For those of you who do not get the embedded muse..... = A Story For April Fool's Day ---------------------------- The blue light of the TV flickered on the blank wall, but it went = unnoticed by me as I slumped in my old armchair. It had been a bad week. She left on Monday, screaming that she = couldn't take all of the equipment piled everywhere. Me, I thought = that old Tek 545 was a collector's item, an antique. Sure, the dust = was pretty bad, but you can bet we were the only couple in town with = a living room populated by old scopes and CP/M machines. Women - I'll never understand them. Like, that time my homebrew = furnace controller burped and drove the house to 115 degrees when we = were gone for the weekend. Hey, I never liked those pets anyway, and = the smell did eventually come out of the carpets. Pretty much. I = mean, it was just a little software bug; we all have those! And she never forgave me for the fire. Yeah, next time I'll put a = bigger heat sink on the power supply. I admit it - I learned a = lesson. The scorch marks on her dresses don't really look all that = bad. Jeez, you'd think she'd be a bit more understanding! I reached for another bag of chips as the chair groaned a bit more. = One of these days I'm gonna have to work off some of the excess = pounds. A decade spent in the lab drinking Jolt and munching fries = had taken its toll. Despite the flab I still know calculus and can = program in C; surely a dream dude for any discerning woman. I bet I = could wow them at the local watering hole with my great stories about TCP= /IP! Well, this is Silicon Valley after all, where relationships, jobs and = careers are measured in milliseconds and loyalty doled out by the = microgram. Electronics is a dog-eat-dog business and I'm an old hand = at crawling out from the wreckage. Like that last startup I worked = for. I told 'em we'd get that product out the door, eventually = anyway. We woulda survived if that idiot president just got another = couple of mil of venture capital. For a while at least. Ya know, maybe it was losing that job that ticked her off. I figure, = what's the big deal? She should be used to this by now. Check out my = resume - it shows lots of experience at lots of places. No one can beat t= his! I picked up the phone but heard only the accusing silence of a = non-payment disconnection. No matter. Time to find another company = looking for my embedded expertise. There's a startup a minute here, = pigeons ripe for picking. I clumped out of the trailer's front door and found Big Al, the usual = wild look in his eyes, mouth working hard on this morning's sugar = raised, the white powder spotting his beard. "Al, buddy, you're outa = work too, huh? How's the wife and kids?" "Kids? Kids? Yeah, come to think of it I did notice some little = people living with me. I wonder where they came from? Check this = out." With that he shoved a coffee-stained fragment of the San Jose = Mercury News into my hands. I quickly took in the circled want ad. = "ENGINEERs - microprocessor savvy designers and programmers needed. = C, FPGAs, PLDs, assembly a plus. Exciting opportunity for a motivated = developers in a new high-growth company." A slow smile spread across my face. Here was our pigeon; I was = already mentally spending the signing bonus. That afternoon, T-shirts cleaned and pressed, with most of the donut = detritus wiped from Al's beard, we met with the president of Galaxar = Enterprises. Yep, just as usual, this man was the typical harried = executive desperate for people, so desperate he had neither the time = nor resources to do much of a background check. Not that my = background is so terrible; it's just that there's so much of it. "You know C? Schematic capture? What's the last project you worked = on?" he mumbled, looking at his watch while the beeper pinged an urgent t= une. "We did that Internet Cappuccino maker for Kitchen Services; you must = have read about it in the press. Yep, that puppy had a MIPs based = coffee engine with 64 megs of RAM." "Didn't they go Chapter 7?", he interrupted, interested now. "Trust me on this. The boss was an idiot. He just didn't understand = how much compute power we needed to blend the perfect cuppa joe. That = sucker could crank some coffee, believe me. If they hadn't been so = stuck on the cost of goods we coulda cleaned up the Cappuccino = market. We were practically done with development when the SEC raided us." "OK, OK, look, when can you start? Now? Don't you guys ever shave? = Heck, just sit here and Bob will tell you what to do." Bob, engineering VP, was one of those snotty-nosed brats with a = degree and an attitude. "We're building a new