Data Acquisition

I think that it is not unlike any other situation where someone doesn't understand something. The human tendency is to deride or vilify it hoping it will go away and quit scaring them. To do analog well requires more expertise and knowledge than to do digital. Digital is relatively easy. Ones and zeros, just lots of them. Think analog is insignificant? Try designing an audiometer for testing hearing. It's easy to become complacent when so many of the analog design functions are taken care of by a few analog guru's in at a semiconductor manufacturer and they come prepackaged for you. It just takes longer to master analog design and just because much of it now takes place in the digital domain doesn't mean it is more trivial. That is if you're talking about doing it well.

about 5-10 years ago, there was a resurgence of analog recorded sound in the music industry. with the sound being more flowing, as opposed to the sound digitally recorded that are "clipped".

OK "Digital is Easy"-- that is why we spend most energy/time/money in Digital.

But most real life is Analog.

So there is this need for A/D ,D/A conversions

And the need is same every time.

Volt DC To pulse train and stop.

Or a single Pulse Train -- and you got the DC Volt signal out.

As the Need is the same-- and there is the vast production base already doing brisk business in A/D,D/A --Nobody is making any noise about the conversion devices.

That is not to say Analog-No Respect

Plenty in fact --almost all to a firm in Boston MA.

You Know Who!

Yes, they are generally my first choice! Always top notch.

Every time I crank up my electric guitar, I thank the good people at Fender, and Gibson, and Mesa, and others, who still do analog amps.

I may as well take a crack at this just to welcome in the new year...

We live in an analog world. Always have and always will. But, as has been pointed out, analog is complicated. Just a quick look at the maths involved will have people leaving the room. Frankly, doing the types of calculations for modern physics, just to mention one subject, just couldn't be done in an analog fashion. In fact the analog computers used to aim ships guns during WWII are still amazing to me.

Digital is "relatively" simple and lends itself well to calculations broken into pieces and crunched on a computer. The problem is getting the analog data into digital and back out. This is much more difficult than is thought and the nuances involved in both analog and digital maths theory will scramble most brains, including mine.

So I would say that the guys who can actually bridge both "worlds" are the gurus in the electronics world. Their function is manditory to modern life, most of our gadgets just couldn't exist without the "simple" A/D converter and all the complexity surrounding the topic.

To paraphrase: we inhabit an analog world, but the level of sophistication we enjoy would be impossible without the digital processing we take for granted.

Anybody still have your slide rule? When was the last time you used it seriously?

If one does digital design, helps to know analog, too. Case in point:

Customer had a digital circuit in the middle of an analog motor feedback and control problem. Worse, the digital system could not be made to work. Engineer was called in who did analog and digital design work. An analog circuit was applied and quickly shown to work.

Breakdown:

Digital:

20 IC's, some with 20 pins, each

7 months of failed development work

$18,000 in parts costs.

Analog:

1 IC (8 pin op-amp)

4 days development work

$218 parts cost (includes shipping)

Yes, there are numerous incidents when analog is a far simpler and more succinct solution!

I design in both analog and digital alot of the time, I intend to keep things simple with analog but as the design progresses it turns more to digital for the simple reason if you need to adjust fine tune functions this can be acheived with software unlike analog which is set in hardware, so even thou I like the simple opamp solution it ends up being digital to avoid any future functional improvements.

I don't think there is any divide between either style it is all electronics, maybe the divide is the missing education ie as tech changes so do the basics, I remember doing some valve theroy in 1988 but for the life of me wouldn't dare attempt using a valve.

Maybe it is the same with next generation of engineers, $1-2 micro and you get all the device into a single chip adc, dac, timers, uart, usb not much need in looking at analog if every chip you lay down is $1-$XXX lets face it analog stuff is usually a bit over priced for functional use. ie $1 for say lm324 and a $1 for micro it is hard to over look, at the simple price per function.