Reader Connection

Absorbed by our projects

I read your editorial in the May 1999 issue of Designfax and would like to respond. Your observations of your role as a publisher and our role as design and development engineers is accurate and true. However, most of us, including myself, do not look at our "collective imaginations" or at the impact on the "world of reality." We become so deeply absorbed by our projects that we rarely see past its limits.

We all depend on journals like Designfax and Medical Equipment Designer to make our jobs easier as our success is very often geared to the information you make available. Your role in the advancement of the technology and new products is as important as any engineers'.

Finally, I will close by saying I have been reading your publication for a few years and find it to be a welcome magazine in my office. The articles have been informative and the editorials warm, friendly and on the mark.

Ralph Sanders, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY

Pretty face not required (Part 1)

Re: April 1999, page 54: Is the PC up to the task? I use PCs to control thermoforming machines including discrete I/O and oven control. Current systems are in place that control more than 500 I/O. The PC also provides the operator interface, on site and remote diagnostics and recipe storage. It does all this while scanning the control program & I/O in excess of 10,000 times per second. The system is a 233 Mhz pentium w/16MB ram. What makes this work? Compiled BASIC running on DOS! Your editorial assumes that PCs run some form of bloated Windows and that does not have to be true. Granted, I do not have the "pretty" face of windows, but the companies that use this system do not seem to complain about the excellent UP TIME they get.

Mike Wendt, via email

Pretty face not required (Part 2)

Well,well, Cleaver Beaver's mom, pretty too. In looking through the May issue, I saw the picture of the editor and read your Up Front editorial. At first, it appeared to be a "sweet" article, and yes, written by a woman!

Then I tried something else, NOT looking at your picture, and considering the article to written by a non-entity. At that point I then realized that the editorial was written, not by some dry-worded college-degreed expert, but by a person that was talking to people.

Way to go Kimberly!

Bobby Dempsey, Draftsman, Electron Machine Corp.

Love that Bird-Doggin'

Your Bird-Doggin piece in this magazine is the first section I read. It is most helpful. The reason I'm writing is to say thank you for not placing the obnoxious background behind the typed articles anymore. It had made reading sometimes a real challenge.Today, I'm going through the magazine stack and cutting out all the Bird-Doggin' columns. At present I'm up to November '96.

Thanks for the great resource!

Allen Weltzbarker, via email

[Thanks for the feedback. Your comments are noted in the hope that the Design Gods don't revert to the psychedelic wallpaper seen in some of the previous articles. -- Steve O'Neil]

Innovation > degree

Thank you and Siemens (February '99 Layer One) for recognizing what most of us who are now in our 70s and retired, know. That a major portion of the creative intellect does not come from the degree holder, but from the person who is an innovator, regardless of the background he brings to the marketplace. Certain backgrounds will sometimes lead to creativity, but are not a certainty.

Darrell Leacock, Columbus, Nebraska

I would like to congratulate Richard Mandel for the far-sighted articles he wrote in the Layer One and Up Front sections of the February issue of Designfax. During my life (I am 69-years-old), I have noticed that the people without degrees in a particular field are usually the same people with the extraordinary inventions. Naturally, "Innovating Thinking and Simplification" must be promoted by any firm, as they are going to profit handsomely from it.

H.U. "Uli" Schlapfer, Mechanical & Plastic Design Engineer, Seattle

Society's vision (or lack thereof)

The thought has often occurred to me that our society really does not understand the role of the engineer. We are viewed as techno-nerds with calculators hanging from our belts and hacking away at computer keyboards into the wee hours of the morning. They see us as living in our own little world that they in general want to avoid like the plague. But I believe that along with the medical profession we have the noblest of roles. We design and build the cars people drive, the heating and air conditioning systems that keep them comfortable, the appliances that they prepare their meals with, the televisions and radios with which they keep touch with the world, the aircraft that take them on vacation, the buildings they work in. The list goes on and on and yet I truly believe that most people just assume that these things just pop up out of nowhere.

It was truly refreshing to read your "Up Front" editorials beginning with the November 98 issue. Your comments, coming from one whom I assume was not part of the engineering profession, simply did my heart good. Thank you very much.

Stephen Montgomery, Chief Design Engineer, Max Daetwyler Corp.