Memories...

If you can identify the device at right, you're (a) at least as old as I am, and (b) probably a geek.

It's a “tube tester” – a device used in prehistoric times to test vacuum tubes. Don't know what vacuum tubes are? Back in ancient times, before transistors were invented, vacuum tubes (“valves” in the U.K.) were the active devices in electronic equipment. There were audio amplifiers, radios, televisions, and even computers that depended on vacuum tubes to function.

Unlike transistors, vacuum tubes were not very reliable. They'd break (usually because the “heater” – an electric heating element – would fail). They'd also change their characteristics for various reasons, causing the equipment they were in to malfunction. Because of this propensity to fail, vacuum tubes were nearly always mounted in sockets; the glass bulb of the vacuum tube had pins sticking out that would plug into these sockets.

But how would you know if you had a bad tube? If the heater was broken, you'd think it would be easy: the tube wouldn't get hot. Unfortunately, manufacturers often used a trick (to save money) that made this not work: all the tubes in a device would have their heaters wired in series, so if one of them broke, all the tubes would go cold (much like some Christmas light sets, where if one light goes out, they all go out). If something else was wrong with the tube, though, there wasn't any possibility of an easy diagnosis. The only thing you could do in such a situation was to pull all the tubes out of your radio or TV, and traipse down to the nearest store that had a vacuum tube tester.

In my early days as an electronics hobbyist (in the '60s), I used to collect broken TVs from the TV repair shops. Those shops were common – TVs broke a lot, and they were expensive; repairing them actually made economic sense. But frequently one of the older TVs would be beyond repair, and the repair shops would give them to me for free. They were a gold mine of valuable parts for me – I'd carefully tear them apart, removing all the individual components, straightening our their leads, and testing them. Except for the vacuum tubes, as I couldn't afford a vacuum tube tester. So every few weeks I'd head down to a local electronics shop that had a vacuum tube tester, with a bushel basket full of vacuum tubes I'd pulled out of dead TVs. I'd stand in front of the tester for a few hours, trying one tube after another, sorting them into “good” and “bad” piles. I got very familiar with these beasts!

Later, in the U.S. Navy, I worked on several older pieces of equipment that had lots and lots of vacuum tubes – and of course they had a vacuum tube tester on board the ship. Most of my fellow technicians had never even seen one of these things, so my expertise came in handy.

The vacuum tube testers were marvels of ingenuity, able to set up the proper heater voltages, bias voltages, and signal voltages for thousands of different types of tubes – all with switches and individual components. The designers of these machines had to be puzzle solvers of the first order to figure out how to do all this with so few components to work with (they were constrained both by the space required and the cost)...

You're So Vain...

One of my favorite bloggers (neo-neocon) has written a new set of lyrics for the Carly Simon hit You're So Vain. They were so short – and so great – I'm reposting the whole thing (neo, please forgive me):

You walked into the Party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your voice strategically sounds like Camelot
Your flag pin had gone to pot
You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself, you were hot;
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner
They’d be your partner and…

You’re so vain, you probably think this speech is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this speech is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?

You won states several months ago when we were still quite naive
When you said that you’d bring us all change and love
And that we should just believe
But with Wright and Ayers and Ahmadinejad, you think we must be naive
And all those dreams are just clouds in your coffee
Clouds in your coffee, and…

You’re so vain, you probably think this speech is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this speech is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?

Well I hear you went down to Carolina and you just naturally won
Then you flew your Lear Jet from West Virginia
To flee the total eclipse of your run
Well you’re where you should be all the time
And when you’re not you’re with
Some journalist pal who is now your real close friend
Now your real close friend, and…

You’re so vain, you probably think this speech is about you
You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this speech is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?

Consider this: if you're not reading neo-neocon every day, then you're missing great commentary, and great humor (e.g., the “jello series”). Go pay her a visit!

Don Tarbell...

The very first programming I ever did for money was done for a guy named Don Tarbell. If you're old enough to remember the early, heady days of microcomputers, you'll know that name – he manufactured an S-100 board that became the gold standard of cassette tape data storage. He also made one of the first affordable floppy disk interface boards, also for the S-100 bus.

