Yep, this is an off-the-wall question.....

Paging through an old QST, it dawned on me that when schematics are drawn, usually the earliest stages are drawn on the left side of the diagram. The
speech input circuits for a voice transmitter; the antenna coupling and RF preamp (if any) for a receiver, etc., all seem to be drawn on the left.

In the tube days at least (and to some degree with solid-state homebrew today) we seem to build the actual equipment the same way: the earliest stages
are physically on the left side of the gear.

Of course, in Western culture we also read and write from left to right. I suppose we learn to look for the beginning of a story on the left side of
the page.


And of course, in some other cultures, people read and write from *right to left*.

When people from these cultures become involved in radio, do they draw schematics (and build gear?) in the same direction Westerners do? Or do they
work "backwards"?

--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66

sorry-spammers wrote:
Yep, this is an off-the-wall question.....

Paging through an old QST, it dawned on me that when schematics are
drawn, usually the earliest stages are drawn on the left side of the
diagram. The speech input circuits for a voice transmitter; the antenna
coupling and RF preamp (if any) for a receiver, etc., all seem to be
drawn on the left.

In the tube days at least (and to some degree with solid-state homebrew
today) we seem to build the actual equipment the same way: the earliest
stages are physically on the left side of the gear.

Of course, in Western culture we also read and write from left to
right. I suppose we learn to look for the beginning of a story on the
left side of the page.


And of course, in some other cultures, people read and write from *right
to left*.

When people from these cultures become involved in radio, do they draw
schematics (and build gear?) in the same direction Westerners do? Or do
they work "backwards"?

I've always wondered why some languages were written from right to left.
Could it be that in some cultures left handed people were more common
than right handed?

Actually, I think the answer lies in the fact that some early writing
was done not on paper like material with charcoal or ink, but with stone
tablets and chisels. Since a right handed person would hold the chisel
with his left hand to strike it with a hammer held in his right, the
characters would be written from right to left. So ancient languages
like Hebrew would have been written from right to left, and still are
even though nothing is carved in stone anymore.

Kenneth Scharf wrote:

Actually, I think the answer lies in the fact that some early writing
was done not on paper like material with charcoal or ink, but with stone
tablets and chisels. Since a right handed person would hold the chisel
with his left hand to strike it with a hammer held in his right, the
characters would be written from right to left. So ancient languages
like Hebrew would have been written from right to left, and still are
even though nothing is carved in stone anymore.

While Hebrew words are written right to left, in Israel, numbers are not.

Dates are the European format, dd/mm/yy. Telephone numbers used to be six digits
123-456 and they went to 7 digits a digit was added at the begining, so the they
became 1234-567.

Did pre WWII schematics in China and Japan go right to left? I know that Japan
had a thriving electronics industry and university level studies.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:29:57 -0400, Kenneth Scharf
wrote:

I've always wondered why some languages were written from right to left.
Could it be that in some cultures left handed people were more common
than right handed?

Actually, I think the answer lies in the fact that some early writing
was done not on paper like material with charcoal or ink, but with stone
tablets and chisels. Since a right handed person would hold the chisel
with his left hand to strike it with a hammer held in his right, the
characters would be written from right to left. So ancient languages
like Hebrew would have been written from right to left, and still are
even though nothing is carved in stone anymore.

Some old scripts used bidirectional writing, with one line going from
left to right and the next right to left
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

Some schematics appears to be drawn in this way too.

Paul

On Oct 25, 11:49*am, "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
wrote:
Kenneth Scharf wrote:
Actually, I think the answer lies in the fact that some early writing
was done not on paper like material with charcoal or ink, but with stone
tablets and chisels. *Since a right handed person would hold the chisel
with his left hand to strike it with a hammer held in his right, the
characters would be written from right to left. *So ancient languages
like Hebrew would have been written from right to left, and still are
even though nothing is carved in stone anymore.

While Hebrew words are written right to left, in Israel, numbers are not.

Dates are the European format, dd/mm/yy. Telephone numbers used to be six digits
123-456 and they went to 7 digits a digit was added at the beginning, so the they
became 1234-567.

