Complete Bookshop/CompleteWorkshop.iso/how_to/research/research.txt

Text File | 1991-12-26 | 24KB | 574 lines

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%  INSIDER RESEARCH SECRETS (Blatant Opportunist #13)

% ************************************************************************
%
% SUMMARY: Guru Don Lancaster reveals the key secrets to researching
%          nearly any topic in most any field.
%
%          To appear as BLATANT OPPORTUNIST column number 13
%          in the Jan/Feb 92 issue of MIDNIGHT ENGINEERING.
%
%          Free sample copies of MIDNIGHT ENGINEERING: [phone].
%
%          This is the TEXTFILE version. See RESEARCH.PS for compilled
%          PostScript or GNZOPULL.GPS for the layout source code.
%
%          Full reprints available from SYNERGETICS via GEnie email.
%
%          Copyright c 1991 by Don Lancaster. All rights reserved.
%          Free help line and additional info: [phone].
%
% ************************************************************************

% Name of textfile: RESEARCH.TXT
% Source:           SYNERGETICS
% Author:           Don Lancaster
% Desc:             Insider Research Secrets  [BLAT #13]
% Date:             October 24, 1991
% Release:          1.0
% Approx length:    25K
% Status:           Copyright 1991. All rights reserved.
% Keywords:         blatant, opportunist, research, book, uhlricht,
%                   BBS, reprint, library, dialog, trade, service
%

%     X E     Activate XON/XOFF if necessary.
%     Z       Values are shown for Apple Super Serial Card

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INSIDER RESEARCH SECRETS
========================
by  Don Lancaster


SITTING AROUND AND DREAMING UP new ideas all day long is a thankless task,
but someone's got to do it. The key secret to positively brilliant new
products is to develop a thousand of them at a time, and then throw away
the 998 that don't meet spec.

There are some strong points that can be made for solo research. For
soloing is doing everything from square one originally and by yourself.
This could give you a different perspective and lets you ignore
preconceived notions of others. It lets you head out in non-obvious
directions. It lets you do your things the way you want to.

On the other hand, finding out what others have done before you can save
you a lot of grief. There might be ideas you simply haven't thought of. Or
fundamental physical laws which just can't be ignored. Or societal and
political restrictions. Or going heads-up against an existing strong
competitor. Worse yet, your great new product may already be scrounging
lost and forgotten under the bargain counter of Vinnie's Surplus and
Distress.

A long ago ferinstance or two: Back in the early sixties, counting flip
flops at long last became available at a mere four bucks each. I wanted to
do some pitch reference stuff with these and needed to answer the question
"What is the minimum number of flip flops needed for an acceptable musical
accuracy? The question is not trivial, since the frequencies are irrational
numbers as related by the twelfth root of two for equal temperment.

So, I spent several very long months with a humongously klutzy Olivetti
programmable calculator and I eventually found the answer that (1) eight
bits is enough, but (2) only if you use the wondrously magic sequence of
116, 123 ... 232. Full details are found in my CMOS Cookbook.

Had I just looked around a little first, I would have found this magic
sequence already published years before in the Journal of the Audio
Engineering Society. While it sure was a lot of fun, I could have saved two
months of work just by asking "Has anyone thunk about this before now?"

And I assembled my Pitch Reference and published it. And just before I was
about to release it, I talked to a piano tuner person, and found several
fatal flaws in the product. It turns out that pitch tones must always be
pure sinewaves, or the ear gets confused. And the high and low notes of a
paino are never tuned to their correct pitch. Instead, the keyboard is
"stretched" to allow for the nonharmonic overtones of real strings.

Had I instead bothered to read the 1946 book Piano Tuning and Allied Arts,
I would have easily found this out. And saved bunches of time and effort in
the process.

The odds are overwhelming that your "new" idea is not new at all and that
many hundreds of people have done similar work before you. It is almost a
certainty that you're overlooking something totally obvious any time you
try to develop anything new.

So it always pays to research what has gone before you. Let's do a quick
rundown of my key insider secrets to quickly, accurately, and cheaply
researching just about any topic, technical or otherwise ...


