For all of the many times I have done it, I have never gotten tired of typing a command, or clicking a button on a screen, and watching something happen in the real world.
An LED turning on, the click of a relay, or even a motor beginning to spin… These represent a moment when the seemingly ethereal digital realm of our computers interact with the physical domain.
I have spent my entire career dealing in the interface between the ethereal and the physical, working where the two meet. Turning sensor readings into digital, and then turning the digital into actions in the everyday world. I played with this interface as a teenager, learning the basics. My wisely chosen college degree was tailored to this task, an electrical engineering degree with a heavy dose of computer science. Professionally I have dealt with microcontrollers, high performance analog to digital systems, and programmable logic controllers, all straddling the boundary line from digital to physical.
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