dpb wrote:

On 2/1/2012 3:57 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
...
I worked on the hardware side, where coming in on time and on budget
was the norm....

That's 'cuz we software guys had to wait until there was something to
actually work on (or build complete emulators including timing and
builtin bug^h^h^features of the underlying fabbed hdwe) and generally
had to make up in software patches for all the oversights or troubles in
the delivered hardware...


Not where I worked. They were given several complete hardware
prototypes, along with all the specifications. One programmer really
screwed us up when he insisted that 9600,8,N,1 was more than capable of
handling the data to a spectrum display in an $80,000 telemetry system.
There were multiple high speed parallel I/O busses that were unused and
would never exit the chassis, but they decided to add an eighth serial
port to the PC104 controller. they also screwed up the process to load
the firmware to the various subsystems. It took two days to load one
system with serial cables or JTAG loaders that failed quite often. they
kept putting off finishing the install package, until upper management
mentioned removing all the personal crap from their offices, and holding
their pay until the application was ready. A week later, it was ready.
Plug a 1.44 drive into the FDC port, and network cable. Insert disk.
Power up the equipment and it autoran the format program for the 40 MB
M-Disk solid state drive. Install Win CE. Download the application
software for that model, and run the installer. It took about 10
minutes, or twice as long as it took to do the paperwork. Threats of
unemployment can stop all the stupid games & delays.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.