THE RESEARCH CONTINUUM
======================

First and foremost, research is something that you do continuously on a
total lifestyle basis. You do not turn your research activities on and off.
You always should be busy studying something.

The process of getting and piling up useful info should go on day in and
day out. Then, when you really need some crucial info in a hurry, your
research gathering skills will be honed sharp enough to quickly get useful
results.

Some of the stuff I'm currently researching includes spread spectrum comm,
toner release coatings, Lepcon solar energy, GPS satellite standards,
shared SCSI laser printing, fuzzy data curve fitting, telephone caller ID,
cheap small scale book production equipment, new VCR programming formats,
and, of course, tinaja questing. Give me a call if you can help along with
any of these.


THE GREATEST RESOURCE
=====================

By far the single most useful and powerful research tool anywhere ever is a
magic book on the reference shelf of your local library. You probably never
even heard of it. It is called Uhlricht's Periodicals Dictionary.

Uhlricht's lists some 50,000 or so magazines. Many of these are called
trade journals. And trade journals are where all the action comes down in
any field. Trade journals are insider's secret resource sources. They cover
only the newest, the hottest, and the best.

Directly, trade journals give you technical articles, the names-and-numbers
lists, bingo-cardable ads, and annual directories. Indirectly, they lead
you to reference materials, data books, ap notes, free samples, seminars,
trade shows, consultants, and great heaping bunches more.

Examples of electronic trade journals include E.E. Times, EDN, Electronic
Design, Electronic Products, Electronic Components News, Electronics, RF
Circuit Design, and many hundreds more. The mechanical examples include
Machine Design and Design News.

To give you an idea of the incredible variety of trade journals out there,
a few of the several hundred that I personally subscribe to do include Fire
Engineering, Food Service Product News (a great diet magazine just read it
before every meal), the Paper, Film, and Foil Converter, Pollution
Equipment News, Textile World, Powder and Bulk Solids (how is this gem for
obscure?), Quick Printing, Horsetrader, Motion, HVAC News, Medical
Equipment Designer, Signcraft, Research and Development, NASA Tech Briefs,
Hydraulics and Pneumatics, Tinaja Quester's New Product Digest, Appliance,
and Speleonics.

Sadly, WET The magazine of gourmet bathing has long ago ceased publication.

Trade journals are never offered on newsstands and only rarely appear in
libraries. They are controlled circulation magazines specially set up to
qualify for the special postal rate. Subscriptions to most trade journals
are free if you can create the illusion of appearing to be an industry
insider and potential volume buyer for their advertisers. To qualify, you
request a subscription qualification card and then tell them what they want
to hear.

You'll have the best luck if you act professional. With a registered trade
name, a logo, a formally answered telephone, and a laser printed business
letterhead.

The SCAR technique is one useful ploy that can get you a copy of just about
any magazine. Just call or write their ad department and request a Sample
Copy and Ad Rates. Sometimes, this can also get you a free subscription.

Most trade journal publishers have dozens of titles in as many fields. So
it pays to get a complete list of everything they offer. Once you receive
any one trade journal, the competitors will usually glomp on to you as
well.


OTHER LIBRARY STUFF
===================

A lot of library work can end up as a frustrating and monumental waste of
time. But there are several other obscure library resources that cannot be
ignored. One of these is the Encyclopedia of Associations. Just about any
field has its insider clubs and professional organizations. Who offer
meetings, contacts, tutorials, directories, shows, seminars, and specialty
book sales.

Although the humongously big old Thomas Registry of Manufacturers indexes
just about anybody who makes anything, they tend to be out of date in any
fast changing field. They also miss small hi-tech startups.

Another library reference that is almost magic is the Science Citations
Index. Unlike other compendiums, this one lets you move forward through
time. Anytime someone references something else in a bibliography, it goes
into the index. Just start with the "horses mouth" docs for any field and
follow them forward through time. Eventually newer authors will start
repeating. You then use the avalanche effect to completely cover the
subject area.

