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Groups > sci.physics > #897059 > unrolled thread
| Started by | Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> |
|---|---|
| First post | 2026-10-02 15:13 +0000 |
| Last post | 2026-10-06 08:17 -0700 |
| Articles | 7 on this page of 87 — 14 participants |
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97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-02 15:13 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-02 23:34 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-02 16:57 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-10-03 10:33 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> - 2026-10-03 15:36 +0200
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-03 16:07 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> - 2026-10-03 18:23 +0200
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-04 07:24 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Old McDonald <eieio@patch.corn> - 2026-10-04 11:37 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-05 18:04 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> - 2026-10-03 19:03 +0200
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-04 07:24 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-10-03 17:16 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-04 02:17 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 05:24 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-04 02:29 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-04 02:30 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 16:39 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" John Hasler <john@sugarbit.com> - 2026-10-03 16:15 -0500
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-04 07:28 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-04 02:10 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-04 11:38 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-05 01:51 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-10-04 18:02 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-05 02:10 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-10-04 18:27 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-04 11:18 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-05 02:29 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-10-04 18:43 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@htigct.com> - 2026-10-05 10:07 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-06 04:41 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-04 13:13 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-05 06:39 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-05 10:19 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-06 06:08 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-05 23:42 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-06 07:17 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-06 00:36 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-06 14:07 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jim Pennino <jimp@gonzo.specsol.net> - 2026-10-06 08:13 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-06 10:22 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@htigct.com> - 2026-10-06 10:52 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jim Pennino <jimp@gonzo.specsol.net> - 2026-10-06 07:33 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-06 10:10 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-06 17:42 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-03 01:46 +1000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Old McDonald <eieio@patch.corn> - 2026-10-02 10:37 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-03 16:03 +1000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Old McDonald <eieio@patch.corn> - 2026-10-03 00:08 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 03:51 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> - 2026-10-02 19:31 +0200
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> - 2026-10-03 06:50 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 05:15 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-04 02:25 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-04 02:46 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-04 19:56 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-04 13:22 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-05 19:33 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-10-06 12:05 +0800
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 16:28 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-06 00:16 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 16:22 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-06 00:07 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 23:26 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Jeremiah Jones <jj@j.j> - 2026-10-06 10:38 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-10-06 09:28 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 23:34 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Someone <864c855e3d64399dc06fa30ebb75526c2c2e73db7216b16a3d4cf03e8a52ec3b@example.com> - 2026-10-02 18:45 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" athel.cb@gmail.com <user12588@newsgrouper.org.invalid> - 2026-10-03 08:56 +0000