marine VHF radio for = the recreational boating market. That means there are three main = design parameters. First, the unit must be totally sealed to insure = it's waterproof. Second, the sell price can't exceed $250. And = obviously the unit must be simple enough that even the most casual = boater can use it." He went on to tell us how we were going to design the product. Us! = Can you imagine? As if I don't understand project planning, = structured design, discipline design, and all of that utter crap. Me, = I prefer to skip all of that non-productive nonsense and just bang it out. I zoned out, the drone of Bob's voice barely noticeable, nodding at = the right time while planning my next move. Clearly it was time for = the old end-run. Saturday night Al and I marched into the president's = office. "Herb," I started, "we know you're running out of venture = money and an IPO is at least a year away. Bob's planning to spend = another three months just doing preliminary design. Whatdoya want, a = design or a product? Trust me on this - we can pound out a design in = a week, max, and then get the radio done in no time." Herb's eyes gleamed. It seems that he, too, was frustrated by Bob's = methodical approach to engineering. This valley is the land of Steve = Jobs, where unbridled passion and hope fuels the dream of tomorrow's = big score. Discipline? Bah. Just lemme at a problem and I'll get it = done. With a bit more prodding Herb agreed that this project was so = important he'd give it skunk-works treatment, get Bob off of our = backs, and let us report directly to his president's office. The week sped by like a read from cache memory. Al slouched into my = cubicle, let out a long, satisfying-sounding belch, and asked "didn't = we promise Herb a spec or something?" Right! Never let the boss, = down, that's my motto. Unless there's a good reason, of course. "Sure, look, just grab those header files we've been working on and = edit a bit of descriptive stuff at the beginning. They'll never read = it all anyway. If he complains we'll tell 'em not only is the spec = done, we've incorporated it into the firmware. How can he get upset = if he sees we're already coding?" Herb swallowed our header files hook, line and sinker. He's thrilled = that we're already cranking out software, and giddily reported our = progress to the venture capitalists. I think they're already mentally = spending their IPO profits. Bob is muttering vague threats, but he's = been squeezed into the user-interface group. He wants Al and me to = take on that new college grad, Marty. We're supposed to show him how = to get projects done. It's not all bad; the kid has a car so can get = us beers and carry-out. The secret to success in this business is to look busy, keep a = prototype in a state that looks like it has some level of = functionality, and always agree with the boss. And you can't act = like you have a personal life when battling a schedule! Heck, after = just three days on the job Marty asked if he could leave at 5 to = celebrate his first anniversary. I straightened him out. "Kid, trust = me on this. We all go through one or two starter marriages, you know, = no kids, no property, no regrets. Don't take it too seriously. Now = let's order a pizza and get back to work." It was probably a good = thing that I turned off the switchboard that night, so he wouldn't = get distracted by all of those frantic calls from home. And that kid did need some attention. I caught him late one night = doing a spell check on his comments! Somehow he missed the fact that = a ship date loomed; comments are always the first thing to go. "Kid, = trust me on this. Never include a comment that will help someone else = understand your code. If they understand it, they don't need you." I = think he gets the picture now. As time moved on we started having trouble fitting the binary image = into the CPU's 64k address space. "This always happens", I reassured = Herb, "them 8 bitters just can't handle the sort of code we're = cranking out for you. Look, we'll just stuff a bigger part in there = this afternoon. No problemo; I've done this a million times." Big Al's eyes lit up when I suggested we look into a 32 bit = processor. "I've got just the ticket. There's one I've been itching = to try; it's totally reconfigurable, you can even define your own = instruction set. Man, this is gonna look great on my resume!" Ah, resume fodder, the grease of the industry. Herb didn't seem to = concerned about the increased cost of goods - at least he wasn't = asking any questions - so I set out trying to find some way to cool = the sucker. With luck a big old heat sink and decent-sized fan