Testing the TK Tar Baby

[TinselKoala]

In my experience, the first thing that a reviewer looks at when a paper comes by, is the reference section. First and most importantly to see if any of the reviewer's _own_ publications have been cited, and second to judge the nature and quality of the background research that went into the paper in the first place. Depending on the citations and bibliography the reviewer can often make a broad judgment as to the suitability of the paper for the particular journal being targeted. A paper referencing only data sheets and user's guides and instrument instruction sheets, and perhaps a calculus textbook.... and of course the writer's own totally unscientific internet blog.... means that the paper won't be considered for publication in any peer-reviewed scholarly journal, and the reviewer won't need to proceed further.

The Second category to be examined will be the Figures, Graphs and Tables of data. If a reviewer knowledgeable in the art got as far as that Paper 1 Figure 8 above.... that would be the point where the paper would go into the circular file, with extreme prejudice.

IMHO, of course.

[picowatt]

TK,

Nice...

Were you using 'scopes back when you had a Tektronix mainframe and a set of plug-ins belching out heat from hundreds of tubes and sitting on a huge cart next to you?  (OK, the hundreds may be a little excessive..)

'Twas nice in the winter, but not so much in the summer!

If someone were new to 'scopes, I would probably suggest one of the many low cost 8 bitters for a PC, as any 'scope is definitely better than no 'scope.  But, even with the best DSO available to me, I would still find the need to confirm things from time to time with an analog.  I suppose, like 96K/192K 24bit audio, some day DSO's will routinely acheive 18-20 bit at a few gig sample rate.  I probably will never see one, but that would likely satisfy my DSO desires.     

PW

[poynt99]

.99,

I am not sure why the switching circuit and switched mosfet in the source leg is required at all.  Why not just put a 50R in the source leg instead of the switched mosfet and let it run?  The 50R would emulate RA's FG out and you an set the bias current by adjusting the applied gate voltage.  Alternately, of course, the gate voltage could be fixed and Rsource adjusted to set Ibias.

PW

I could just let it run in oscillation mode, then M5 wouldn't be required (just ground M4's Source). However, I want to be able to achieve burst oscillation mode just as Rosemary's circuit does. It poses a bit more of a measurement challenge as well.

[TinselKoala]

Some of her experiment runs described in the paper used ridiculously long periods, like two minutes plus. That's a "slow burst" if I ever heard of one. Might as well be DC at that frequency.

[TinselKoala]

@PW: I never got to use a mighty 555, no, but I actually would buy one if I could find a nice one... it does get chilly here in the winter.
I've got a couple of RM503s that are hybrids, a few tubes a few transistors, nice blue phosphor but low bandwidth. I love the look of them though.