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Prism! Prism! Prism! 'Sorta reminds me of a friend
who won't buy a new computer because he's so sure that as soon as he buys one,
someone else will come along with a computer for sale that's faster, has
more memory, and costs less. PLASMA uses MAP and rpm to determine timing, and
Klaus has taken a very conservative approach, even 'tho he's a liberal, to avoid
any timing that could result in detonation - pre-ignition. This timing curve is
a result of his many hours of experimentation, and is proprietary, so he's
obviously not going to give it out! This timing may not be the absolute
best obtained by measuring individual cylinder pressures and adjusting
individual cylinder ignition timing to get right up next to this
very-best-of-all-worlds timing where LPP, location of peak pressure, is at
14 deg ATDC, but consider how much more complex and costly that approach must
be; more sensors to go bad, more wiring to break. Let's see. If you lose one
sensor, and the other 3 or 5 are at peak, and this one is at something less than
peak, will the engine still run smoothly? Will having every cylinder pressure
sensor working before takeoff be a requirement, and how will it be tested on
run-up? The PLASMA is a simple but very good analog EI, and a lot of
it is due to its NOT being digital! Go on the VANS forum, and read all of
the postings about a very popular ignition system that's up to V25 or V26 of
its software. Would you like to keep sending in your ignition system for
updating every time a new software bug is discovered? Has your home computer
ever gone off to Never-Never Land?
I've designed digital with DCTL, RTL,
TTL, ECL, and CMOS, and I've designed analog circuits from DC to X-band,
and I know the pluses and minuses of each. I worked on four different computers
that were used for the guidance of the Atlas ICBM, Titan range safety, guidance
of the Atlas used for re-entry vehicle testing, and guidance
of the Atlas Space Booster - the Burroughs J3, IBM 7088 and 7090, and
Harris /4. I've always pointed out to my digital-only compatriots that digital
is just analog driven to saturation and cut-off! And when they get into
the high speed stuff, they'd better know about analog stuff like
transmission lines and reflections and capacitive loading and wire
inductance.
So, what is the latest release date of
PRISM?
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