Catching up here as well.

Thank you Gary and Alex

HW R&D, MFG, testing

Hello to archive learning

Thanks Gary

Looking forward to the second semester and next weeks class

Thanks alex thanks gary

audio is okay

hello gary and alex

Picking up the last lecture

Thank you Gary!

@Gary - and more rhetorical questions today...

@Gary - what's up with the picture on slide 3??? (does not look like there is much "planning" going on)

@Alex - h/w, s/w and currently standards focus

Great that we have access to the recorded sessions!

Missed a lecture again...

Hi, Alex, Gary, all, a belated HI!

@Gary - Thank you very much for your week of impartations.  We have enjoyed it.

@Alex - Thank you to for you hard work too.  We will miss you and remember you.  We wish the best to you in your new endeavor.  Please extend our appreciation to Digikey for making this possible.

@rhall007 – I don't know why it has to be that way, but it seems to happen too often.  Where is the reward for your contribution?  In so many ways, what happened to you is just so very wrong.

@jl - My condolences on your job loss...  I feel strongly for you.

@Gary – Working myself out of a job: It has happened, and it does not feel good at all.

@Gary - Having "constants" in a R/W register seems like a good idea, but I can't think of a time that I ever had that much foresight.  I'm not clairvoyant, but sometimes I wish I were.

@Gary - My first printer was the original inkjet.  Bought it in 1988.

@Alex - Planning ahead is part of my professional and personal life, but sometimes pressures and external influences prohibit planning.  Bummer.  That's when I don't feel I have control.

@Gary - No retirement or savings for kids at this time.  All kids grown and gone.  They have their own retirement plans.

@Gary - Retirement plan: Yes.

Welcome back this for this final session Gary.

Hi Alex.

Hey folks.  Sorry to be so late, but I needed to spend the afternoon at one of our local TV stations.  After that, it was taking care of domestic matters and getting the day's calendar cleared of so I could have some peace to focus on our forum.  But, at least things are archived so that I can avail myself of this added knowledge.  So, let's get down to it.

My green was fine!

Systems Engineering Manager

Gary, thanks for the interesting week. You presented a lot of ideas to help with new project challenges and reflection on past experiences that were successful, nor not and why.

Alex, good luck and best wishes in your new assignment.

Thank you, Dan.

Just being a computer hobbiest was being a problem solver in h/w, s/w and system integration just to get something to work.

Alex's comment about not knowing what's under the hood resonates with my feeling. I learned at the time when a single person could understand the relatively simple h/w, OS or monitor and the applications. That ability is going away with current systems.

Very nice training, Thanks

Thanks and happy weekend!  Excellent series.

Thanks

Gary Jet == fast it's a marketing and perception thing. :)

@EdB_Vt - I don't know how/why they carried the *Jet to LaserJet. It has definitely been part of HP's printer and tools naming. InkJet, ThinkJet, QuietJet, OfficeJet, JetSend, JetAdmin. Several years ago a competitor tried to sell a PhaserJet printer but HP lawyers manage to squash that.

Thanks to all - the interaction on this class has been enjoyable and useful. (Besides the HP war stories are always fun :)

Thanks

@jl - Agreed - all new programmers/engineers should have to do a stint supporting legacy products to learn how to avoid pitfalls.

Awesome; glad to contribute!

Going to have to come back and review archives; the end of the middle-school year is unfolding around me, so early-dismissal taxi-duty beckons. Catch you guys on the next turn of the wheel, eh?

Thanks and good luck, Gary, Alex!

planning for future comes from experience. this experience comes from maintaining existing systems. one learns quickly the good practices and that saves time, and learns that just a little better design that allowed for future changes saves a ton of time, effort and money

@flaredOne - "attach spare pins to a trace to a through-hole." I like that. I've added it to my best practices list.

Goal is to maximize the benefit of good guesses and minimize the impact of poor ones.

