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Liking Analog Meters Doesn't Make You a Luddite (Video)
Chris Gordon works for a high-technology company, but he likes analog meters better than digital readouts. In this video, he shows off a bank of old-fashioned meters that display data acquired from digital sources. He says he's no Luddite; that he just prefers getting his data in analog form -- which gets a little harder every year because hardly any new analog meters are being manufactured. (Alternate Video Link)
Especially when you don't need to know the exact number and you need a visual indicator that can be recognized at a glance.
Speedometers, tachometers, load balance reporting, etc...
I don't need to know the exact mbps that is currently getting pulled off my server, I need to know at a glance if my load is going into the red. I don't have the time to take my eyes off the road to read that I am traveling at 55.4 MPH @ 2571 RPMs, I just need to know that my needle is pointing up and left, and that my tach isn't pointing straight up.
That said, I want digital values for all of those things, streaming in real time through the appropriate systems, feeding logs, and populating data warehouses for later analysis.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
no beta either
Yeah, and although I weigh over 300lbs that doesn't mean I'm obese... because I say so...
There's plenty of analog meters being made every year. Just look at any automobile dashboard. They experimented with digital dashes back in the 80s and quickly abandoned them. Even Teslas, which have an LCD screen in the dashboard, have analog meters; they're just done in software, no different that a phone or PC that has an icon of an analog clock face.
Interestingly, though, modern cars with analog meters actually have them driven digitally; the indicator is really a servomotor, driven by digital information over a vehicle bus.
The reason analog instruments still prevail is because they can be interpreted easily at a glance (by looking at the position of the needle, rather than reading numerals and having to decide if those numbers are within a good range), and also because they show trends and rates of change which digital gauges do not.
I like analog meters because most digital meters suck. Digital meters sample, and most of them sample poorly. Good ones sample much faster than they update the display, and average per display update.
Analog meters, on the other hand, mechanically integrate and give some information about the frequency and range of a rapidly varying input. Additionally, they noticeably twitch better than many digital displays and give a much better awareness of rate of change than do digital gauges.
All of these problems are taken care of in good digital gauges. Not at all ironically, the good ones aggressively emulate analog gauges. The newer 747s I fly have tapes and gauges on glass that work very, very well. I have no complaints about them. Outside of aviation, though, the only digital gauges that don't suck are digital speedometers, and that's with a ton and a half of dampening.
Actually, I think it kind of does.
Liking the command-line doesn't make someone a Luddite either.
When you don't need to be that accurate.
There's nothing wrong with an analogue like display, either a needle (like a speedometer) or a bar drawn on a monitor or the like. However the display itself is probably not analogue these days. The monitor is an LCD and while the pixels are small, they do quantize. The needle is analogue, but it is probably driven by a PWM controlled motor and takes digital inputs. It is a sensible way of doing thing, it makes for more precise meters, more error free transmission, and the ability to display the same data with different kinds of outputs. They are continuous displays, not truly analogue.
If you insist on trying to use all truly analogue gauges that makes you a luddite. You have this view that somehow they are superior for whatever reason. That's just not the case. It is like the people who try to argue records are better because they are analogue and that is what sound is. No, turns out when you do a good job digitizing you get a better reconstruction later.
So use a continuous display if you want, but stop bitching that it needs to be analogue. Makes you look silly.
I'll take a good dial caliper over the cheap digital ones I've had. Its so rare I actually need that tool, the digital one I have always has a dead battery by the time I get around to using it again. Same goes for my tire pressure gauge, the $35 solid brass analog one I have is fantastic and I'll bet good money it'll last a lifetime and doesn't need batteries. Sometimes it good on a voltmeter too, it's hard to get a reading on digital if the value is fluctuating.
Both have their place. If something represents a percentage of a total, then analogue displays are the best. If something has indefinite range, then digital is best. In the end the best solution should allow for getting essential information with minimum of effort, but it will also depend on the given context.
There are some places where is t is hard to decide which is best. One example is time, since at least for me, context of use makes a difference.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Using slide rules for your calculations does not make you a luddite either.
which gets a little harder every year because hardly any new analog meters are being manufactured.
