The Breakroom > The Water Cooler

Making things

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John Hill:
Some several years ago I worked in the department that does air traffic control and such like and we needed a new device to go on our 3270 bisync data network.  I was chief of operations so it was really "my" requirement.  I had an idea of how such a thing might be made so I asked one of the network maintenance people what he thought of the concept,  two days later he was in my office with hand wired prototype!   Yes, it worked perfectly.

So I went to the engineering department to get a project started to build this thing in quantity.  The first thing they told me was that in their opinion it could not work the way I had conceived it and they could not be persuaded by the evidence of the perfectly functional hand made protype.  So they 'engineered' it, first convincing themselves that DOS was inadequate as an operating system so they set out to write their own multi tasking OS.  Then they added doodads to the design................  to cut a long story short, they never finished it.

sbwhart:

--- Quote from: John Hill on July 29, 2009, 05:28:51 PM ---
The first thing they told me was that in their opinion it could not work the way I had conceived it and they could not be persuaded by the evidence of the perfectly functional hand made protype.  So they 'engineered' it, first convincing themselves that DOS was inadequate as an operating system so they set out to write their own multi tasking OS.  Then they added doodads to the design................  to cut a long story short, they never finished it.



--- End quote ---

John

I thought the UK was the only place that had engineers who thought bull **** was more important than functionality, they never seem to get anything finished and working either.

I've come across quite a few like that.

Stew

John Hill:
Stew, in 1989 our little company answered a tender for a project for a subcontract to write software and we included in it something that was widely recognised as 'impossible', fortunately not so widely recognised that we did not in our ignorance attempt to do it.  The conventional way was too complex for me to understand and instead I had included a rather simple alternative which worked.

The prime contractor was suitably advised by his software engineers but just to be sure he phoned us. Of course all we could do was assure him that not only did we have the plan but the relevant software was already running and under test.  Our pirce was so attractive that he flew across the blue Pacific and stood in my garage watching the flashing lights and the data analysers etc and we got the job.

We still sell that product and I think we just made another sale to an airline in China today.

For those of a particular bent it was to do with handling of interrupts on the Intel 80XX chips and is still relevant today.

bogstandard:
Can someone explain what this post is about, preferably in easy to understand language.

I would love to join in, but I seem to have lost the plot somewhere.

I am not complaining or joking, I truly don't know what it is about.


John

Stilldrillin:
John,

I thought it was only me..........  ::)

David D

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