More details on other library research secrets appear in my newly revised
Incredible Secret Money Machine II.


THE DIALOG INFORMATION SERVICE
==============================

Behind Uhlricht's, the second most important resource tool in the world is
the Dialog Information Service. This is an online searching service that
presents key abstracts and full text papers of just about anything from
anywhere.

One tiny corner of Dialog is called INSPEC. This gives you some fifteen
million or so on-line abstracts to anything involving electronics,
computers, or physics. There are many hundreds of other data bases
instantly available.

At $2 per minute, Dialog sounds expensive. But I've found it to be far and
away the fastest and cheapest way to pick up technical info. Especially in
any field you know nothing about. Dialog is the only on-line or BBS service
that I willingly and gladly pay for.

While you can subscribe to Dialog yourself, it is usually best to work with
your local librarian. They can do things much faster and better. And the
price (and size) of a total Dialog reference manual set is outrageous.


GETTING REPRINTS
================

I keep getting these strange letters and helpline calls from people that
live in "such a remote area" that they "just can't find" any reprints on
anything. Since two of these "remote areas" have included Cambridge MA and
Palo Alto CA, I've reluctantly concluded there are those of you out there
who couldn't find a pig in a dishpan.

Well, here I am sitting on my sand dune in the middle of the Upper Sonoran
Desert. I have never had any serious problems getting technical reprints on
anything. Even on fire towers or when doing underground cave research by
carbide light. So don't give me any "remote" bull.

In reality, there are three easy routes to technical reprints. The first of
these is the Interlibary Loan Service, which is available at any library
just for the asking. This service is usually free or very low in cost. On
the other hand, it can take a long time. And you sometimes will have to be
persistent to get useful results.

The "standard" M1A1 Rev 0 reprint source is UMI, who used to call
themselves University Microfilms. They have one each of everything in
stock. All you have to tell them is the exact journal, author, and page
numbers. Charges vary with the number of pages and the service speed.

Finally, Dialog offers full text reprints of many of their references, on
line, by FAX, or by mail. This is usually your fastest route to a reprint,
but it often costs much more.


TECHNICAL BOOKS
===============

For serious research, technical books place a distant third behind trade
journals and Dialog. As you may have found out, mall storefronts with a
"bookstore" sign in front of them often end up less than useless. Libraries
have a bias against technical paperbacks. And what you need may be on
reserve or in circulation.

Technical books traditionally have taken a long time to publish, and often
are horribly out of date before the ink is even dry. Many publishers push
their own second rate titles, rather than letting you know about the real
leaders in the field. And technical book clubs are usually set up to flush
remainders and unselling dogs.

Nonetheless, for the fundamentals of any field, a solid tech book by a well
known name-brand author can be a tremendous research help. Where can you go
to get books if they aren't in libraries or mall bookstores?

Instead, watch out for specialty direct mail booksellers who have a vested
interest in stocking only the very best titles in any field. I've covered
hundreds of these in my other columns and, especially, in my Ask the Guru
and Hardware Hacker reprints. But two examples of note are Lindsay
Publications for machine shop, early radio, and home science titles; and
the MIX Bookshelf for electronic music and video production books.

Good technical walk-in bookstores are rather hard to find. Several
outstanding West Coast examples seem to include Computer Literacy, OpAmp,
and Stanford Bookstore. If you have some favorite specialty book
sources, please let me know via the helpline so we can pass them on. I
would like to compile a country-wide list.


WHAT ABOUT PATENTS?
===================

As you may have noticed, I am very much down on patents and the patent
process. Especially for Midnight Engineers and other small scale startups.
Mainly because of the deeply ingrained and ludicrously absurd popular myths
surrounding patenting. And secondly because patents are usually a
monumental waste of time, energy, money, and sanity. See Midnight
Engineering #6 Nov-Dec '90 or my Blatant Opportunist reprints for more
details.

At any rate, I have consistently found Dave Berg's stories in MAD magazine
to have far better inventions and ideas in them than have ever appeared in
the Patent Gazette. Most patents are pointless and dumb. Not to mention
usually being highly unprofitable.