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 03:57 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-03 10:21 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 05:00 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@htigct.com> - 2026-10-03 14:02 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-04 16:25 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-04 10:13 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-05 17:24 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-05 09:07 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@htigct.com> - 2026-10-05 10:16 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 17:39 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-06 08:05 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> - 2026-10-05 20:05 +0200
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> - 2026-10-05 20:18 +0200
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@htigct.com> - 2026-10-05 12:50 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 17:46 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-06 08:07 -0700
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-10-06 17:28 +1100
Re: 97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal "GPS" john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2026-10-06 08:17 -0700
Page 5 of 5 — ← Prev page 1 2 3 4 [5]
| From | Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-05 20:05 +0200 |
| Message-ID | <11a0ou7$ve5g$1@solani.org> |
| In reply to | #897129 |
Am 05.10.26 um 18:07 schrieb john larkin: > On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 17:24:24 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> > wrote: > >> On 5/10/2026 4:13 am, john larkin wrote: >>> On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 16:25:01 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 4/10/2026 8:02 am, john larkin wrote: >>> >>>>> I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after >>>>> I fix that, I'll be happy again. >>>>> >>>>> Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator... >>>> >>>> My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I >>>> had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based >>>> oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that >>>> counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and >>>> super-quick FPGA's were still further off. >>>> >>>> Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can >>>> be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop >>>> times, and that does take more work. >>> >>> I like my triggered LC oscillators as the coarse-delay part of a delay >>> generator. From the trigger to the first usable timing edge is 3 ns. >> >> There are lots of trade-offs in any real design. >> >>> The Stanford Research architecture works but is complex and has a lot >>> of uncalibrated insertion delay. >> >> Don't know it. Why is the insertion delay un-calibrated? If you know >> what it is you can measure it, and should then be able to calibrate it. >> >>> I did one delay generator with a coaxial ceramic resonator as a >>> triggered delay-line oscillator. It worked but was expensive. The >>> resonators start at about 500 MHz and go up from there and run around >>> 10 ohms as txlines, which gets awkward. Lots of ECL. >> >> The resonators started at 500MHz back in 1988, and you had to buy a >> batch. Management wasn't going to wait for any batch to be delivered. >> >> Lot's of ECL is a good thing. From an analog point of view it's a lot >> less noisy than switching logic. > > But ECL is expensive, big, and a power hog. There doesn't seem to be > much going on in ECL. Internally, even a cheap FPGA has way fancier > and faster logic elements. > > There are still some fast lvds/CML parts being designed, mostly for > telecom. But even those are being obsoleted by full-custom high-volume > chips. > > I wonder if anyone is still designing at the gate/flop level with > discrete ECL. Must be rare. > >>> >>> SAWs and BAWS and quartz crystals have the problem of quenching the >>> oscillator at the end of a shot; mechanical resonators ring like a >>> bell mostly forever. >> >> Which is why I prefer continuously running oscillators. The HP 5370B Precision Time-Interval Universal Counter has a start-stop oscillator that has survived the test of time. (Pun intended) Its innards are not secret. < https://www.febo.com/pages/hp5370b/ > I once inherited one from a local ham, but it has transmofrified to a large array of contact problems. I think there are even some replacement boards. For daily work, I use a Stanford SR620. I still wonder how its miniature "power" transformer can feed all that ECL & LED displays. In the early 1980s I used cross-coupled AD9500 in an ultrasonics phased array for beam forming. That worked quite OK. There have been been better "digital monoflops" in the meantime. IIRC, sth. like SY-xxxx. > Then the problem is corecting for the time offset between the clock > and a random trigger. SRS does that, but it's complex. The Pepper > patent was genius but has bad drift issues. > > When we trigger our oscillator, the clock is aligned with the trigger. > Then we can phase-lock it to a XO at leisure. Gerhard
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| From | Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-05 20:18 +0200 |
| Message-ID | <11a0plk$verp$1@solani.org> |
| In reply to | #897133 |
Am 05.10.26 um 20:05 schrieb Gerhard Hoffmann: ... gs/transmofrified/transmogrified/