In guessing the future, if you HAVE an 8-bit register and are only using 4 bits, you CAN kinda "predict" those spare bits will come in handy SOMEtime. So attach pads/throughholes for rework ECOs (avoid someone having to solder directly to chip leads, at the very least). Or a 10x4 PLA; same thing.

Gary - as long as your average is better than 50% you are making forward progress. :)

@Alex - what was the series you are going to be hosting

Several have commented about not being able to guess the future. No, we cannot guess everything perfectly. But how many times have you guessed right? Though all my future guesses have not been correct, many of them were correct.

Heh -- you guys got the degree FIRST, THEN started your careers. I did it the other way around, so when I got into those college courses (relatively recently; STARTING though with 1.5 years at MIT did help), I had a MUCH better feel for "good point" versus "yeah, right" re stuff some instructors were pushing.

@jl - Good observation. My planning ahead doesn't mean implementing the future now, but leaving room so that I can implement it later. We did not hook all 8 of those positions to I/O pins, just the 5. But when we needed the 6th, then we added in the register where there was space reserved.

@flared0ne Agreed - can't beat the school of hard knocks.

@TonyH - Iowas State '84 I got that degree - matches your description.

Current college courses DO cover a large amount of this stuff -- unfortunately, it isn't the kind of thing that makes a lot of sense until you've had some time "in harness" and seen a few of the many ways that people can do design WRONG!

Good luck with your new assignment Alex. Hope to see you back in the future. Which series are you hosting?

best wishes on your new venture Alex.....

Thanks Alex - won't be the same without out you :)

Best of Luck Alex.

Thank you for a great week fo lectures.

Thanks Gary.

Thanks for your lectures. Very good principles

Bye Alex, good luck on your new venture.  You hosted a lot of good topics.  Thank-you.

Thank you for all the best practices!

IT should be part of engineering school teaching!

University of Illinois had Computer Engineering Degree in the late 70's.  Basically a Elect Eng. Degree with software and computer architecure courses.  My graduating class had 33 students in it for that degree.  

Thanks, guys, it's been surprisingly real.

Thanks Alex and good luck with new assignment

Thanks Gary

thanks Gary, thanks to Alex and DigiKey

Good Luck Alex in your next endeavor

Thanks Gary and Alex for an interesting series of presentations.

Right= T-shooting with desigh experoence gives you in the future good position as a good verifier of ANt documentation...and of cors your responsibility to new generation is to brcome TEACHERs as YOU ARE guys. Congrat for exelent job

thank you,

Grary: Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experince

Embedded System Design had an article on a college cirrucilum for embedded software engineer.

what is the course starting June 4

great news

TaBLET, taBLET, taBLET!!

The pendulum swings -- USED to be just "EE", now there's CS and EE. That is soon to be merging again. At this point, with totally configurable programmable DRAM-type processor cores, an ASIC where you can program up to four cores, NOW the line between Hard- and Software is fuzzier than ever.

Agree hw understanding should be required for CS degree.

I'll agree with the Engineering being taught how to approach problems and how to consider aspects that don't appear to apply at first view.

So hardware is in the physical (your brain) and software is the metaphysical (your thought). You can disect the physical, but...

Gary,  Great week of lectures.  I think the most critial point is to use standards. This allows easy collaboration with teams, better defined projects and ability to re-use code and do it right the first time.  Thanks for the great points.

Alex, you mention agile.  This is just a production methodology.  It does not address design.

GREAT OVERALL LECTURES AND COURSE. VERY LEARNED INSTRUCTORS...

THANKS..

Audio must be done.  I can catch in archives.  Thanks Gary if I have any questions I will email,

Not true Gary - Got a Computer Engineering degree in 1984

I had a similar discussion with an Alumni rep about CS majors don't know how a computer works...

the scary thing is that hardware design is becoming more like software design.

A comprehensive survey of design-planning tools might be a valuable resource, if not a whole week of discussion. Kind of begs a bit different level of interaction, though -- not clear when "Chat" may be part of a bottleneck...

thinking "outside the box" while staying focused seems to help me resolve, and antisipate problems.