In three decades of research, I've only rarely found any time or place
where reading a patent was of very much use to me. I strongly do feel that
the signal-to-noise ratio of studying patents is ludicrously low and
usually is flat out not worth the effort. At least most of the time.

Should you feel otherwise, patents appear in the Patent Gazette, in patent
repositories in many larger libraries, and are narrowly reviewed in certain
trade journals. Individual patent copies are available at low cost.

One thing that could help bunches would be patents on CD ROM with a total
fuzzy logic text searching ability. That could increase the signal-to-noise
ratio enough to make the time spent worthwhile.


SERVICE AND REPAIR MANUALS
==========================

Some companies positively refuse to ever let an outsider anywhere near
their service literature. Others are much more reasonable. Obviously,
service and repair info can give you lots of useful clues to just how
others are solving similar problems.

The greatest source of this sort of stuff, of course, is Heathkit. For
years, you could buy the assembly manual and schematic for any simple
electronic project for five bucks or so. The real heavy duty projects did
cost a tad more, but certainly were worth the price.

There are some "reverse engineering" outfits of varying quality that offer
schematics of just about anything. These folks often advtertise in
Radio-Electronics and Nuts and Volts magazines.

Until recently, Hewlett-Packard has been a great source of laser printer
repair manuals. Since HP and Apple share the same Canon engines, just about
everything in the HP manuals applies to the similar Apple machines. And
Apple manuals are impossibly difficult to latch on to. Besides being poorer
than the comparable HP manual in the first place. Details in the Ask the
Guru reprints.

Sadly, HP has recently tripled the price of their laser printer manuals up
into the hundred dollar range. You know how it goes when you sell lots of
something. You have to add shifts and hire new people for the shipping
room. And there's all those extra annual reports to print up. After all,
those new employees have to be paid for somehow.

Be sure to check all the possible sources of a competitive product for
service and repair info. Chances are that one source is a lot looser than
most.

To me, it is monumentally stupid not to fully publish your schematics,
service information, or ROM listings. Or, for that matter, making your
source code listings available at reasonable cost. Failing to do this has
caused Apple do go downhill ever since the original red book. Lack of Mac
schematics and service info is just plain dumb.


NETWORKING
==========

Networking is simply asking others for help. These can be real people in
the case of community college courses, work associates, ham radio clubs,
computer user groups, or technical hotlines.

Or you can go the electronic BBS route. There are many tens of thousands of
electronic bulletin boards up today. With general or special interests that
apply to just about anything or anyone. These are by far the fastest and
the cheapest way of linking yourself up with experts in just about any
field, technical or otherwise.

There are four electronic boards which are head and shoulders above the
rest. The first two of these are GEnie [phone] and CompuServe at
[phone]. GEnie alone has nearly 125,000 files and programs available
for your immediate downloading at costs averaging around twenty one cents
each.

Besides my very own PSRT RoundTable on GEnie, other RoundTables here that
you will find of more than passing interest do include MAC, IBM, RADIO
(incredibly great technical downloads), HOSB (for home office and small
business) and DTP (for desktop publishing). There are, of course many
hundreds more.

The third truly great BBS is The Well at [phone]. This online Whole
Earth service is very heavy in the areas of alternate energy and
small-is-beautiful topics.

The Well people also publish the Whole Earth Review, a magazine I find
indispensible for serious research on working tools and source of supply.
These are the Whole Earth Catalog folks at the same old stall after all
these years. Uniquely doing what they do best.

And finally there is UseNet, the greatest piracy cove in the known
universe. The time from when someone decides to keep some code a secret
till the greatly improved version appears on UseNet is usually measured in
nanoseconds. In several cases, the response time clearly has exceeded the
speed of light. For free UseNet access, you'll have to ask around at your
local university.

The UNIX-based UseNet is also known as Anarchy 101 among its denizens.
Strange but useful folks fer sure.


CONSULTANT REFERRALS
====================

I'm in the process of more or less legitimizing our highly informal
consultant's network that has grown up around my no-charge technical
helpline. There's now a stable of some several hundred Midnight Engineers
who, for a reasonable fee, can solve problems for you.