[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]
| From | john larkin <jl@htigct.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-05 12:50 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <cgv7clp0433fa60ndmm6o6if07k34oncdg@4ax.com> |
| In reply to | #897133 |
On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 20:05:59 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote: >Am 05.10.26 um 18:07 schrieb john larkin: >> On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 17:24:24 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >> wrote: >> >>> On 5/10/2026 4:13 am, john larkin wrote: >>>> On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 16:25:01 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 4/10/2026 8:02 am, john larkin wrote: >>>> >>>>>> I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after >>>>>> I fix that, I'll be happy again. >>>>>> >>>>>> Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator... >>>>> >>>>> My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I >>>>> had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based >>>>> oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that >>>>> counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and >>>>> super-quick FPGA's were still further off. >>>>> >>>>> Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can >>>>> be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop >>>>> times, and that does take more work. >>>> >>>> I like my triggered LC oscillators as the coarse-delay part of a delay >>>> generator. From the trigger to the first usable timing edge is 3 ns. >>> >>> There are lots of trade-offs in any real design. >>> >>>> The Stanford Research architecture works but is complex and has a lot >>>> of uncalibrated insertion delay. >>> >>> Don't know it. Why is the insertion delay un-calibrated? If you know >>> what it is you can measure it, and should then be able to calibrate it. >>> >>>> I did one delay generator with a coaxial ceramic resonator as a >>>> triggered delay-line oscillator. It worked but was expensive. The >>>> resonators start at about 500 MHz and go up from there and run around >>>> 10 ohms as txlines, which gets awkward. Lots of ECL. >>> >>> The resonators started at 500MHz back in 1988, and you had to buy a >>> batch. Management wasn't going to wait for any batch to be delivered. >>> >>> Lot's of ECL is a good thing. From an analog point of view it's a lot >>> less noisy than switching logic. >> >> But ECL is expensive, big, and a power hog. There doesn't seem to be >> much going on in ECL. Internally, even a cheap FPGA has way fancier >> and faster logic elements. >> >> There are still some fast lvds/CML parts being designed, mostly for >> telecom. But even those are being obsoleted by full-custom high-volume >> chips. >> >> I wonder if anyone is still designing at the gate/flop level with >> discrete ECL. Must be rare. >> >>>> >>>> SAWs and BAWS and quartz crystals have the problem of quenching the >>>> oscillator at the end of a shot; mechanical resonators ring like a >>>> bell mostly forever. >>> >>> Which is why I prefer continuously running oscillators. > >The HP 5370B Precision Time-Interval Universal Counter has a start-stop >oscillator that has survived the test of time. (Pun intended) >Its innards are not secret. >< https://www.febo.com/pages/hp5370b/ > > >I once inherited one from a local ham, but it has transmofrified >to a large array of contact problems. I think there are even some >replacement boards. We still have a few 5370s. They were wonderful. We now mostly use Keysight 53230As in test stands. From a user interface standpoint, the 5370 was far better. The 5370 used a Motorola MC6800 p-channel 8-bit uP. The code must have been incredible. > >For daily work, I use a Stanford SR620. I still wonder how its >miniature "power" transformer can feed all that ECL & LED displays. > > >In the early 1980s I used cross-coupled AD9500 in an ultrasonics >phased array for beam forming. That worked quite OK. There have been >been better "digital monoflops" in the meantime. >IIRC, sth. like SY-xxxx. > > >> Then the problem is corecting for the time offset between the clock >> and a random trigger. SRS does that, but it's complex. The Pepper >> patent was genius but has bad drift issues. >> >> When we trigger our oscillator, the clock is aligned with the trigger. >> Then we can phase-lock it to a XO at leisure. >Gerhard
[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]
| From | Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-06 17:46 +1100 |
| Message-ID | <11a25fq$1lmk3$5@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #897135 |
