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Old 1st Jul 2019, 6:54 pm   #21
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

All part of the rich english/English language apart from "train station".
 
Old 1st Jul 2019, 7:23 pm   #22
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I've an irrational need to be as traditionally English as possible, so I never say 'schematic' or 'trace' and never answer a question with 'So'. I do have to use such words when I 'google' sometimes, but it's in deference to America's domination of the western world and internet. I suppose the circles one moves in tend to lend their slang to susceptible people, and I did find myself at the weekend measuring the 'bee plus line' of a faulty radi..er wireless, when I should've been probing its HT rail. It was a Cossor as well....so no afters for me tonight.
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Old 1st Jul 2019, 7:44 pm   #23
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

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It's not only electronics that attracts neologisms. My least favourite examples are 'coding' for programming and 'makerspace' for workshop. Many of these terms become popular on the internet among people who only interact with others of the same age and background, and are then popularised by tech journalists.
I utterly detest being referred to as a 'Maker', even though I've been making and repairing things (personal and professional) my whole life.
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Old 1st Jul 2019, 8:32 pm   #24
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I suppose it's the same as people using the word 'electrician' for anyone who is involved with anything electrical. When I did TV field service, I lost count of the number of people who answered the door and then shouted (to someone else in the house) 'The electrician is here to fix the telly......' On some occasions during conversation with others who may have problems with a TV or radio you'd hear them say 'Oh I'll need to call the electrician to come and fix it...'. I remember saying to one person, 'No not and electrician, you wan't a TV engineer....' They looked at me as if I was from another planet......!
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Old 1st Jul 2019, 8:53 pm   #25
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I like to think of the initial 'So' as a kind of start bit that prepares the other party for a frame of data.

With the market for electronic technology having been globaliz... globalised for so long, many languages have acquired a large fund of loanwords to describe electronic things. English has been the source of many of them, but the same process has occurred between American and British English.

Organ stop names make for an interesting and amusing study and comparison. Many European organs are based on a tonal scheme of a particular period with an origin in a particular country, and hence feature one language predominantly in their stop names. But it is not unknown to find a Flute, a Flauto and / or a Flöte side by side, in each case referring to a particular kind of flute. We should be used to this in English, with our duality of Saxon / Norman vocabulary, although few people now recognise the old hierarchy in their everyday speech.

Given the number of PCB trax in existence, and the variety of linguistic backgrounds of their makers, it is almost surprising that we do not have more words for them according to size, shape and function, as we do with roads, rivers and other linear constructions.

Boulevard n. A wide track carrying a power supply through a densely populated area of board, usually lined with bypass capacitors.
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Old 1st Jul 2019, 11:13 pm   #26
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

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Rambo1152 thank you, I didn’t realise that Military Comms were called boat anchors. Some time ago I was in communication with a forum member when he was going on about boat anchors, and I genuinely thought he was talking about boats, I’m from a nautical background.
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I have a feeling that the name came from radios on ships that were built to be marine proof. This made them heavy like boat anchors.
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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 12:32 am   #27
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

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I suppose it's the same as people using the word 'electrician' for anyone who is involved with anything electrical. When I did TV field service, I lost count of the number of people who answered the door and then shouted (to someone else in the house) 'The electrician is here to fix the telly......' On some occasions during conversation with others who may have problems with a TV or radio you'd hear them say 'Oh I'll need to call the electrician to come and fix it...'. I remember saying to one person, 'No not and electrician, you wan't a TV engineer....' They looked at me as if I was from another planet......!
I started TV field service in Middleton in Gtr Manchester, formerly in Lancashire. Parents would refer to tradespeople like me as "The Master" in front of their children. For example:
"Don't get in that master's way, or he'll take you away in his car".
It happened quite a lot; the expression, not the kidnapping.

Something to do with deference in the mills I suppose.
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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 8:23 am   #28
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I think that "trace" was in common use by the early '80s as was schematic, I certainly remember these words being used in my first proper job in 1984.
I think they are most likely to be terms that were used more in digital / microprocessor based electronics and were influenced by US practice.

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 10:55 am   #29
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I think it may have arisen because a particular copper entity on a circuit board traces the path of a signal. Also using CAD, you are presented by a rats nest connecting the parts, and you then place traces to link like signals (which are either auto named, or manually entered - input connections, filter input etc) between resistors, capacitors and active devices.

If that is correct, it is a more logical term than track.

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 11:05 am   #30
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I've just been reading Wireless Worlds from the late 50's and early 60's.

One debate was over the introduction of Hz instead of c/s. Even so there were no definitions for most powers of ten. So you got kMhz for GHz, uuF for pF and mus (milli microsecond) for ns.

Another one was a plethora of symbols for the transistor, and a long debate about which ones were better than others. The first one was arranged to look a bit like a triode valve symbol (kind of glossing over the fact that the characteristics had much more in common with a pentode). In fact articles in a particular issue used three different transistor symbols! There was much confusion at this time, certainly in the UK.

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 12:16 pm   #31
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

The American use of "metallurgy" to refer to the "metallisation" layer forming conductive tracks of integrated circuits still grates with me.
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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 12:50 pm   #32
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

Looking back over the last 30 years or so, it's very easy to see the gradual & continual importation of American culture into the U.K., from where many of the above words & terms originate. It's not only detectable in electronics and 'things technical', but in every aspect of 'the Media', especially T.V. broadcasting.
Having said all that, the English language is a dynamic language: it's constantly undergoing gradual change. A good illustration of that is to compare 'everyday spoken English' of today to that of the 15th. century.