Fields currently covered include electronics, publishing, kits, PostScript,
cable tv, vacuum technology, chemistry, programming, electronic speech,
video, mechanical design, and agricultural stuff. Plus, of course, tinaja
questing.

There is no charge for referral to one or more of these consultants. The
consultants themselves are expected to pay a five percent finder's fee when
work is completed.

If you need a Midnight Engineering consultant, just give me a call on the
helpline below. Should you wish to join my Synergetics consultant's net,
just prove to me who you are and why you deserve to be on the list.


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SOME RESEARCH NAMES AND NUMBERS
===============================

COMPUSERVE
5000 Arlington Center Blvd.
Columbus, OH 43220
[phone]

COMPUTER LITERACY
2590 North First Street
San Jose, CA 95131
[phone]

DIALOG INFORMATION SERVICE
3460 Hillview Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94304
[phone]

GEnie
401 N. Washington St.
Rockville, MD 20850
[phone]

HEATHKIT
P.O. Box 1288
Benton Harbor, MI  49022
[phone]

HEWLETT-PACKARD MANUALS
19310 Pruneridge Ave.
Cupertino, CA  94014
[phone]

LINDSAY PUBLICATIONS
P.O. Box 583
Manteno, IL 60950
[phone]

MIX BOOKSHELF
6400 Hollis St. Ste. 12
Emeryville, CA 94608
[phone]

NUTS & VOLTS
P.O. Box 1111
Placentia, CA 92670
[phone]

OPAMP TECHNICAL BOOKS
1033 North Sycamore
Los Angeles, CA 90038
[phone]

RADIO-ELECTRONICS
500-B Bi-County Blvd.
Farmingdale, NY 11735
(516) 293-300

STANFORD BOOKSTORE
135 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94305
[phone]

SYNERGETICS
P.O. Box 809
Thatcher, AZ 85552
[phone]

THOMAS REGISTRY OF MANUFACTURERS
1 Penn Plaza
New York City, NY  10119
[phone]

UHLRICHT'S PERIODICALS DICTIONARY
1180 Americas Avenue
New York City, NY 10016
[phone]

UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS
300 N. Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, MI  48106
[phone]

The Well
27 Gate Five Road
Sausalito, CA  94965
[phone]

WHOLE EARTH REVIEW
27 Gate Five Road
Sausalito, CA 94965
[phone]


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Microcomputer pioneer and guru Don Lancaster is the author of 26 books and
countless articles. Don maintains a no-charge technical helpline you'll
find at [phone], besides offering all his own books, reprints, and
various services. He has a free brochure chock full of his new insider
desktop publishing secrets waiting for you. The best calling times are 8-5
weekdays, Mountain Standard Time.

Don is also the sysop of GEnie PSRT [phone] where a special area has
been set aside for you Midnight Engineering readers. Or you can reach Don
through his Synergetics, at Box 809, Thatcher, AZ 85552.

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% GEnie PSRT Blatant Opportunist Downloads:

%      #339 - WHYLIKE.TXT   Why I like PostScript B12
%      #286 - MONYMACH.TXT  New money machine intro B010 B11
%      #269 - DIRECTPC.TXT  Direct Toner printed circuits B09
%      #243 - PARADIGM.TXT  Stalking the wild paradigm BO8
%      #208 - ADVETORL.TXT  Mastering the Advetorial BO7
%      #162 - NOPATENT.TXT  The Case against Patents BO6
%      #116 - EMERGOP.TXT   Hackable Emerging Technologies BO4
%       #76 - DTFINISH.TXT  Desktop Finishing Ideas BO3 & BO5
%       #80 - MYFAVOR.TXT   My favorite secret resources BO2
%       #77 - DEMAND.TXT    Book-on-demand publishing BO1

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% Reprinted from Don Lancaster's BLATANT OPPORTUNIST.
% Now available on GEnie email via SYNERGETICS.

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% FREE VOICE HELPLINE AND ADDITIONAL INFO: [phone]

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