Hi there,

Over a year ago, I was offered a job as a technical writer with an engineer who writes code used by computers in transformers. He prided himself on writing in DOS, because he hats Windows. He also prided himself on using old computer boards, such as XTs, because his memory requirements are so low.

They seem to distribute a lot of transformer boxes, though the project he was working on was in Indonesia or Thailand.

From what I've read, most XT's go down at the date change. If indeed, they do go down, what is required to bring them back on line. If it's only rebooting, won't they revert to 1981 or some such date? Will that cause problems, other than anomalies in the power distribution?

Victoria

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999

Answers

Victoria,

Could you enlighten me on the purpose of having computers in transformers. Most transformers that I have ever had anything to do with have absolutely no controls that would require any form of computer operation. Even the very large dual rated transformers with OLTC (On load tap changing) usually manage with simple electro-mechanical relays.

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999

Hi Malcolm,

I've really appreciated your posts, by the way.

The purpose of the computers is to regulate the flow. The engineer developed a mathematics that works using things like Fourier transformations. I really don't know how wide-spread the use of their tranformers is. Maybe they aren't used that much, population wise. I turned down the job, and he may have been upset with me, otherwise I'd try to track him down and talk with him about it. If you think it would be of value, I'll do try to locate him. (I don't remember the name of the company, but I think I remember how to get there.)

-- Anonymous, October 04, 1999