Rtfm

everybody should know what this means...... if not here's a linux page with a description of this command and it's usage.........
http://www.wlug.org.nz/rtfm(1)
:D


ok, if after you read that, and you're still not sure, it means Read The Fine Manual, Read the Fun Manual, or another version not suitable for polite conversation.

working for a large service center, i see a lot of equipment that comes in for repair which, frankly, wouldn't have to if people pulled out that mysterious book that comes with your shiny new home theater system, sat down and read it cover to cover just once. and those who should read the manual are not only the consumer, but the sales staffers who guide the consumer in their purchasing decisions. two examples of this are from actual pieces of equipment that came in for repair recently one of them is from a consumer, one is from a home theater sales "tech". the first one (from a consumer adding an additional feature to their home theater setup, i.e. a second TV monitor) is the complaint on a Blu-Ray player. the customer, already having an HDMI TV monitor connected, was adding a secondary monitor to the setup, by attaching the second monitor to the component jacks (red, green and blue plugs). his complaint? no audio through the second TV monitor...... no it doesn't work like HDMI, it also needs a pair of audio cables, which is shown on page 6 of the owner's manual.
the second came from a sales floor "tech". complaint? multichannel surround receiver only has 2 channels of audio out to the speakers. the "fix" for this one was a single push of the Surround Mode button on the front panel, which switched from 2CH Stereo to 5CH Surround...... BTW, that one was on pg 12.
the sales "techs" and consumers aren't completely at fault here. engineers and marketing execs have their place in this mess too... a recent editorial in an engineering magazine was talking about the consumer electronic industry's fixation on "Feature-itis". Feature-itis has always been part of the consumer electronics industry, but for a long time, there was a very real, physical limitation on how many features could be implemented in a piece of equipment, it's called FRONT PANEL SPACE. mechanical switches and controls were limited on how close together you could put them in a piece of sheet metal, and you could see where every single one was set. there were also circuit board real estate and power dissipation issues. the more features, the more PC board real estate required, and the more packed the PC board, the more heat had to be vented somehow (and packing PC boards closer together made this difficult).with modern technology, however, there is literally no limit to the amount of features that can be installed (actually programmed is a more accurate term) into a piece of equipment. all that's needed on the front panel is a very few small buttons, and a few square inches for a fluorescent or LCD display and a window for a remote sensor. inside the unit you have a power supply, an amplifier section (i'm using a receiver as an example), and input-output boards for the signals and speaker outputs. these all take up a generally standard amount of real eatate inside the chassis.

what is new is the electronic "magic" to a) control all of the systems, interpret user input, perform signal and power switching, b)take all of the input signals and manipulate the signals, even adding effects and filtering, and c) monitoring the system for fault conditions such as shorted speaker wires, all of this continuously.

and all of this "magic" resides in an epoxy square, about 1" (2.54cm) on a side and 0.1" (2.5mm) thick. it all resides in DSP code, there can be thousands of features and settings coded into this small device, menu upon submenu upon feature settings. so many submenus and choices it's easy to get lost and forget what you just changed. you can no longer see the whole "front panel" at a glance and say "oh, i forgot to switch this back to 'tape 2'". all of your settings are hidden behind the front panel, where you can't see or remember them, and any one of them can dig you in deeper when you try to correct a mistake that suddenly cuts the sound out or makes it sound terrible. don't get me wrong, modern technology is very useful, and DSP solves a lot of difficulties that audio designers have been wrestling with for years (yes, now there IS such thing as a "brick wall" filter, and it works!!!!), but having too many features, many of them hidden in layers of submenus, is a perfect breeding ground for Murphy's Law, "If there is an option that causes a malfunction, the option will be set." Fortunately there is (and this is usually in the owner's manual near the back) always the Master Reset, which is great for getting a piece of equipment working again, but then the consumer has to start all over (but this time hopefully he Reads The Fine Manual.....).....