He's got a special place in my memory for a different reason, though: way back in 1976 or 1977, he published an RFQ (request for quote) for someone to write a Basic interpreter. He wanted something with better features than could be found on the then-standard Microsoft Basic, and he wanted to sell it at a low price. I answered that RFQ with an absurdly low bid (and and even more absurdly fast delivery) and absolutely nothing else to recommend me. At the time, I was still in the U.S. Navy (I didn't know it, but it was against regulations for me to engage in a contract!). I had never written any software for money before. I had no education in software engineering. I had no references. I had no samples of my work. And I had never even seen a Basic program before. Don talked with me on the phone, and ended up giving me a contract.

Later he told me that all the other quotes he'd received were 25 or more times the price I had quoted, and all the delivery times were 4 or more times what I quoted. So he figured he didn't really have much to lose by trying me out; if I failed (something he thought was a high probability), he could still go with another contractor. Well, I didn't fail – I delivered it on time, collected my hard-earned payment, and then went on to have a very good relationship with Don, delivering many enhancements over the next couple of years. That contract was the start of my career in software engineering.

Something like 15 years ago, when trying to reconnect with Don, I heard that he had committed suicide. This was shocking to me, as the Don I knew was full of life and enthusiasm, and I had trouble even imagining him being depressed enough to take his own life. After that, of course, I stopped looking for him.

Today, purely by accident I stumbled on this forum entry at the Classic Computers site:

My name is Paula Rouse. I worked for the "Famous" Don Tarbell at Tarbell Electronics in Carson, CA from 1976 to 1983. I was his first employee when he began selling cassette interface kits and assembled units. He was a terrific boss and his wife Brenda and I have been best friends for all these years. She called me this evening to say that Don passed away this morning, May 19th, 1998, after a long bout with cancer. I was on the internet tonight, looking for information on old friends who used to come into the shop, hoping to contact them to let them know of his passing. When I typed Don's name into Yahoo's search engine, your page came up. It is not dated, so I do not know when you tried to contact him by e-mail, but Brenda said that he had not been checking his e-mail but once every two or three weeks since he had been so sick. That may be the reason for your not receiving a reply. He was a great guy and he will be sorely missed. It was so much fun being a part of the early years of computing. He was instrumental in shaping my career and there are many good memories of the times spent together.

It's still sad to know that Don has passed away, but somehow I feel ever so much better that it was cancer that took him, and not suicide.

An Estonian Observes Us...

Found in an article bemoaning the erosion of our freedoms by political correctness:

...it leads to Anna from Estonia making it a point to show visiting friends a sight they could never see in the old country. They laugh, they point, they whip out cameras and take pictures. Of the Everglades? No. Of Mount Rushmore or Lady Liberty? No.

Anna said they take pictures of the idiot signs. These she said, crack her friends up. "Caution: Coffee is hot." Apparently, elsewhere in the world, you don't need a sign to know this.

I agree with the notion that political correctness (and it's bastard son, zero tolerance) are threats to our freedom. But the example I excerpted is really something else altogether: it's the notion that we have some kind of “right” to a riskless existence, and the consequent explosion of litigation that as recently as 50 years ago would have seemed just plain silly. Can you imagine an adult in, say, the 1950s even considering the idea of suing a restaurant because they were served coffee that was too hot? I can't...

Of course I was amused to see that it was an Estonian who was doing the observation. For my readers who don't already know this, I have visited Estonia many times, and I know it quite well.

The Estonia that Anna remembers, however, is fast disappearing: ever since they became a member of the European Union, a stifling blanket of political correctness has descended upon them – one can think of it as the price paid for enormous amounts of foreign aid and investment pouring in, and for the removal of a great many trade barriers. Estonia today is far more prosperous than it was before its EU membership, but it is also in many ways a much less attractive place.

My last visit there was several years ago, but even then the character of Estonia was changing – becoming less the unique and quaint place that it was, and more just another location in an almost-homogenous EU. Tourists have poured in, and foriegners have purchased large chunks of the available real estate (especially Finns along the north coast and the western islands, and Scotch farmers in the south central farmlands). My friends there tell me that since my last visit this trend is even more pronounced.

