many more) pages of closely written
script and they can be loaded with questions. You see some of these letters
featured in the “Ask Silicon Chip” pages and it is not unusual for a reader to
ask six or more questions, often on unrelated topics. Such letters take a great
deal of time to read and then formulate the answers. One letter can easily take
an hour. I or someone else might be able to answer four out of five questions
easily but the fifth might take half an hour or more and that is after doing a
considerable amount of looking at older issues, data books and so on.
Even an apparently simple request can take an inordinate amount of time.
For example, one the letters I’ve answered today concerned the 2A SLA Bat
tery Charger published in the July 1996 issue. The reader wanted to know
how to alter it to drive a laptop computer and how to reduce its output to
12V. By the time I had read the letter several times to make sure I understood
the problem, then referred back to the original article, worked out the circuit
changes and wrote the letter, it had taken me 20 minutes. And that was for a
straightforward letter. Some of them are really curly.
Quite often we also get letters where people ask about designs featured in
other magazines, some of which are no longer published. In some cases we
can answer but in others we just can’t. Nor can we provide design information
on topics which have not been published in the magazine. We are always
happy to receive suggestions but some we cannot respond to.
If this sounds like a great long moan, it is not meant to be. We love to see
those letters come in, even though we may shudder at the time it might take
to answer them. So perhaps readers can help make sure their letters will be
answered. First, keep the letters brief, to no more than one page, if possible.
Second, please don’t ask too many questions or for lots of detail. Remember
contiued on page 45
good and that multinational is even
better.
If you consider that EMC regu
lations are a burden, wait for GST
which is being openly pushed by big
business. Whilst superfi
cially GST
is probably a more equitable system,
the cost benefits to big business will
be enormous yet small business will
encounter an administrative and cost
burden nightmare or have I simply
become paranoid?
I. Purdie,
Pendle Hill South, NSW.
Upgrade article
was timely
I’ve just had to change a mother
board so Ross Tester’s article entitled
“A Heart Transplant For An Aging
Computer” in the December issue was
timely. Now the reason for the change
was that the CMOS battery in the
real-time clock (RTC) chip (“Odin”
OEC12C887) failed and the chip is
no longer obtainable except at some
ridiculous price. There was no sep
arate battery in the system and no
provision to add one externally.
It struck me that in the photo of the
ASUS board on page 5 of that issue,
here was an identical-looking RTC
chip down on the bottom edge, also
without any sign of a separate battery.
I don’t know if this particular board
has a socket for one but it exposes a
trap for new players. Anyone buying
a new or secondhand computer or
buying a new motherboard should
make sure either that there is a CMOS
battery external to the RTC chip or
there is a socket on the motherboard
to take one or, like me, they could end
up with an orphan when the battery
gives up the ghost.
Now I have read somewhere that
these batteries are supposed to last
10 years. Well, mine lasted 14 months
(just outside the warranty).
I also have another older machine
with a similar type of plug-in RTCplus-battery chip, only this one is the
“Dallas” chip. I’m told that these are
somewhat more readily available but
in any case are not interchangeable
with the Odin.
It could be argued that by the time
the battery fails it’s time to upgrade
the computer or its motherboard but
that seems to be a pretty drastic solu
tion for what is normally a $6 problem
and we shouldn’t have to accept it.
The second bit of advice, which
may seem pretty irrelevant at the
time you are all fired up to buy a new
computer, is to get memory chip-sets
of a size such that whatever your total
RAM size is to be, you don’t fill the
four available banks. Ross explained
it but it needs emphasising.
If you fill the available space with
the smaller RAM “sticks” at the start
it will be slightly cheaper at the time,
but when you eventually decide to
increase the RAM you will have to
throw all those old chips away. Sure,
you could try to find a buyer for them,
but that will not be easy because by
then everybody else will be having
the same problem.
If you don’t specify the bigger chips
when you buy the computer, you may
be given the smaller sticks (4Mb or
8Mb) or the smallest size that will fill
the four banks. That is because they
are the cheapest option for the dealer
to supply. He’s unlikely to explain it
to you because it’s money in the bank
for him further down the track. The
trouble is, you will be paying twice
over at some further time when you
upgrade.
A final bit of advice is to ensure that
you get a board whose BIOS handles
the transition to the year 2000 – and
fully. It’s easy to forget these things in
the heat of the moment. Both the BIOS
and the software must be “compliant”
but at least if the BIOS is correct it’s
something.
P. Dawes,
Orange, NSW.
Publisher’s Letter – continued from page 2
that we will need to refer back to the article concerned and this can take a lot
of time. You may be very familiar with the article, having just read it, but if
it’s more than a couple months old we will need to take time to refresh our
memories and then formulate the answers.
Second, please type the letter or use a word processor, if at all possible. We
do have trouble with handwritten letters – often, we cannot even decipher
people’s names.
Finally, please be patient. Remember that even though we may have received
it within an instant of you pressing the button to send it to our fax machine, it
could take a day or two before we can even read it. In fact, this desire for instant
replies is one reason why we have not yet published our email address or set
up a Web page – we know it will increase correspondence and we know that
readers will be frustrated because they have not received an instant response.
So there you are. I have come clean. I do apologise for not answering some
readers during 1997 but eventually reality dawns. If you can help us by being
brief and to the point, we will have a much better chance of replying to your
queries.
Finally, I must make comments about two articles in this month’s issue.
The first is the one on floodlighting of buildings. Now while the article is
presented in a straightforward technical fashion, it is a subject that arouses
strong feelings in many people and I’m one of them. Simply put, a great deal
of floodlighting is extravagant, wasteful and unnecessary. While there are
good reasons for lighting up some buildings for some of the time, most of the
time it is just a serious waste of energy. If Australia is to make any progress at
all on greenhouse gas emissions, this is one issue that should be addressed.
Second, I know that many readers enjoy the regular articles by John Hill
on Vintage Radio. After exactly 10 years of unbroken contributions, John has
decided to retire. We thank John for his great contribution over the years and
wish him many years of happy retirement.
For those of you who really look forward to reading Vintage Radio in every
issue, I am glad to announce that Rodney Champness will take over the Vintage
Radio column, starting next month.
Leo Simpson
March 1998 45
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