Tracey.....I don't know where you have worked, but here, we *design* with
real world parts because its our job not only to design it, but debug the
first prototypes as well.  And I am not talking simple circuits with a few
chips and interconnects.  I've got 27 FPGA's, a dozen CPLD's, ASIC's, SRAM,
SDRAM, 3 clock domains, 5V logic, 3.3V logic, and analog to boot. If I call
out a 27.7555 ohm resistor, I damn well better figure out how to make it
with series/parallel or settle for 27 ohm, 1% in a package no bigger than
the end of a pencil.

Oh...and no of course I am not angry.  I suppose I am defending the engineer
in that alot of us are painfully aware of the real world and that it does
take a certain number of nanoseconds for data to move from one end of the
board to the other, and sometimes, even that is too much.  I've yet to see a
tech solve that problem, not saying they cannot, but its just not part of
the job description.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tracey DeChambeau [mailto:TADGUNINC@AOL.COM]
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 1999 7:08 PM
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: [OT] [Way-OT] Technicians versus Engineers


In a nut shell,
An engineer designs a product, from apple peelers to Xerox machines, and the
technician takes the abstract idea, and makes it a functional product with
real world available parts. I.E. an Eng. designs something with a
2.46537885967 ohm resistor and the tech. modifies the design and associated
peripheral components to work with a 2.5 or 3 ohm resistor of appropriate
tolerance, and cost effectiveness for the manufacture of said product.
Hope I didn't make any engineers angry with that  :o)
Tracey

By the way, know what an Eng. does when he gets constipated?
Works it out with a pencil....   :o)