Electronics Now articles from May 1996

Electronics Now archives from May 1996

Making DVD incompatible.
May 1, 1996... One of the advantages of digital video recording is that it finally exorcises an old bugaboo - incompatibility among the world's television systems. Thus any video-recorded DVD disc can be playable on any TV set anywhere in the world, given the...

A virtual oscilloscope and recorder from Mission Technology.
May 1, 1996... Turn your personal computer into a multipurpose laboratory test instrument with Multiscope. Every electronic hobbyist dreams of owning a complete set of laboratory-grade electronic test instruments to speed up circuit test procedures and...

The Road Ahead.
May 1, 1996... Where the budding "information superhighway" will eventually lead us is anybody's guess - but if anyone is qualified to do such guessing, it is Microsoft co-founder, chairman, and CEO, Bill Gates. This book presents Gates' optimistic vision of...

The Internet Yellow Pages, 3d ed.
May 1, 1996... Now you can let your fingers do the walking down the information highway, thanks to this comprehensive directory. Arranged in the familiar style of a phone book, its listings are grouped in alphabetical order by category. Each listing contains a...

Fuzzy logic.(Cover Story)
May 1, 1996... A new challenger is threatening to dethrone traditional control techniques as the method of choice. This article describes the challenging techniques of fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is not at all as its name might imply. Rather than being...

Amateur TV transmitter.
May 1, 1996... A miniature video transmitter with sound carrier for the 900-MHz amateur radio band You can build a miniature amateur radio TV transmitter and put it to work in a variety of applications from radio-controlled videography to two-way...

Troubleshooting PLC problems. (programmable logic controller)
May 1, 1996... When industrial control systems go wrong, grab a portable scope, and start troubleshooting! All kinds of industrial processes are controlled electronically these days. The most common control device that an industrial technician is likely to...

Mini metrology lab. (Kelvin-Varley voltage divider)
May 1, 1996... Build a Kelvin-Varley voltage divider to complete the mini metrology lab. The first two parts of this series showed how to build a voltage standard and a null detector. This final article shows how to build a precision voltage divider to...

How to select the right heatsink.
May 1, 1996... From project design to assembly, two easy equations assure sure-fire cooling! Heatsinking is usually of little concern in low-power circuits. Most of the time you can bolt the component's metallic tab to a scrap of metal, or maybe to the...

Switching power supplies, the hot chassis,and more PIC tricks.
May 1, 1996... Switching-mode power supplies are now used pretty near everywhere, especially in personal computers and peripherals. Instead of doing a directly converting power at 60 hertz, raw DC is first created. The DC, in turn, powers a high-frequency...

Source of high-temperature superconductivity found?
May 1, 1996... IBM scientists have found evidence suggesting that a fundamentally new type of electron behavior is responsible for the so-called "high-temperature" superconductivity first discovered a decade ago in a certain class of ceramic materials. The...

Backing up is hard to do.
May 1, 1996... Some companies are taking the Windows 95 philosophy too far. There seems to be a movement afoot to "dumb down" the capabilities of software packages specifically built for Windows 95. I've seen several examples of this recently, but the most...

Phone-line privacy module.
May 1, 1996... A specialized two-lead semiconductor is a complete project that will protect your modem communications from interruptions. Modems enable computer owners to communicate with computer owners, and access fax machines and network services all over...