Did pre WWII schematics in China and Japan go right to left? I know that Japan
had a thriving electronics industry and university level studies.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel *N3OWJ/4X1GM

Re telephone numbers. Historically smaller telephone systems had
various numbers of digits! Sometimes as few as three digits.
In large cities such as New York, London, early systems used letters
not digits to identify the switching centre. So an operator would be
asked "Get me Yonkers 2348" etc.
A famous telephone number was WHI-1212 (Namely; Whitehall one two one
two, for Scotland Yard, UK's federal police at the time).
With introduction of long distance dialling it then became was
necessary to have other WHn telephone switching exchanges. Lets' say
there was a WHITCHURCH for example. WHI could not be use for both! So
WH2 and then WH3 were used.
Eventually using letters became too cumbersome and switching offices
(in North America at least) became "All number".
For example I live in an area where the switching office code is 437-.
It's a small area and not all the possible numbers within 437- are
used. However with today's portability of numbers and computer
directed switching the concept of a switching exchange serving only
one geographic area has completely changed.
The concept of three digits identifying a switching unit within which
one could have ten thousand individual telephone subscriber numbers
0000 to 9999, along with three digit 'Area Codes' for the various
provinces, cities and states in North America also worked well and is
in use today. Heavily populated areas have several (many) area codes.
While lightly populated ones may not use more than a small percentage
of the theoretically possible one million combinations within each
area code.

terry wrote:

A famous telephone number was WHI-1212 (Namely; Whitehall one two one
two, for Scotland Yard, UK's federal police at the time).

Pennsylvania 6 5000 (in New York City)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0m6i1HQxN8

In use since 1919.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

On Oct 25, 9:41*am, sorry-spammers ""w9wi\"@(sorry-spammers)" wrote:
Paging through an old QST, it dawned on me that when schematics are drawn, usually the earliest stages are drawn on the left side of the diagram. *The
speech input circuits for a voice transmitter; the antenna coupling and RF preamp (if any) for a receiver, etc., all seem to be drawn on the left.

In the tube days at least (and to some degree with solid-state homebrew today) we seem to build the actual equipment the same way: the earliest stages
are physically on the left side of the gear.

Heck, when I lay out a PCB or do dead-bug construction, I start on the
left too :-).

Of course, in Western culture we also read and write from left to right. *I suppose we learn to look for the beginning of a story on the left side of
the page.

And of course, in some other cultures, people read and write from *right to left*.

When people from these cultures become involved in radio, do they draw schematics (and build gear?) in the same direction Westerners do? *Or do they
work "backwards"?

In the 70's I was befuddled by a bunch of schematics from England that
I had to decode. I came to the conclusion that they were hard to read
because they drive on the wrong side of the road over there. But
really they were just using (by my standards) some odd symbols or odd
line thicknesses oddly placed. In my experience the choice of odd or
unconventional or even just different symbols is a far bigger barrier
to schematics between different cultures than any left-to-right bias.

Tim.

Andy comments:

If left to right is good enough for the Koran , the Talmud, and the
Bible.....

.... it's good enough for my schematics.....

Who are we to go against God's chosen order ?


Andy in Eureka, Texas ..... with tongue in cheek.... :))))

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:25:27 -0700 (PDT), Tim Shoppa wrote:
On Oct 25, 9:41*am, sorry-spammers ""w9wi\"@(sorry-spammers)" wrote:
Paging through an old QST, it dawned on me that when schematics are drawn, usually the earliest stages are drawn on the left side of the diagram. *The
speech input circuits for a voice transmitter; the antenna coupling and RF preamp (if any) for a receiver, etc., all seem to be drawn on the left.

In the tube days at least (and to some degree with solid-state homebrew today) we seem to build the actual equipment the same way: the earliest stages
are physically on the left side of the gear.

In the 70's I was befuddled by a bunch of schematics from England that
I had to decode. I came to the conclusion that they were hard to read
because they drive on the wrong side of the road over there. But
really they were just using (by my standards) some odd symbols or odd
line thicknesses oddly placed. In my experience the choice of odd or
unconventional or even just different symbols is a far bigger barrier
to schematics between different cultures than any left-to-right bias.

Many old TRF schematics went left-to-right and then right-to-left.
This was done, I believe, to make it all fit on a 'standard' sized sheet
of paper. The antenna input was in the upper left -- with the RF
sections runing on towards the right. Just before, or just after, the
diode detection, the signal path would drop down the righthand side of
the schematic and then audio section(s) would run left-to-right.

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
* Killfiling google & XXXXbanter.com: jonz.net/ng.htm

Hey Old Timer:

Yeah and in China they read from bottom to top, so the grounds would
be at the top of the page and pointing up not down, and your B pluses
would be where our ground would be.

I have one word: ISO, says it all.
and IEEE would be another word.

Homebrew is thje battle ground for all those idea's.

We're the young generation and we got sum thing to say.

73 Old Timer,

de n8zu



Of course, in Western culture we also read and write from left to right. I suppose we learn to look for the beginning of a story on the left side of
the page.

And of course, in some other cultures, people read and write from *right to left*.

When people from these cultures become involved in radio, do they draw schematics (and build gear?) in the same direction Westerners do? Or do they
work "backwards"?

--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66