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Oh no! A terrible week for analog design, inspiration. Bob Pease dies, car crash. — Parallax Forums

Oh no! A terrible week for analog design, inspiration. Bob Pease dies, car crash.

Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
edited 2012-07-08 20:05 in General Discussion
This is a sad week, indeed:
Analog_engineering_legend_Bob_Pease_killed_in_car_crash

I can't help but recall Phil's parting comment here:
Analog-guru-Jim-Williams-dies-after-stroke

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-06-20 13:54
    A very sad day, indeed. The bitter irony is that it happened as he was leaving Jim Williams' memorial service.

    -Phil
  • K2K2 Posts: 693
    edited 2011-06-20 13:56
    When I first heard this, I immediately looked at the calendar in hopes that it was 1 April.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,257
    edited 2011-06-20 15:34
    Just from the EDN link Tracy posted, I know I would have liked Mr. Pease a lot.

    RIP, Bob.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2011-06-20 15:36
    Tracy Allen wrote: »
    This is a sad week, indeed:
    Analog_engineering_legend_Bob_Pease_killed_in_car_crash

    I can't help but recall Phil's parting comment here:
    Analog-guru-Jim-Williams-dies-after-stroke

    Gosh Darn! What a bad week. Phil, I guess Bob P did not get your message.

    We have an analog vacuum now :(
  • RDL2004RDL2004 Posts: 2,554
    edited 2011-06-20 15:45
    Analog by Design

    Good stuff, he will be missed.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-06-20 16:03
    What made Bob Pease so special was his hands-on, no-nonsense approach to analog design, an approach that never goes out of date. Even the schematics published with his magazine column were hand-drawn, rather than being done in a fancy CAD program. He hated SPICE and menu-driven oscilloscopes and wasn't bashful about saying so. Some of his more recent columns had nothing to do with electronics, ranging from trekking in Nepal, to a treatise on proofreading -- all of them both entertaining and informative.

    So much of analog design can seem like a dark, arcane art. Bob Pease shined light in those dark places, and now that light is out. He will be missed.

    -Phil
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
    edited 2011-06-21 10:46
    I was working with the LM34 temperature sensor, around 1984, not too long after it was introduced by National Semi. It was supposed to be accurate to within 1 °F, but I was having trouble with the calibration against an ASTM thermometer and thought I might be misunderstanding the specs, or maybe I bought a bad batch. I called the main National tech support line, and explained my issue to the phone room person, "just a minute", then... "Hi, Bob Pease speaking. You have an issue with the LM34?" I was blown away, because I held him in awe after having stared at his circuits and having attempted to follow along in his reasoning in EDN and elsewhere. No marketing guy asking about estimated annual usage. Bob designed the LM34--He is the Czar of the bandgap. I explained what I was doing, and Bob was not at all in a hurry. He explained their own lab setup for calibration, which as I recall involved nested cardboard boxes held together with duct tape and a carefully controlled laminar air flow, what worked and what didn't to make a good calibration, and helped he me out with my setup, which involved an ice bath and an higher temperature bath in a thermos (that is, he suggested the thermos instead of the open beakers I had been using, right on.). He also explained issues they had faced in calibration at the wafer level during manufacturing, and how that affected yield and the higher price of the better accuracy grades of the part. I've since heard Bob speak at industry events and have continued to follow his columns, his advice on troubleshooting, and his trekking. But I still cherish my surprise at hearing him answer the phone.
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,568
    edited 2011-06-21 11:48
    While working at National Semiconductor, I had a chance to meet and talk to Bob on several occasions. He always loved the opportunity to discuss a new idea, and was more than willing to give you a constructive ear full of knowledge. Bob will be greatly missed... RIP my friend.
  • davejamesdavejames Posts: 4,047
    edited 2011-06-21 12:17
    His articles and trouble-shooting book were instrumental for me.

    A very, very sad day.

    DJ


    http://www.national.com/en/videos/remembering_bob_pease.html
  • john_sjohn_s Posts: 369
    edited 2011-08-11 18:57
    Years ago I sent an email to Bob Pease wanting him to write a column in Electronic Design on a subject of how a misplaced and unsecured capacitors caused a deadly accident in my city.
    Yes, capacitors... formed by pipes made of PVC (or some other insulator material) that were stacked one on top of the other for some kind of storage - while the high voltage power lines were directly above. One day local kids played around and as it happens one of them jumped on top of that pile of loose pipes and was electrocuted dead on the spot. The investigation was carried around, the local Calgary Sun newspaper had a front page picture of those pipes and surrounding area.

    The investigation concluded that it was a build-up and storage of deadly dangerous high voltage charges inside those pipes that acted as gigantic capacitors. Bob agreed to look into that and asked me to sent him more details and that front page picture. Well, I didn't (sorry Bob). But at least here it is for all of us who remember you.

    Now, every time I opened EDN or any other EE related paper showing some more than 2 traces on an oscilloscope screen I always looked first for the presence of few little dots in the very center... If there were 3 to 5 of them (shown as little white dots) I knew it was from one of Jim's Tektronix storage scopes. And he consistently used the very same instruments that he loved and restored since NS till LT days as you can see in old National and Linear appnotes.

    Two giants and the very best men I remember well. RIP

    see compiled bibliography of JW here http://web.mit.edu/klund/www/jw/jwbib.pdf

    and continue with http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/introduction.html
  • john_sjohn_s Posts: 369
    edited 2011-10-07 18:18
    This came today from EDN

    http://www.edn.com/article/519496-Computer_History_Museum_honors_Jim_Williams_and_Bob_Pease.php

    I guess a picture is worth a thousand words....

    "
    293674-Computer_History_Museum_honors_Jim_Williams_and_Bob_Pease_image_2.jpg


    Also, in comments one fellow explained an old mystery to me of those 'dots' on Jim's scope. Although I think I was on a right track... well nearly, as I had a chance (or should I say, challenge..) years ago to work with HP storage scope where I observed some burned out traces in all forms and shapes including blurry dots.

    "... and he even made fun of the strange dots in his favourite Tek's oscilloscope, relics of a too-high setting for the analog memory grid to bear!...
    293674-Computer_History_Museum_honors_Jim_Williams_and_Bob_Pease_image_2.jpg
    598 x 268 - 82K
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,664
    edited 2011-10-08 13:20
    Was Steve Jobs' desk ever that messy? So many ways to get things done that have an impact!
  • PJAllenPJAllen Banned Posts: 5,065
    edited 2011-10-08 18:22
    How long before everyone came by and raided Pease's office?
    (Venerable relics? No way!)
    His chair had hardly gone cold before it started - "Hey, I could sure use that!" and "[Thus and sundry], at long last, you're coming with me."

    As for Jobs, the less said the better, but, well,... what would some guy who screws people over left and right have his desk cluttered with anyway?
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,257
    edited 2012-07-08 19:01
    Maker Dino recreated a Bob Pease computer toss with a bit of "Office Space" thrown in at the end. On the one-year anniversary of his untimely death.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2012-07-08 20:05
    "Percussive maintenance": I love it! Now, if we could only get this guy and FPS Russia together, we'd have some real percussive maintenance. (Okay, maybe "ballistic maintenance" would be a better term!)

    -Phil
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