I call BS. Most cars come with analog readouts for speedometers, temperature and gas tanks. Most portable electronics use analog readouts to sow remaining battery power as well as signal strength for WiFi. My expensive air pump readout is also analog.
The volume setting on my laptop and ipod is analog too. My watch is analog, after the short spell in te late 70s and early 80s when we went digital. So is the clock on the wall in all the rooms that have one, both at home and the work place.
Analog readouts are alive and well, contrary to what the summary claims.
That's no ludditism, that's a much more serious diseace: hipsterism!
What else it is when one takes a digital signal and painstakingly converts that into inexact analog display with DAC-converters. Just because buh huh, I'm so unique, I like to see my data an-na-log. Pooh, just stop showing off and be like everyone else.
It is very interested to watch trends in HMI design over many years, especially in the process industry.
In the 60s it was all about chart recorders. The exact pressure / temperature didn't matter, what was critical was a short term trend and operating roughly in the right place. They were easy to interprate and somehow entire refineries were run without fancy control systems.
Jump to the 80s and it was all about dotting numbers all over a screen in the name of progress.
At the turn of the century the numbers started getting longer. The worst case I saw was a differential pressure transmitter which displayed flow through a pipe in kg/h to 6 significant digits (yeah right).
In the last 5 years there's been a rise of what the industry is calling "High Performance HMI". And it's taking everything back to basics, back to what it was before some vendor gave people the option of plastering pretty graphics and numbers on a display. The move is now about removing all distractions, removing the colours, displaying short term graphing trends, limiting the numbers to only essentials and never more than 2 decimal places unless it's critical.
The inspiration of HpHMI is .... the airline industry. The A380 cockpit has 8 large LCD displays, yet what they display on them are analogue gauges.
Analogue gauges ignore the exact number in favour of quick and easy glances at current operating states. More importantly analogue gauges provide one thing that digital gauges never will, quick and easy rate of change information. Rather than calculating in your head you can simply see the needle move. It's an important bit of info that can't be shown any other way.
Take a look at any cockpit.
The autopilot heading: digital. The exact number is important. It doesn't change quickly. If it does change quickly then it's not important to know about it because likely something else is currently going wrong.
The altitude: analogue. The exact number is not important. Its rate of change is important.
We need to go thaw some designers from the 50s and 60s and put them back in charge to kill this obsession with numbers that seems to have crept in in the past 30 years.
There are two things that analog meters do very well that (most*) digital meters do either not at all or very badly.
One is rate of change. An analog meter in a wild overload condition will begin traveling very very fast, potentially giving you the opportunity to shut down before catastrophe occurs A digital meter will simply update its display a few times without any of the sense of urgency, and it's kaboom.
Another is getting a reasonable estimate from a dithering signal. A digital meter dithering between 100.2 Vdc and 99.8 Vdc will be almost unreadable if it updates too fast, and useless if it updates too slowly, but an analog needle hovering is an easy read. One can also mentally average "where the needle spends most of its time" much easier as well as seeing very short sharp drops.
And yes, I have an analog oscilloscope and a digital oscilloscope, and each have their advantages (I have lots of meters. I do electronics for a living).
AC
* - Fluke, and I suspect some more high-end brands, have a 'pseudo-analog' part of their display that does exactly what an analog meter does - Changes very fast, but not particularly precise. And it does work. AC
.
I bet his mom's basement has a sweet panel setup
I've used fully mechanical switch-gauges on critical components. They include simple adjustable switch contacts that are capable of shutting down a piece of equipment. Needless to say these hardware gauges have analog readouts and do not rely on a voltage source to display the readout.
I've lost equipment because of electrically signaled and/or digital readout gauges because of improper voltage. The operator was unaware and the equipment overheated to catastrophic failure. Coupled with a dampener, the gauges even mitigate minor fluctuations/oscillations.
These gauges have been used in industry for a century, they are easy to read at a glance and do not require the operator to look for anything outside of a single pattern: a stable needle, pointing straight up.
he likes analog meters
I thought they were called "yards."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
A graphical display is easier to read than a digital readout. This has nothing to do with whether or not the display is analog.