Thanks to you Gary and Alex for the material presented, and to you all for your interesting comments.

Thanks Gary

Check out some current commentary about Microsoft changing over to support Open Source software -- they're seeming to lean toward some very useful design-planning tools.

Those "phylosophical pronciples" are so IMPOETANR.

Believe, it has so good "leadership" in other desognings, e.g. in larger Process Control Projects!  THANKS!!!

Thanks Gary and Alex.

Software can be as precise but there is no "standardized" approach for "IC or other modules".

There is an effort to create a Software PE due to safety critcal aspects of SW.

Thanks Alex for this great series of lectures.

Had trouble. here now

@flaredONe - we will certainly not focus on you  :^)

Thanks Gary for a great presentation.

Gary Thank you very much for the courses , very useful information

Thanks also to the folks who chimmed in and shared some good ideas.

Also, thanks to Alex, and Digikey for sponsoring this series, very worthwhile

Great presentation! Good discussion n the 7 principles.

thanks Gary, great presentation. Hope you will be back for future sessions

@Gary - Thanks, you have given this old hand an interesting week of information and idea support.

great presentation, one of the best

Auto_Tink - yeah when you are leaving and they are trying to figure out how to relapce you it finally shows them what you have been doing... 

Don't focus on ME, here (unless that's foreshadowing a tablet somehow [hope, hope!])...

Thx. Gary and Alex

Thank you Gary for your the great presentations

I hope everyone has a great weekend+

Good idea flaredOne

Great week!   Thank you everyone!!   :)

Thank you for sharing your experiences Gary. Great presentation, Also thank you Alex and Digikey

Thanks for this great series

Thanks for the presentations!

thank you Gary,

thank you Gay

Thank you Gary. This was a great series.

Thank you Gary. We apreciate the knowledge

In my first job out of college I was "disruptive" since I produced more than others in group. I was transfered to a different group.  That was a good thing for me.

It actually helps if you physically WEAR a different hat -- makes it visible that you're working on something specific.

great presentation

I agree flaredOne. I have worked at several startups and wearing many hats is something that is valued to some degree. But sometimes (not always) they dont realize how much you are covering till you are gone.

cheaper may not apply to custom-made products, am I not right?

Yes big believer in helping people learn to help themselves and get backups for my tasks

FOLLOWING THESE PRINCIPLES, I HAVE WORKED MYSELF OUT OF SEVERAL POSITIONS BY PRODUCING MORE THAN OLDER EMPLOYEES.

I worked hard to bring a product line to the point where it was 2-3 yrs ahead of the competition. Management thought it best to lay me off to save money since we were so far ahead.

yes...have worked myself out of a job because of these and other practices...was fired because the company no longer needed me

If you are in a smaller shop, the ability to "wear many hats" makes you valuable because you cover for what would otherwise take more people.

yes,

Yes

The R/W hardware-based constants sounds very similar to the adjustments for monotonic linearity for ADCs and DACs. Yes, absolutely -- hardware "tweakable" variables are hugely useful.

Just checking -- you familiar with programmable logic devices which are like DRAM?? Every time you power them up, you have to load them with their configuration, their logic tables, etc. I mentioned this yesterday, having encountered a situation where there was a huge multi-function ASIC AND an adjunct "boot PROM". Point: make the load-space selectable, so you can access variations and (perhaps) diagnostic versions of the ASIC without having to change out any hardware.

Make SW controlled timing this way but have some issues with highly constrained embedded systems.

When starting design leave enough time window between your normal functions and to service your critical interrupts, so that you don't miss the timing of interrupts.

Software patches and fixes and work around will eat into that time window !!

every single time!!!!

So tell us where the "jet" is in a LaserJet. Certainly inkjet printers have jets that shoot ink.

have you seen Lean Design?  there was a post on LinkedIn in the System & Product Design Engineering Group on this that echos much of what you say. 

all the time

LOL

Try to do it all the time. I will use symbolic constants to avoid recoding because the design needed to move signals.