might = be adequate. Jeez, maybe I'll use the next size up; those burnt = dresses still haunt me at times. We optimized the instruction set on the CPU to play DoomStar III at = awesome speeds. The best part of using a custom architecture was that = I got to port the entire GNU toolchain to our chip. That compiler = sure is tricky! First time I'd ever fiddled with a code generator, so = it naturally took a bit longer than planned to get working - mostly - too= ls. As the weeks passed Herb got noticeably more antsy, checking on our = progress on a daily, and then hourly, basis. This always happens, and = is a sign that the old cash reserve is evaporating. I started running = to the bank the minute paychecks came out. No one's gonna stick me = with bouncing paper! Been there, done that. Bob - remember Bob? - strolled into the lab one afternoon to check on = our progress. It seems the fool had actually invested his own money = into the company! He's correspondingly annoying about what we do, = even though my end-run had gotten him off the project months before. = Oddly, he seemed upset about the cooling fan. "This thing has got to = be totally sealed, so no water gets in!" he whined. "Yeah, yeah, just mount it in a dry place or something", I replied. = "I can't be bothered with that sort of stuff. You know how much power = this sucker uses?" These company men are all stress puppies. Not me; = I'll be going strong when he suffers his first mid-30s myocardial infarct= ion. Christmas rolled around - or was it Easter? I dunno, we were plenty = busy chasing down bugs and making feature changes. Bob's paycheck = bounced. I knew that Herb had been doing some fancy footwork to keep = things afloat, but when everyone in accounting quit, complaining = about insolvency or something, the standard exodus began. As usual, = engineering remained untouched by the various rounds of layoffs. They = needed the products we make to survive. I love this field! This seemed like a great time for a two week vacation, though Marty = seemed almost hysterical that I'd take off now. "Kid, trust me on = this. Never complete a project on time. If you do, they will think it = was easy and anyone can do it and they don't need you. Now I'm outa = here for a while. Look busy and we'll sort it all out when I get back." I got back, more or less sober but feeling great, to find the front = door padlocked and a sheriff standing guard. Marty, skulking in a = dark corner, grabbed my arm and moaned that he couldn't build the = code at all while I was away. It seems he had trouble locating all of = the source. "Kid, trust me on this. Never archive all the sources necessary to = build a binary. Always hide a few on your own disk. If they can build = your binary, they don't need you. What do they teach you in college, anyw= ay?" He said the creditors got fed up and were demanding their money. Half = the employees were suing because their paychecks bounced. A satisfied = grin spread across my face as I recalled beating the rest of those = idiots to the bank. Marty shrieked that Herb was suing all of us in engineering for not = meeting promised dates, specs, or features. "Kid, trust me on this. = They always sue. That's why I own nothing. What do they think they'll = get, my trailer? The bank owns that!" Well, it seems my two week holiday might extend itself a bit. No = worries there! After such a tough project I needed a break. It's time = to sleep in for a while, build up those reserves. Days later an awful booming interrupted my sleep. "My god, it's not = even noon!" I shouted, "Go away". The door banged open and Big Al = loomed over me. "Check this out." He unwrapped the newspaper from = around his BLT and handed me a section from the want ads. Yep, old Al = was right on top of things again. Another startup, as usual desperate = for a pair of gurus like us, no doubt willing to hire at any price. A harried president briefly interviewed the two of us, asking lots of = questions about our most recent experience. We gave them the scoop on = the VHF radio, but had to parry his request for references. "Sorry - = they went out of business. Shame, that. There's no one there you can = call. But we built a heck of a radio for those guys. It's too bad = management was so screwed up they folded. Hey, it happens all the = time in this industry." "But trust me on this - you need a graybeard like me to mentor your = young engineers, and to get this project out now! I'm ready to start = coding today. What is it we're building?" = --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger=92s low PC-to-Phone call ra= tes. -- = http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist