Fontanaman
Robin Trower
I have had this joke in my desk at work since the early 1980’s shortly after Triumph went out of business in 1978.
The Philogiston Theory of Electronics
A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn’t see it! John Kiuvinen, Chairman of the Palomar Repeater Committee an amateur radio group, discovered what makes integrated circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes IC’s work because everytime you let the smoke out of an IC it stops working. I was flabbergasted. Of course!
Smoke makes all thing electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your most recent electrical repair or project? Didn’t it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It is the wiring harness that carries smoke from one device to another in your machine and when the harness springs a leak it usually lets the smoke out of everything all at once and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly and this explains why the wire going to it is so big.
Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electric more likely to leak smoke than, say, Bosch? Hmmm. AHA! Lucas is British. Things from Britain always leak! British convertible tops leak water. British engines leak oil. British displacer units hydrolastic fluid. The British government leaks defense secrets. Naturally British electronics leak smoke.
The Philogiston Theory of Electronics
A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn’t see it! John Kiuvinen, Chairman of the Palomar Repeater Committee an amateur radio group, discovered what makes integrated circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing that makes IC’s work because everytime you let the smoke out of an IC it stops working. I was flabbergasted. Of course!
Smoke makes all thing electrical work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your most recent electrical repair or project? Didn’t it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth dawned. It is the wiring harness that carries smoke from one device to another in your machine and when the harness springs a leak it usually lets the smoke out of everything all at once and then nothing works. The starter motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly and this explains why the wire going to it is so big.
Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas electric more likely to leak smoke than, say, Bosch? Hmmm. AHA! Lucas is British. Things from Britain always leak! British convertible tops leak water. British engines leak oil. British displacer units hydrolastic fluid. The British government leaks defense secrets. Naturally British electronics leak smoke.
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I think the Brits are still using coal lamps for headlights.
