There are no words that can soothe the loss of a friend, loved one, or colleague. From their obituaries, their contributions have impacted many, and will carry forward for many, many years. I am truly saddened by your news.

Animae eius et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per Dei misericordiam requiescant in pace

May their souls and the souls of all the departed faithful by God's mercy rest in peace

It's a little unusual, but look at it this way, there just may be a bunch of people on CR4 that have never read their writings. People that will be interested. For them it will all be brand new.

Writings that they may never had heard of, or seen, if not for your obituary piece.

Seems A-Okay to me. It's a good thing that they chose to write stuff down and share their thoughts.

Yup, sad when a real old school guy goes. I remember poreing over Bob Pease's articles when I was cutting my teeth as a design eng. He always had a nice simple way of explaining stuff with some humour throw in for good measure, pure understanding without too much maths.
Lost a couple of good bowyers this year too.
I think if we can leave fond memories behind we are doing a good job.
Del

A good idea. I wonder if EDN, National Semiconductor and Linear Technology will maintain a searchable archive of their collected works. It would be a fitting tribute.

I received an e-mail this morning relating the details of Bob's passing, very, very sad. It was bad enough that Jim had suddenly passed, but Bob too, hard to express. I was working on a project with Bob and I was waiting for a reply from him which, will not be coming now. Those two were quite rare, we don't quite have anybody in the wings to take their places, per se, but they both did a lot towards mentoring and that helps a lot. Too bad we don't have more like them teaching in schools. There are some really good engineers that were taken under their wings at Linear Tech and National Semi, we all benefit from that fortunately.

I enjoyed working with Bob, we had a lot of good laughs together and shared a lot of technical knowledge between us. Probably the worst thing about Bob was his terrible, hen scratch, hand writing, you might have thought he was a doctor it was so bad! Of course, Bob was busy and I can't blame him for scribbling off a reply, often on used computer printout paper, he didn't waste much. That was painfully brought home by the huge mess that his office and work benches were always in. A giant rat's nest, always in progress and growing. I could always talk to him about all kinds of things, from vacuum tubes to transistors to ICs and silly buffoons pretending to know what they were talking about.

I am confident that all of their writings will be saved, they are too valuable to lose for years to come, there aren't very many that are missing from my library.

I remember reading through some application notes that Jim had written during his son's infancy, marking the difficulty or complexity level by the number of baby bottles on the note and let's not forget the funny little drawings Jim liked to put in them as well. I remember them fondly as I also had my first son not too many months after Jim's son was born, made for some good reading during those late hours! Jim loved Tektronix scopes, he had 14 of them, a few more than I do, but they were a great source of engineering know how to design elegant circuits, plus their manuals were some of the best ever written. Many good hours spent pouring over them!

My family's condolences go out to both of their families, they will be greatly missed.

A few years ago I was interested in some op amp servo stuff, I found an article referenced in Bob's online blog but was unable to find a copy. I emailed him and a few days later a hand annotated photocopy, in a hand addressed envelope turned up at my door.

I was greatly touched. Someone famous had taken the time to help a lowly engineer. It's a bit late but "Thanks" Bob.

Beside enjoying his papers I had many years ago the chance to audit one of his speeches and meet him at a seminar in Paris (France to avoid any misunderstanding), he was a very pleasant person and this meeting was a real pleasure i keep and will keep in my memory.

I was also very saddened to hear of the death of Jim, and, even more so Bob. I loved the way Bob always wrote about anything that interested him instead of sticking to the analogue circuit design at which he was recognised as world class. Unbelievably he also replied personally to a letter of mine with care and insight (see ffej at post #7 above). I wonder how many people he actually did write to.

As Bob would say: "What's All This Memorial Stuff, Anyhow?"

End of an era. S.M.

Being in the electronic design field for many years, I was a big fan of Bob's columns in the trade journals. If nothing else, I always found the time to read "Pease Porridge", and now with most things going to electronic format, I'd always click the link to his writings in the various journal emails I get. I'll miss his fun, informative, and thought provoking writings.

I didn't know much about Jim Williams, but from what I've read posthumously, seems like they were two on a similar plane, much higher than mine. They will be missed.....

Tom D.