On 6/10/2026 6:50 am, john larkin wrote: > On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 20:05:59 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> > wrote: > >> Am 05.10.26 um 18:07 schrieb john larkin: >>> On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 17:24:24 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 5/10/2026 4:13 am, john larkin wrote: >>>>> On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 16:25:01 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 4/10/2026 8:02 am, john larkin wrote: >>>>> >>>>>>> I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after >>>>>>> I fix that, I'll be happy again. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator... >>>>>> >>>>>> My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I >>>>>> had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based >>>>>> oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that >>>>>> counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and >>>>>> super-quick FPGA's were still further off. >>>>>> >>>>>> Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can >>>>>> be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop >>>>>> times, and that does take more work. >>>>> >>>>> I like my triggered LC oscillators as the coarse-delay part of a delay >>>>> generator. From the trigger to the first usable timing edge is 3 ns. >>>> >>>> There are lots of trade-offs in any real design. >>>> >>>>> The Stanford Research architecture works but is complex and has a lot >>>>> of uncalibrated insertion delay. >>>> >>>> Don't know it. Why is the insertion delay un-calibrated? If you know >>>> what it is you can measure it, and should then be able to calibrate it. >>>> >>>>> I did one delay generator with a coaxial ceramic resonator as a >>>>> triggered delay-line oscillator. It worked but was expensive. The >>>>> resonators start at about 500 MHz and go up from there and run around >>>>> 10 ohms as txlines, which gets awkward. Lots of ECL. >>>> >>>> The resonators started at 500MHz back in 1988, and you had to buy a >>>> batch. Management wasn't going to wait for any batch to be delivered. >>>> >>>> Lot's of ECL is a good thing. From an analog point of view it's a lot >>>> less noisy than switching logic. >>> >>> But ECL is expensive, big, and a power hog. There doesn't seem to be >>> much going on in ECL. Internally, even a cheap FPGA has way fancier >>> and faster logic elements. >>> >>> There are still some fast lvds/CML parts being designed, mostly for >>> telecom. But even those are being obsoleted by full-custom high-volume >>> chips. >>> >>> I wonder if anyone is still designing at the gate/flop level with >>> discrete ECL. Must be rare. >>> >>>>> >>>>> SAWs and BAWS and quartz crystals have the problem of quenching the >>>>> oscillator at the end of a shot; mechanical resonators ring like a >>>>> bell mostly forever. >>>> >>>> Which is why I prefer continuously running oscillators. >> >> The HP 5370B Precision Time-Interval Universal Counter has a start-stop >> oscillator that has survived the test of time. (Pun intended) >> Its innards are not secret. >> < https://www.febo.com/pages/hp5370b/ > >> >> I once inherited one from a local ham, but it has transmofrified >> to a large array of contact problems. I think there are even some >> replacement boards. > > We still have a few 5370s. They were wonderful. We now mostly use > Keysight 53230As in test stands. From a user interface standpoint, the > 5370 was far better. > > The 5370 used a Motorola MC6800 p-channel 8-bit uP. The code must have > been incredible. We all believe it worked. It might have been complicated, but with paged memory even a 6800 can eventually access a lot of code. <snip> -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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| From | john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-06 08:07 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <3j3acl1f1m9nurl0ivmsph6ljf0t6l70em@4ax.com> |
| In reply to | #897146 |
On Tue, 6 Oct 2026 17:46:15 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: >On 6/10/2026 6:50 am, john larkin wrote: >> On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 20:05:59 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> >> wrote: >> >>> Am 05.10.26 um 18:07 schrieb john larkin: >>>> On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 17:24:24 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 5/10/2026 4:13 am, john larkin wrote: >>>>>> On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 16:25:01 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> On 4/10/2026 8:02 am, john larkin wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after >>>>>>>> I fix that, I'll be happy again. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I >>>>>>> had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based >>>>>>> oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that >>>>>>> counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and >>>>>>> super-quick FPGA's were still further off. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can >>>>>>> be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop >>>>>>> times, and that does take more work. >>>>>> >>>>>> I like my triggered LC oscillators as the coarse-delay part of a delay >>>>>> generator. From the trigger to the first usable timing edge is 3 ns. >>>>> >>>>> There are lots of trade-offs in any real design. >>>>> >>>>>> The Stanford Research architecture works but is complex and has a lot >>>>>> of uncalibrated insertion delay. >>>>> >>>>> Don't know it. Why is the insertion delay un-calibrated? If you know >>>>> what it is you can measure it, and should then be able to calibrate it. >>>>> >>>>>> I did one delay generator with a coaxial ceramic resonator as a >>>>>> triggered delay-line oscillator. It worked but was expensive. The >>>>>> resonators start at about 500 MHz and go up from there and run around >>>>>> 10 ohms as txlines, which gets awkward. Lots of ECL. >>>>> >>>>> The resonators started at 500MHz back in 1988, and you had to buy a >>>>> batch. Management