I loved the Estonia I watched emerge from the wreckage of the Soviet Union and morph into an innovative and vibrant democracy. I like the present Estonia less. I'm not entirely sure I want to visit again...my memories may well be more pleasant than current reality...

Arab Culture

Anyone familiar with the history of the Middle East can't help but make this politically-incorrect observation: any Arab military engagement with a non-Arab military is nearly certain to result in the Arabs losing. The Israeli-Arab conflicts are legendary and consistent with this observation, but they are certainly not the only such conflicts. Most recently, of course, Western coalitions have twice demolished the Iraqi military; in both cases the Arab Iraqi military suffered defeats that would have been unthinkable (and unforgivable) in any other military.

What's behind this pattern?

StrategyPage (which is full of all sorts of interesting articles) recently posted a column on exactly this issue. Here's a sample:

At lot has been written about why Arab armies so consistently lose wars with non-Arabs. These reasons also explain why Arab nations, and many other Third World nations as well, also have trouble establishing democratic governments or prosperous economies. A lot of it has to do with culture, especially culture influenced by Islam. Some of the reasons for these failures are:

Most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority (Bedouins in Jordan, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq, Nejdis in Saudi Arabia). All of which means that officers are assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation.

Islamic schools favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. Most Islamic scholars are hostile to the concept of interpreting the Koran (considered the word of God as given to His prophet Mohammed). This has resulted in looking down on Western troops that will look something up that they don't know. Arabs prefer to fake it, and pretend it's all in their head. Improvisation and innovation is generally discouraged. Arab armies go by the book, Western armies rewrite the book and thus usually win.

There's much more food for thought in this interesting article. While it's not mentioned directly in the article, it's easy to extrapolate from its points that the al Qaeda organization seems almost designed to take advantage of those same Arab traits that make their conventional military forces so ineffective...

Not mentioned in this column, though widely documented elsewhere, is the pervasive corruption in every Arab culture. Commanding bribes and handing out favors are typically considered by Arabs to be natural (and rightful) perquisites of any office. The traits outlined in this post, plus the universal corruption, make enormous challenges for establishing a democracy.

I've noticed that Arabs who have close contact with the West (and most especially those who travel or live in the West) have no trouble understanding Western ideals. Some see the Western ideals as opportunity to be exploited; others (and more than a few) see them as something their cultures would benefit from. The latter viewpoint is loudly expressed on some of the most popular English-language Arab blogs, which gives me much hope for their future. I've read in many places (most especially Michael Yon and Michael Totten) how the Iraqis are watching and learning from Americans – they are most impressed by how much the Americans have been able to accomplish in such a short time, and also by the opportunities that ordinary Americans have. They'd like all that for themselves, of course.

The Iraqi experiment with democracy is (for me, at least) the single most hopeful development in the Middle East ever – and the only one with any hope whatsoever for lasting peace in the region. Some of my readers, I know, won't understand what I'm talking about there – what on earth does Iraq have to do with Israel? It's a big-picture thought, but here's a simplified version: if there is even a single successful, flourishing Arab democracy, there will enormous pressure on the tyrannical regimes (that would be all the other ones) to similarly reform – the example of a successful Iraq will be very difficult to ignore. And Iraq should be able to succeed – it has far more natural resources than Israel, it has a well-educated populace. The only significant obstacles are terrorism and culture, and terrorism is relatively low right now and declining rapidly. I believe the cultural issues are about to become the single major obstacle to the success of Iraqi democracy.

I'd sure like to see this democratic experiment continue. Obama's rhetoric (assuming he actually means what he's saying, which is by no means certain in an election campaign) makes it clear that he'd yank virtually all significant support from the Iraqis – and that would make it virtually certain that it would descend back into tyranny. What form that would take, I don't know; my intuition says we'd get an autonomous Kurdish region up north, and a terrible war between the Shiites and the Sunni, quite possibly involving Iran (on the side of the Shiites) and Saudi Arabia (on the side of the Sunnis). The only certainty is that it would be awful...