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 2:51 pm   #33
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

I think it is good that archaic words like filming and VT survive in the industry because it puts the modern techniques into a historical perspective, which is never a bad idea.
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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 3:43 pm   #34
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

As has been said, English is & has been an evolving language with many and varied influences. The trend toward Americanisation (Americanization?) is simply part and parcel of this, and mostly doesn't grate too much on me.

There are certain terms that do rankle a bit though, such as parting out (where exactly are you parting it to, then?) and other needless additions of the suffix "out", but in general I just go with the flow & use whatever comes naturally at the time provided it is clear to other parties what I'm on about. I originally knew LOPT's as Flybacks for example and it still feels more natural to call them as such, but in this forum I'd defer to tradition and call the Line Output Transformer it's British name.

As far as tracks Vs. traces, I tend to favour traces for many reasons but for heavier current carrying ones, tracks sounds more substantial so I might say "there's a couple of broken traces on this amplifier board, just below the +12v and +27v tracks"

One American word that really does grate on me though, and not even a new one, is their insistence on calling petrol "Gas"... I know it's an abbreviation of the word Gasoline, but it just sounds wrong every time I hear an American speak of filling their car up with Gas that is actually liquid!
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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 4:29 pm   #35
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

Language does evolve, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

'Train station' - can't see the problem. Easier to say, and shorter on signposts, than 'railway station.'

'Tyres' is an Englishism (!) where Americans spell 'tires' for some reason we moved away from 'tires' to 'tyres' but they didn't. Theirs remains Old English, same as 'gotten.'

'Fill out' a form, I used to 'fill in' a form.

'Met up with' (somebody)... somehow sounds more deliberate and less random than 'met' (somebody). Very subtle.

'Presently' used to mean 'Soon' but now seems to be taken as 'Currently' or 'At present'

'Traces' and 'Tracks' the subject of the thread, I reckon just happened because two different people at two different places needed to put a name to the conductors on a PCB, and they came up with two different, but reasonable, names.

My favourite is the French, coming up with something to describe a spacecraft landing in the sea. 'Le splashdown' didn't go down with the linguists who were already upset about 'le weekend.' Then someone else pointed out that an aircraft landing is 'l'atterrissage' as it meets the ground (la terre) so, as the sea is 'la mer' why not coin the new word 'l'amerrissage?' Brilliant!

My own pet hate is 'Should of' instead of 'should have' and now seen in print! That is REALLY going to confuse foreigners trying to understand the Past Perfect tense and compare it to their own language!

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 5:56 pm   #36
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

Evolution (whether linguistic or biological) is always amusing for what it happens to leave in its wake.

"Train station" makes total sense to me, to differentiate it from Bus/Coach-station.

I would never describe the person-who-came-to-fix-your-broken-telly as a "TV Engineer". No doubt the place where said TV was designed/produced would have had a few Design Engineers, RF Engineers, Production Engineers - all with appropriate Degree-or-better professional qualifications and memberships of suitable Chartered Institutions which would have allowed them to put C.Eng, M.Eng or B.Eng on their letterheads.

But the swap-out-a-valve-or-two-and-give-the-frame-generator-coil-a-tweak guy who called to fix your telly was no Engineer - he was a Radio/TV Technician. [I'm glad that in quite a few places - many US states, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands - calling yourself an "Engineer" without having a formal Engineering degree and accreditation is actually illegal]

Other linguistic-fun: having lots of exposure to US computer-companies from the late-70s onwards, terms like "frobbing" [randomly messing-around on a system] and "Moby" [hypocorism for "Motherboard"] I find come naturally. "Planar board" being another version of Motherboard - along with DASD for a hard-drive and FRU for "Field-Replaceable-Unit" - something you could order-up-and-replace-on-site rather than requiring a RMA [Return for Maintenance Authorisation] code to ship the failed unit back to an authorised Repair Center (Centre).

I used to have a fold-out laminated card [in the style of those listing the IBM360/370 instruction-set] which listed a few hundred IBM hypocorisms and three/four-letter acronyms.

Best was a RPQ: A "Request for Price Quotation" - meaning you needed sonething that was not on the standard IBM-sales-team's hymn-sheet. That was really "Open your wallet and say ~~help yourself~~".

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 7:51 pm   #37
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

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When did old military radios become "boatanchors"?

When did radio amateurs outside the US sphere of influence begin to call themselves "Hams"?

When did breadboards exclusively become those plastic perforated things?

When did everything vaguely to do with networking become a "Hub", even though the term was long ago assigned to a particular type of networking device.
Most things networking tend to be called switches nowadays

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 9:03 pm   #38
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

'Train Station' makes me want to scream!
But then I have always had a deep interest in railways and its very obvious that those with a serious interest hate this ugly modernism, whereas 'Joe Public' just doesn't care and uses whatever is deemed trendy and fashionable.
'Railway Station' has done the job for the best part of two centuries, there is simply no need to change it. But then the media seem to replace the word 'Railway' with 'Train' everywhere, even though the two words don't mean the same thing. A couple of days ago a TV programme kept referring to the Railway System as the Train System - would they call the Road System the 'car system'?

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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 11:47 pm   #39
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

And when did a good old-fashioned power cut suddenly become a power 'outage'?

Is outage even a real word?
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Old 3rd Jul 2019, 6:22 am   #40
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Default Re: When did PCB tracks become 'traces'?

schematic makes me want to scream it's a circuit diagram, a diagram showing the electrical circuit of something. They are working down the road laying fibreglass for the internet and I noticed we now have footways not footpaths when did that change come in?
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