wasn't going to wait for any batch to be delivered. >>>>> >>>>> Lot's of ECL is a good thing. From an analog point of view it's a lot >>>>> less noisy than switching logic. >>>> >>>> But ECL is expensive, big, and a power hog. There doesn't seem to be >>>> much going on in ECL. Internally, even a cheap FPGA has way fancier >>>> and faster logic elements. >>>> >>>> There are still some fast lvds/CML parts being designed, mostly for >>>> telecom. But even those are being obsoleted by full-custom high-volume >>>> chips. >>>> >>>> I wonder if anyone is still designing at the gate/flop level with >>>> discrete ECL. Must be rare. >>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> SAWs and BAWS and quartz crystals have the problem of quenching the >>>>>> oscillator at the end of a shot; mechanical resonators ring like a >>>>>> bell mostly forever. >>>>> >>>>> Which is why I prefer continuously running oscillators. >>> >>> The HP 5370B Precision Time-Interval Universal Counter has a start-stop >>> oscillator that has survived the test of time. (Pun intended) >>> Its innards are not secret. >>> < https://www.febo.com/pages/hp5370b/ > >>> >>> I once inherited one from a local ham, but it has transmofrified >>> to a large array of contact problems. I think there are even some >>> replacement boards. >> >> We still have a few 5370s. They were wonderful. We now mostly use >> Keysight 53230As in test stands. From a user interface standpoint, the >> 5370 was far better. >> >> The 5370 used a Motorola MC6800 p-channel 8-bit uP. The code must have >> been incredible. > >We all believe it worked. It might have been complicated, but with paged >memory even a 6800 can eventually access a lot of code. > ><snip> They used a couple of small eproms. John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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| From | Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-06 17:28 +1100 |
| Message-ID | <11a24es$1lmk3$3@dont-email.me> |
| In reply to | #897129 |
On 6/10/2026 3:07 am, john larkin wrote: > On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 17:24:24 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> > wrote: > >> On 5/10/2026 4:13 am, john larkin wrote: >>> On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 16:25:01 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 4/10/2026 8:02 am, john larkin wrote: >>> >>>>> I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after >>>>> I fix that, I'll be happy again. >>>>> >>>>> Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator... >>>> >>>> My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I >>>> had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based >>>> oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that >>>> counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and >>>> super-quick FPGA's were still further off. >>>> >>>> Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can >>>> be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop >>>> times, and that does take more work. >>> >>> I like my triggered LC oscillators as the coarse-delay part of a delay >>> generator. From the trigger to the first usable timing edge is 3 ns. >> >> There are lots of trade-offs in any real design. >> >>> The Stanford Research architecture works but is complex and has a lot >>> of uncalibrated insertion delay. >> >> Don't know it. Why is the insertion delay un-calibrated? If you know >> what it is you can measure it, and should then be able to calibrate it. >> >>> I did one delay generator with a coaxial ceramic resonator as a >>> triggered delay-line oscillator. It worked but was expensive. The >>> resonators start at about 500 MHz and go up from there and run around >>> 10 ohms as txlines, which gets awkward. Lots of ECL. >> >> The resonators started at 500MHz back in 1988, and you had to buy a >> batch. Management wasn't going to wait for any batch to be delivered. >> >> Lot's of ECL is a good thing. From an analog point of view it's a lot >> less noisy than switching logic. > > But ECL is expensive, big, and a power hog. There doesn't seem to be > much going on in ECL. Internally, even a cheap FPGA has way fancier > and faster logic elements. But does it have quieter ones? > There are still some fast lvds/CML parts being designed, mostly for > telecom. But even those are being obsoleted by full-custom high-volume > chips. If you can put it inside a chip and get the circuit layout within the chip optimal, you should be able to do well. > I wonder if anyone is still designing at the gate/flop level with > discrete ECL. Must be rare. A lot depends on batch size. When you had to pay $100,000 for a mask set, chip level design only made sense for industry standard products. >>> SAWs and BAWS and quartz crystals have the problem of quenching the >>> oscillator at the end of a shot; mechanical resonators ring like a >>> bell mostly forever. >> >> Which is why I prefer continuously running oscillators. > > Then the problem is correcting for the time offset between the clock > and a random trigger. SRS does that, but it's complex. The Pepper > patent was genius but has bad drift issues. We did it at Cambridge Instrument back in 1988. It wasn't complicated. We did rely on frequent auto-calibation to deal with drift issues > When we trigger our oscillator, the clock is aligned with the trigger. > Then we can phase-lock it to a XO at leisure. But not all that precisely. >>> An on-chip oscillator/divider should be practical these days. That >>> might be cool student capstone project. >> >> Practicable and practical are two different criteria. The on-chip >> oscillator has been practicable since the 4046. Getting a good stable >> low jitter oscillator on a chip is trickier. > > That would make the project interesting. Perhaps impracticable. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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| From | john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> |