I'm sick of steampunk. I'm waiting for the world to rediscover the high tech aesthetic of the 30's and 40's; a world of analog meters, control wheels. bakelite and art-deco design touches.
One of the highest expressions of this design aesthetic is the Triumph 830 wobbulator. Truly a thing of beauty. If Fred Astaire had ever danced with an oscilloscope, this would be the one.
No one, outside of some small specialty manufacturers (including some old-time avionics makers), makes analog meters implemented mechanically any more, if you mean something where a cable turns some gears which turn a needle. They're all electrical and digitally-controlled now, and have been for some time, and for good reason: mechanical meters simply aren't as reliable or accurate.
Depends on the domain. Analog gauges are still popular in SCUBA diving. No batteries required. An analog pressure gauge telling you whats in the tank. Another analog pressure gauge telling you your depth.
... but while on a dive boat about half the divers had analog and half had dive computers. Guess which group the programmers and electrical engineers tended to be in and which group the lawyers and accountants tended to be in? :-)
OK, this was a while ago
I read that as "licking analog meters", I think it's time for me to turn off the computer so I can turn my full attention to my drinking.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you have ever done anything like aligning RF circuits or devices you are often looking for a peak or minimum value as you make an adjustment (or several interacting adjustments). An analog display is about the only thing that really works for this. THIS can be simulated on a digital display IFF it is fast enough to follow the changes AND if the digital circuits are shielded well enough so they are not fried by high RF levels or conversely inject enough RF crap into what you are trying to adjust to make adjustment impossible.
Even Teslas, which have an LCD screen in the dashboard, have analog meters; they're just done in software, no different that a phone or PC that has an icon of an analog clock face.
That's not analog strictly speaking. That is a digital device imitating an analog display. Nothing wrong with that but it isn't the same thing. To be an analog device it has to operate on analog (continuous) signals. Digital devices by definition cannot do more than an approximation of a continuous signal. Possibly a very good approximation but an approximation nonetheless.
Interestingly, though, modern cars with analog meters actually have them driven digitally; the indicator is really a servomotor, driven by digital information over a vehicle bus.
If they are doing that then the meter isn't actually analog. Analog means something rather specific. If you run an analog signal through a A->D converter and then through a D->A converter you do not end up with the exact same signal you started with. It might be very useful to do that but you could accomplish the same end by simply using an analog device in the first place and not bothering with the conversions at all.
The reason analog instruments still prevail is because they can be interpreted easily at a glance
We use analog instruments to interpret analog signals because it is economical and sensible to do it that way. We can display the same information digitally in basically the same format if we desire to but in many cases this adds a lot of cost for little/no added benefit. It is simply often more cost effective to use analog devices to measure analog signals when practical. It's a keep-it-simple sort of philosophy. There is a time and a place for both digital and analog and that line can get pretty blurry sometimes.
...I'll stick with my Galileo thermometer setting on my desk. No need for a meter!
The first thing is that they are larger, heavier, and more prone to failure than an LCD display, and more difficult to replace as well.
I think you greatly underestimate the reliability of analog gauges. You also may be surprised to find out that they are generally rather easy to replace as well. Not to say digital displays don't have their (ever increasing) place but don't be so eager to throw out analog devices that work exceedingly well at their specific task.
It's receiving digital information, and using that to control a servomotor to position a needle, and looks a lot like old-time all-mechanical meters, but it's still analog in the sense that it's displaying information in an analog fashion, rather than as a numerical readout.
If it is receiving digital information then it is by definition a digital meter. What it physically looks like is irrelevant. That's like saying my iPod is analog because it's playing music in an analog fashion. It's not the same thing. If it isn't working directly with an analog signal it is NOT an analog device regardless of how old-timey it looks.
I'll take a good dial caliper over the cheap digital ones I've had.
Why bother with the cheap digital ones? If the measurement is important get a good gauge whether it be digital or analog. What's important is whether it tells you what you want to know for a price that makes sense.
Most cars come with analog readouts for speedometers, temperature and gas tanks.
You may be surprised to find out that many of those are now actually digital. The gauges look all old-timey and appear analog but the actual signal being communicated is a digital signal and thus so are the gauges technically speaking.
Most portable electronics use analog readouts to sow remaining battery power as well as signal strength for WiFi.
