Johnson777717

Wow! That must have been something. With all due respect, I get a kick out of the "Lady Manners Grammar School". I suppose I'm not used to that type of name. Schools out here are usually named after a famous political person, or historical reference, or the city name (Such as Abraham Lincoln High School, Sandra Day O'Connor elementary school, Boulder High School etc.)

Nigel Goodwin

Just as your schools were named after famous people, so was mine, "Lady Manners" was the name of the wife of a local landowner, presumably "Lord Manners"?. When I was there, we still had the fish ponds at the front of the school (great fun throwing other kids into them!), but the Peacocks (which give the school it's emblem) were no longer there.

If you visit the school website at http://www.ladymanners.org.uk/ the main picture is the front of the school as it was when I was there, the fish pond used to be in front of the door in the centre of the picture. If you look at the picture at http://www.ladymanners.derbyshire.sc...i_archives.htm from 1962, you can clearly see the fishpond in the middle. I went there from 1966 to 1971, as I left they were about to go comprehensive, which required a large extension - the 1972 picture shows the changes (but still with the fishpond evident).

I was a day pupil, but it was also a boarding school, we had a number of students who's parents worked in the diplomatic service.

Johnson777717

Now that is a site to see. What a beautiful place to attend school. The schools that I attended were pretty boring. No architectural materpieces. Basically, just regular square buildings. Don't get me wrong, the buildings were nice, and they did the job (I think they doubled as bomb shelters, as they were built during the cuban missle crisis, or shortly thereafter).

My elementary school was the only thing that could come close to what you've experienced as a child. The building was red brick, and very similar to the old schoolhouses that you may see on old american films. The building resembled a large church, with a bell tower and things of the sort. To my knowledge, it is the oldest operational elementary school in the United States. The name was Whittier Elementary and is located in Boulder Colorado, USA. I still go to visit, when I'm in Colorado.

I can't picture Mr. Nigel Goodwin throwing kids into the pond Although, most of us have our michievious side.

In your last sentence, you stated that most of the pupils had parents who worked in the Diplomatic service. What is the Diplomatic service?

Nigel Goodwin

The staff who work in foreign embassies, one friend in my form used to go to Hong Kong every holiday - his parents worked in the British Embassy there.

It wasn't most of the general pupils, but a good few of the boarding pupils came from those backgrounds.

As I mentioned originally, when I first started at the school, I thought I'd gone back to the schools shown in the old British black and white films :lol:

Things have changed a lot there now, obviously - but in my day you had to have seperate indoor, and outdoor, shoes - if you were found wearing your outdoor shoes indoors, you were in deep trouble, bearing in mind they still used the cane back then!.

mechie

Just as a suggestion...
An LM2907 or LM2917 will make a simple F to V converter.
The attached circuit will give you an idea of how it is configured, the range and zero points can be altered by changing resistors.
Note in this circuit a reed switch is used for measuring the speed of a wheel (?), this will need altering for a microphone or electric pickup input.

I am not suggesting this is the best answer, the PIC circuit will probably be best, but as you asked ...

Each input pulse is used to trigger a monostable which gives a fixed length pulse out.
These fixed pulses are used as 'packets of power' to charge a capacitor which has a constant discharge path.
The more pulses-per-second of power you put into the cap the greater will be its charge and therefore the voltage accross it.
This voltage will increase during each pulse and fall again between pulses so a rough triangle wave will be seen as its output (at the frequency of the measured input).
Simple filtering will remove most of this 'ripple voltage' leaving a DC voltage proportional to the applied frequency.

All the above in a singe IC !
There are other ways of doing it but this is common and cheap.

Ah! yes, the cane; I remember it well, like a trusted friend. Mixed High school, myself, CSEs AND 'O' levels for my sins.

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My head is full !

Johnson777717

Mechie, I enjoy your Quote as your autosignature! Very crafty

The cane. I can't say that I know what that is like. I grew up in an era where teachers were no longer allowed to physically punish children. I still got good whackings from my parents, but school, you could pretty much get away with anything. The punishment we had was called "detention" where you would spend your lunch with your head down on the table. I soon adapted this detention time as a nap time :wink: Once my Dad found out, things changed for sure.

So, would they whack you across the back with the cane? or bust your rear end? How would they use the cane?

Different shoes! Wow. I suppose that was to keep things clean, as well as presentable inside? It's very very amazing to me to see the differences between the United States systems and the UK systems. Although, we are talking about two different generations here. Still, what a contrast!

It makes you wonder if some of the discipline issues, or lack thereof, may be a source for some of the problems over here in the US. I can't remember a time when I was afraid of getting into michief at school, because there wasn't any solid punishment. The worst thing was that they would call your parents.

I move for bringing canes back to school Or at least something fearfull, like having to go to the dentist every time you do something against the rules.

willcurvis

thanks a lot, you've all been great. think its going to be the PIC circuit, as like you said the frequency to voltage converter circuit would be really inaccurate.

glad i could set off the trip down memory lane for some of you as well!

Nigel Goodwin

I realise it's for a school project, but I just bought my daughter a Seiko one for her bass guitar - she wanted one which will tune to 'drop d' - whatever that is!. Her old Qwiktune one doesn't do that, the new one only cost £23.95 - which, except for school projects, makes building one look pretty pointless (money wise).

You can download the PIC software from the EPE website, if you need the circuit let me know and I'll try and find it.

As for caning at school, when I was there it was across your rear end, I only got it once - most unfairly as well :lol: It might have been 1969 or so, but I still hold a grudge!.

aevans17

Drop D Tunning is where the low E string on a regular guitar is tuned down to a D instead of the standard E. This gives, from lowest to highest, D A D G B E, since a D major would be D F# A, you automatically get a D5 by simply strumming the bottom D and A string. Since alot of modern music only uses power chords (those of '5' variety) this makes playing simple chords really easy becasause all you have to do is either play in the open strings, or bar across the top 2 or 3 strings and you get a different chord. Lots of heavier rock people use drop d. I don't know how it works on a base guitar.