|---|---|
| Date | 2026-10-06 08:17 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <em3acldm0qfug3eial7s16nf21u0uv20mt@4ax.com> |
| In reply to | #897143 |
On Tue, 6 Oct 2026 17:28:40 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote: >On 6/10/2026 3:07 am, john larkin wrote: >> On Mon, 5 Oct 2026 17:24:24 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >> wrote: >> >>> On 5/10/2026 4:13 am, john larkin wrote: >>>> On Sun, 4 Oct 2026 16:25:01 +1100, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 4/10/2026 8:02 am, john larkin wrote: >>>> >>>>>> I'm unhappy because my delay generator has 20 ns p-p jitter. But after >>>>>> I fix that, I'll be happy again. >>>>>> >>>>>> Hmm, 20 ns is the period of my triggered oscillator... >>>>> >>>>> My delay generator - back in 1988 - used an 800MHz local oscillator. I >>>>> had ambitions of replacing it with a surface acoustic wave based >>>>> oscillator. The limit - at that time - was the GaAs digital logic that >>>>> counted the clock steps. ECLinPS wasn't quite available back then and >>>>> super-quick FPGA's were still further off. >>>>> >>>>> Using a triggered oscillator is a bad idea. Free-running oscillators can >>>>> be a lot better behaved, but you do have control both start and stop >>>>> times, and that does take more work. >>>> >>>> I like my triggered LC oscillators as the coarse-delay part of a delay >>>> generator. From the trigger to the first usable timing edge is 3 ns. >>> >>> There are lots of trade-offs in any real design. >>> >>>> The Stanford Research architecture works but is complex and has a lot >>>> of uncalibrated insertion delay. >>> >>> Don't know it. Why is the insertion delay un-calibrated? If you know >>> what it is you can measure it, and should then be able to calibrate it. >>> >>>> I did one delay generator with a coaxial ceramic resonator as a >>>> triggered delay-line oscillator. It worked but was expensive. The >>>> resonators start at about 500 MHz and go up from there and run around >>>> 10 ohms as txlines, which gets awkward. Lots of ECL. >>> >>> The resonators started at 500MHz back in 1988, and you had to buy a >>> batch. Management wasn't going to wait for any batch to be delivered. >>> >>> Lot's of ECL is a good thing. From an analog point of view it's a lot >>> less noisy than switching logic. >> >> But ECL is expensive, big, and a power hog. There doesn't seem to be >> much going on in ECL. Internally, even a cheap FPGA has way fancier >> and faster logic elements. > >But does it have quieter ones? > >> There are still some fast lvds/CML parts being designed, mostly for >> telecom. But even those are being obsoleted by full-custom high-volume >> chips. > >If you can put it inside a chip and get the circuit layout within the >chip optimal, you should be able to do well. > >> I wonder if anyone is still designing at the gate/flop level with >> discrete ECL. Must be rare. > >A lot depends on batch size. When you had to pay $100,000 for a mask >set, chip level design only made sense for industry standard products. I talked to a kid at SFSU who designed an opamp and is going to himself pay to have some fabbed in a shared-wafer CMOS process. More like $4K for delivered parts than 100K for just a mask. We brainstormed the things he would have to do to make it c-load stable. > >>>> SAWs and BAWS and quartz crystals have the problem of quenching the >>>> oscillator at the end of a shot; mechanical resonators ring like a >>>> bell mostly forever. >>> >>> Which is why I prefer continuously running oscillators. >> >> Then the problem is correcting for the time offset between the clock >> and a random trigger. SRS does that, but it's complex. The Pepper >> patent was genius but has bad drift issues. > >We did it at Cambridge Instrument back in 1988. It wasn't complicated. >We did rely on frequent auto-calibation to deal with drift issues There are FPGA based delay and time stamp tricks that need frequent cal. But they are unavailable for use dueing cal, so will miss triggers. > >> When we trigger our oscillator, the clock is aligned with the trigger. >> Then we can phase-lock it to a XO at leisure. > >But not all that precisely. As precisely as we want to pay for. 10ps RMS is affordable. > >>>> An on-chip oscillator/divider should be practical these days. That >>>> might be cool student capstone project. >>> >>> Practicable and practical are two different criteria. The on-chip >>> oscillator has been practicable since the 4046. Getting a good stable >>> low jitter oscillator on a chip is trickier. >> >> That would make the project interesting. > >Perhaps impracticable. Any interesting experiment involves risk. John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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