Those are digital too. Does not matter at all how it looks.
The volume setting on my laptop and ipod is analog too.
Not it is not. It is digital imitating analog. Not at all the same thing. The volume on those devices increases/decreases in discrete amounts and hence it cannot be analog by definition. No continuous signal = Not analog.
A graphical display is easier to read than a digital readout.
The truth of that statement depends strongly on the nature of what is being communicated. Sometimes a graphic is far more informative. Sometimes a number is more helpful. But the choice of either is context dependent. You can easily find examples where each is preferred in a particular circumstance.
I can safely say my truck is digital instrument free. In fact, the only piece of transistorized electronics in it, would be the electronic ignition module. It's a throwback to an older time. I'm not a luddite, I design sensors, digital instruments and control systems for a living.
Oh.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Liking Flash instead of supporting HTML5 video doesn't make you a Luddite.
Have gnu, will travel.
In this application, the accuracy isn't important - and you are adjusting for a peak value or null. Digital meters try to compensate with a bar graph, but it just isn't the same. And I don't like analogs here out of nostalgia.
I use both kinds of meters - analog meters are poor at accuracy, but if I have to peek circuits, I'm going to use an old analog meter.
There is one more advantage to analog meters - they are low impedance compared to the fancy meters - and that can fool the user if there is electromagnetic noise. Different tools for different jobs.
But it's definitely a sign that you may be a steampunk.
I have one car with analog speedometer but my daily driver is now an electric with a digital numeric speedometer. After 2 years with the digital speedometer, I find that I really miss the numeric readout when driving the car with the analog speedo. I find that the analog speedo takes me longer to interpret than the digital one.
This may be that the speedometer is used more to determine if you are above or below some specific speed. Digital might be simpler to interpret in that case.
On the other hand, the information from a tachometer is more about the trend rather than a specific threshold (other than the redline). That case may favor an analog gauge.
Who would plumb to such depths as to call a confident electrical engineer a friggin' luddite?! What a nasty thing to do to someone who might be a little sensitive to loose talk and innuendo but is by no means a practicing or closet Luddite. But if they were....well...
I am a pilot and for the most part every guage in the plane points straight up to 12 o'clock when things are normal
With one glance I can tell that everything is running fine, I don't have to think, I just look and in a busy cockpit that can mean the difference between life and death. If I am shooting an IFR approach down to minimums I have a very rapid scan of a very few instruments and every 5th scan or so it is a full panel scan so I know that among other things, the vacuum pump suction level is correct, and it is normally on the other side of the cockpit ( small planes). Everything pointing straight up, yep all is well, back to my limited IFR scan.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Pro audio software all has analogue like meters, but they are all digital of course being computer software. You can adjust how they respond, tell them how to integrate the data they get, how fast to respond, etc. So you can tailor the output to what is most useful.
Also as a converse back in the day some high end analogue audio meters were made to try and quantize data. They'd be designed to segment the display to 1dB increments around the clipping/saturation point so that the engineer could make more useful adjustments (anything under 1dB difference is hard to impossible to hear). Not truly digital, but the same idea.
Best meter I ever used, was back in the 70's...good ole Simpson 260. Built like a tank!
"This is related to another aspect of changing the problem. I was once solving on a digital computer the first really large simulation of a system of simultaneous differential equations which at that time were the natural problem for an analog computer—but they had not been able to do it and I was doing it on an IBM 701. The method of integration was an adaptation of the classical Milne’s method, and was ugly to say the least. I suddenly realized of course, being a military problem, I would have to file a report on how it was done, and every analog installation would go over it trying to object to what was actually being proved as against just getting the answers— I was showing convincingly on some large problems the digital computer could beat the analog computer on its own home ground. Realizing this, I realized the method of solution should be cleaned up, so I developed a new method of integration which had a nice theory, changed the method on the machine with a change of comparatively few instructions, and then computed the rest of the trajectories using the new formula. I published the new method and for some years it was in wide use and known as “Hamming’s method”. I do not recommend the method now further progress has been made and the computers are different. To repeat the point I am making, I changed the problem from just getting answers to the realization I was demonstrating clearly for the first time the superiority of digital computers over the current analog computers, thus making a significant contribution to the science behind the activity of computing answers."