When designing industrial control panels, it is standard practice to have 25% open panel space, as well as margin for power supplies.

"FlaredOne" -- Bingo !!

All the Time.

Planning ahead is essential as a form of a business plan. Busines plans are always needed for financial consolidation with financial institutions

If you HAVE the option to select "slightly larger than actually needed Right Now", go for it. Excess pins, among other things, simplify layouts (more physical-path choices). Key point: if you HAVE spare pins, attach a trace which runs off to a labeled through-hole (someplace you CAN attach a jumper lead). Priceless.

planning is essential for most of us especially when it is a start up environment. Too easy to get off path

you need to plan all ahead. hardware is very important because is not like in s/w – rebuild, patch, etc

You are lucky if your job function has a predictable path. Or a product line with "logical" next step developments. Some places that works, many it doesn't.

Hello....planning ahead is a business plan

HP lost their way once Bill and Dave passed.

what you say is right.  on the other hand, in the software world you have "agile" which ignores design.

Re finance, savings question (which I missed -- just got back): I recently finished up my BsEE (non-traditional, after "a few years" working -- was amused by a SIGNIFICANT amount of time in an engineering-specific class spent on investment counseling, "The Power of compound Interest", etc. Have started some trusts for the boys.

We always put on paper our planning aheads. We do try to project realisticly, but with this economy, future always surprises you!

Slide 6 is unspoken rule but when pressed management will say do it right without any changes to the schedule.

what I am hearing from Gary's presentation...planning ahead is not necassarilly putting in future functionality...but rather leaving room for expansion in registers usage, memory, type definitions, etc

Alex, you must be using an old version of the software

lots of times!

and of course you never get the chance to improve it.

CONSTANTLY................................

Amen!!!

so why is HP where it is today?

Thinking ahead helps to write software that can be reused.

Honestly, my planning ahead is mostly in my head.  Concrete steps for strategic planning don't get enough attention due to daily pressure items.

Planning ahead is always a good idea but the benefit is only as good as your ability to predict the future.  If yoiur guess is correct planning ahead pays off.  If you are wrong there's probably no gain.

for software it makes more sense in this situation.  hardware should be designed to get the maximum price/performance out of the silicom

Timne pressure often makes it difficult.

I'm reworking existing code to allow for simple extensions without fundamental code changes. This is planning for future support.

Yes. and Lots of reused.

Yes - plan ahead/anticipate

You HAVE to put your foot down. Otherwise it's YOUR credibility which will suffer IN THE FUTURE.

Always

Planning ahead has always saved me on spin-off products

Plan ahead: want to, but time pressures often prevent doing that to the extent we want to.

Hardware design

I covertly plan ahead..............

Planning ahead always pays off!

Tell that to the bean counters (only maximizing the current quarter)

Or the other joke is what is the easiest way to make a million dollars, start with $10 Million

yes, I do

We have to buy and sell? ;)

401K & IRA, spending not saving for college with daughter  a Jr. in college. 

Hello All! Happy Friday

Buy low, sell high?  I thought it was the other way around. 8^)

HW & SW Engineer

Paying for their education, all 3 greduated...  :-(

Spending the college funds (2 graduate in 3 weeks)

Iam both.

Save save save save!

of course

401 stock plan at work

Sw & HW

I am for both retirement and college

I am

yep - 401K

Yes - but only as much as I can after 3 kids in college.

Yes i am

I am

EE doing HW and FW

Hardware & software.

telecomm Engineer

HW/SW/FW, Sys Engr

Job: Firmware, SW some HW

Technical trainer who will *not* turn down the sound on the Indy500 - what's the point of that?

Embedded system developer

Hardware

embedded SW

Hardware & Software Design

HW and FiW design 

H/W & S/W & F/W & knowledge junkie.   :)

Manager, HW, some SW

software and systems

hardware design

Hello. I'm Embedded Systems Designer, both HW and SW.

