Electronicstalk newsletter issue 394

Simpler software solutions

Written by the Electronicstalk editor Nov 12, 2008

Armed with a degree from one of the UK's more reputable universities, the young engineer was keen to make his mark in the industry.

And so he was delighted when he landed a job at a small company six months after he graduated. Although the project team there was small, the young man believed that with his knowledge of engineering, he could make a significant contribution to the company right from the outset.

But he did feel a little bit out of his league when his boss gave him the responsibility to develop some software that could perform the task of capturing analog data, presenting that data on a PC in a visual manner so that it could be quickly manipulated, and then stored for future reference.

You see, while the young man in question had some knowledge of data acquisition and C programming, he wasn't the greatest programmer in the world. And when his employer asked him to build the system in less than three months, he realised that he was out of his depth.

Fortunately, he didn't keep his doubts and fears to himself, but explained his position to his manager. Sadly, the engineering manager knew less about C programming than the young engineer did. But he had heard of a programming environment that he believed might be able to help his new recruit out.

So he sent the young man in question on an exploratory mission to NIDays, the annual professional development conference run by the folks at National Instruments, to find out more about it.

The young engineer noticed one thing at the outset. All the folks at the conference seemed to be a lot more confident about their abilities to build systems than he was. And being a bright spark, he figured that this either meant that they were a lot cleverer than he was, or that they knew something about programming data acquisition systems that he didn't.

It didn't take him long to discover that most of the folks there weren't smarter than him at all. Nor were they programming their systems in C. No, they were all using Labview, a graphical programming language that's specifically targeted at engineers who want to create test, measurement, and control applications.

Being a shrewd individual, he realised that if he used the software too, he could quickly and easily acquire his data, perform an analysis on it and communicate or store the results in a variety of ways. It wouldn' t take months either. Better yet, he'd get technical support from applications engineers should he run into difficulties.

With the help of the NI folks, it didn't take long for the young engineer to learn the new software. And his boss was delighted when he turned the once seemingly problematic project around in one month, rather than three.

The experience taught the young man more than just a new graphically-oriented programming language too. It also taught him that the appropriate choice of software environment is as important, if not more important, than all the programming knowledge in the world.

Top Products featured this issue

[1] MEDIA PLAYER BRIDGES AUDIO/VIDEO EXPERIENCE GAP

(austriamicrosystems, 10 Nov 2008)

Austriamicrosystems' AS3536 multimedia player is based on audio and video engines acting as co-processors to an ARM CPU.

[2] TXDAC DACS AID ENERGY EFFICIENT PRODUCT DESIGN

(Analog Devices, 07 Nov 2008)

Analog Devices has introduced eight TxDac transmit digital-to-analogue converters (Dacs), each integrating two Dacs on a single device.

[3] NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR RELEASES THE ADC10D1000

(National Semiconductor, 07 Nov 2008)

National Semiconductor has introduced a 2.5 GHz fully differential amplifier and a 10 bit, 2 GSPS dual analogue-to-digital converter.

[4] QASARA RELEASES LTE MOBILE

(Qasara, 11 Nov 2008)

Qasara's Virtual LTE mobile, which incorporates a fully instrumented LTE protocol stack, is interoperable with Rohde and Schwarz's 3GPP LTE virtual tester.

[5] FREESCALE RELEASES THE S08LL, RS08LA AND RS08LE

(Freescale Semiconductor, 07 Nov 2008)

Freescale Semiconductor has introduced three 8-bit microcontroller families to reduce system cost and power in LCD-based embedded applications.

[6] LINEAR INTRODUCES THE LT3755 60V DC/DC CONVERTER

(Linear Technology Corp, 07 Nov 2008)

Linear Technology has released the LT3755, a 60V high-side current sense DC/DC converter to drive high current LEDs.

[7] ARM ANNOUCES SOI PHYSICAL IP LIBRARY

(ARM, 11 Nov 2008)

ARM has announced a Silicon-on-Insulator physical IP library including standard cell, memory and I/O libraries for IBM's 45nm SOI foundry.

[8] LAIRD INTRODUCES LT2510 RF MODULES

(Laird Technologies, 12 Nov 2008)

Laird Technologies has announced the LT2510 range of proprietary RF modules for the 2.4GHz spectrum.

[9] ERICSSON LAUNCHES DIGITALLY-CONTROLLED REGULATOR

(Ericsson Power Modules, 10 Nov 2008)

The BMR450 digitally-controlled voltage regulator from Ericsson Power Modules uses a digital PWM controller to outperform analogue-based solutions.

[10] CONCURRENT INTRODUCES TP A40/30X SBC

(Concurrent Technologies, 11 Nov 2008)

Concurrent Technologies has introduced the TP A40/30x, its latest low power 3U CompactPCI single board computer.

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