— "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering" by Richard W. Hamming.
He has other positive quotes about analog systems, which do have uses.
Magic eye tube here.
Null indicator on a General Radio 1611A capacitance bridge.
Have gnu, will travel.
Preferring old technology isn't sufficient to make one a "Luddite." Here, I listen to music with a turntable and 50-year-old restored vacuum tube electronics. Because it provides a thrilling lifelike reproduction of vintage recordings. I also stream hirez digital files from my computer to a home theater surround system in another part of the house -- because the sound quality is sufficient for those applications and because the resulting system provides great flexibility and convenience when accessing online content.
A "Luddite" in this context is a person who eschews new technology. That's a lot different than continuing to use old tech.
It's been my experience that the overwhelming majority (OK, pal, I know you're the exception, but you just prove the rule), of people who look down upon those of us who embrace old tech are youngish, like under 35. When they hit 50 or 60, they'll probably be smarter about these sorts of issues. After all, being young is a heckuva lot like being stupid. The older you get, the more you realize how little you know -- a sure sign of increasing wisdom. In this post-Modernist world, my opinion is that the best way to live your life is to cherry-pick your personal tech from the enormous pool of current and vintage resources available to us. Want mobile map guidance? Smartphone. Want to bring something to read to the beach that you can leave on the sand when you're swimming & won't have to lug home? Cellulose-based magazines. Does your brain have an easier time interpreting spatial relationships than it does a rapidly varying digital display? Use VU meters (or digital represenattions of VU meters). Each of us is an unassailable expert on what makes the most sense for us.
So, seriously, aren't there any real issues to be concerned about?
Who is really saying this. Nobody with a brain. But of course there are plenty of those people but I'd like a link so I can identify and avoid such morons.
Pro:
>Digital display can display more information than a single signal.
>The display isn't affected by ambient magnetic fields or positional errors (the needle reading differently when placed vertical, sideways, etc)
>Easier to quantify when used as a scalar.... counts per unit time measurements.
>No precision parts that can break with a shock
Con:
>Environmental disablement. In extreme cold; the display becomes to faint to read. In extreme heat; it goes totally black. This is a huge concern if you take measurements out in the environment and not in a lab.
>You either get "bouncing betty" readings or have to have an averaging circuit to get readable data from a digital display. i.e. radiation counters and field strength meters trying to read a PCM transmission.
For the type work I do, my personal preference is for an analog meter with an inset digital readout. That gives you the best of both.
NRRPT/RCT
I don't have the time to take my eyes off the road to read that I am traveling at 55.4 MPH @ 2571 RPMs, I just need to know that my needle is pointing up and left, and that my tach isn't pointing straight up.
This. In fact, in the last nuclear installation I worked in, where the control room had a metric fucktonne of dials, one of the watchkeepers told me that the regulator refused to consider displays of digits, insisting that the displays had to have an analogue-style dial. (I assume all the data in the background was digitised, but it was displayed on an analogue-looking dial for exactly that reason: 2 significant figures of numbers are bugger all use when what you really want to know is that all 50-odd dials are still in the "green" area!
As a guy in my 50s who now needs reading glasses, I'm finding digital displays increasingly frustrating, especially small cheap LCDs that aren't very distinct unless you're looking at them from straight on. I much prefer digital clocks, but if you can't tell a 3 from an 8 or 0 or a 1 from a 7, they're not very useful, and it's almost always easy to tell the big hand from the little hand. Similarly with digital meters, big numbers with fat segments are still easy to read, small skinny ones aren't.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
We have two separate questions here, that are getting tangled together! 8-P
1. Digital electronic circuitry or Electro-Mechanical needle mover.
2. Number display or analog visual view.
Not only can digital electronics display an analog image, but electro-mecahnical actuators can move digit reels for a mechanical display. (seen them)
(Most arguments end up being about the definitions of words. What do you mean by digital?)
I think the best display is an analog image in a circular shape with the numbers in the middle, with the needle image overlayed over it. But vertical bar graphs with the number at the bottom works, too.
( and screw slashdot for marking me anon.)