Job title: Senior Research Engineer

HW/SW

Hi all

Engineer R&D HW/SW

HW/FW/GUI

Hardware

hardware/system eng. some software

hw/sw/fw

SW/FW/HW

Firmware

Automation Manager

Mechanical Design Engineer

Hardware/software/firmware/management

Hardware/Software Developer

Mgr des & Eng

HW design

hi all

Good afternoon Gary.

good afternoon everyone

hello Alex

HW/SW

hello Gary

Controls Designer integrating hardware to control Automation

 hi all,

Finally Raining & 10:00 AM

Hardware Architect

Hi Portlandia is sunny.

Firmware with system arechitecture and hardware debug actions

Hello, all.

Good afternoon Alex.

good afternoon

Rain in Wyoming

Your golf game cannot be all that bad unless you have been banned from a course because you wrecked it with too many divots

Good afternoon all from cloudy and warm Toronto

hello from sunny MIAMI...

Good afternoon folks.

Hello All

Hello everyone, I noticed that a few of my posts did not show up yesterday.  Most notably, the one where I described my golf game...as pathetic 

I need a job where I'm not working the weekend, so far have worked for the last 8 weekends in a row

Great Friday and for some of us a three day weekend.

hello everyone...another great friday and looking forward to another great presentation

Hi All

Hello from hot SC

@flared0ne

I looked at the Leap product and it looks interesting.  I thought about signing up as a developer but I don't have the time to take on anything additional right now.  I'm getting one of the devices to try out, but having to wait until the end of the year or longer is a bit of a "bummer."

good afternoon from cloudy and dreary NH

Hi everione from sunny Pittsburgh

Rainy and 48°F here in Boise.

good morning from rainy San Diego.

Yes, there will be more in the next 180 days.

Hi everyone.  Another Friday and another section completed.  I see Alex has added one more course to the list.  I wonder if there will be more to follow on this track or if Digi-Key or someone else will carry this forward to the second 180 days of the year.

Good Morning. Silicon Valley CA .Partly cloudy and cold 54°F.

Hi Everyone

Howdy folks!    :)

Breaking it up into individual paragraphs seems to be working.

Now for some "hurry-up-and-wait" noshing. And a bit of focused job board browsing, etc...

Anyone check out that LEAP product re gestural input device with 0.01mm precision in 3D space? There is an opportunity to MAYBE sign up as a developer and get a free device and access to the SDK. Could be a "get in on the ground floor" opportunity. Just my opinion, but I predict this device is going to raise the standard of "Elegant" in graphical user interfaces and virtual functionality -- the device is reasonably priced for market penetration, could influence a "bump" in heads-up display glasses, and might actually 'rescue' a bit of the market for 3-D monitors.

Let's see: anticipating the "usual" questions -- I am predominantly hardware: project, proto, product; with more than enough software to make the hardware walk, talk, sing, dance, see, hear, communicate, be produced and tested with embedded diagnostics -- AND (generally) to be profitable and supportable. Currently seeking gainful employment AND contemplating and researching a wide range of possibly lucrative projects. Last time I checked, it's in the mid 80s outside (again), on its way to the mid 90s.

Good afternoon to all. It appears Chat is STILL losing posts (THIS is my third try for THIS content) so I'm covering my bases: selecting and copying all this text, then pasting it in a text buffer off to one side, just in case it gets lost AGAIN.

Dropping posts. (test, test, test).

Was just reading through some stuff about Microsoft STARTING to "embrace" open-source. I was struck by just how much of the conversation was about the evolving semi-formal knowledge base which revolves around Best Practices for "collaborating" on making use of knowledge bases, i.e., those misc shared libraries of functions, etc which are arguably among THE most useful contents in most software developers' "tool kits".

Gotta love the self-referential stuff, AND the synchronicity of stumbling over that while contemplating "Best Practices" and "Principles" and how best to implement those in a larger-than-just-one-person design environment.

Be sure to click 'Today's Slide Deck' under Special Educational Materials above right to download the PowerPoint for today's session.

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