Joel Kolstad wrote:

Michael,

If you don't mind my asking, what sort of professional electron wrangling did
you do prior to becoming disabled?

Good luck on converting your garage... I think there's a good chance you can
get a decent amount of equipment and supplies donated once it's clear (to the
outside world) that you're serious about what you're doing.

----Joel

I worked for L-3com/Microdyne at their Ocala plant as a production
and engineering tech. I also worked with purchasing to find and qualify
replacement sources for components, and the nasty job of removing long
time vendors from our approved list. I worked in every area of the
product line, built test fixtures, wrote test procedures and fought the
apathy of a couple older engineers to fix old design problems. I knew
more about our oldest products than anyone in engineering, so when a
problem cropped up they came running to my bench to ask questions rather
than take the time to research the old records. The last product I
worked on was their RCB-2000, a dual DSP based telemetry receiver, to
take it from the engineering prototypes to the production floor. I was
laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.
Suddenly, I was deemed "Not a team player" because I could barely walk
out the door after my shift. I was troubleshooting and testing the
signal processing boards under a stereo microscope and I did most of my
own rework rather than wait for it to go through the rework department.
I hand soldered 288 pin SMD chips under the microscope. After the
cleaning room was done, QC couldn't find my work on the PC boards. This
radio was introduced to the market at about $80,000. One of the VME
based boards in it cost about $8,000 to stuff, reflow and test. I miss
the work, but I doubt that I'll be able to do that kind of work again,
and the high tech companies have pretty well left this part of the
country.


--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

You have no idea what you
are talking about,

And there Michael, you have defined Johns problem. Richard fed him a
question he couldn't answer and he crept off with a lame excuse of pressing
work until he thought everyone had forgotten about it. I was just
celebrating, when someone else fed him and he's back again in full force. If
he's ignored, eventually, he'll go and bother someone else on someone elses
newsgroup. You don't argue with children, don't feed the troll.

W4ZCB

So, although your original argument was how difficult a bus and keeping
analog seperate from digital which would share various signals--would be,
then, when the argument was made that someone just picked up a bunch of
on-the-shelf items and went ahead and done it... you flip-flop--to where now
it was so obivious someone should have done such a simple thing LONG before
them...

Yanno, you are pretty obivous here--you are like what has been "the standard
method of operation." A long list of why it can't be done--but if someone
can--its' easy!!!

Or, first it is impossible, then, once someone has done it--it is nothing...

Now, that is comming close to a "Troll!" And, that would be proven if once
this is pointed out to you--you use that for a reason to spur more
conflict...

Arguments and debates for the purpose of looking over what is available--of
reaching a logical and organized ideas--are good--argument for conflict is
not...

While some may take pride in finding all the reasons why something is
difficult--or may end up to be "un-do-able" right at the immediate time...
It is the guys who ignore all this and go ahead and do it which are
remembered...

For every thing we have in this world today--there stands inventors,
engineers, technicans, etc.. who could have easily decided it was either too
hard or impossible and given up--thank gawd they were of a different
breed...

Warmest regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
| John Smith wrote:
|
| I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer
before
| they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers,
techs,
| scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...
|
|
| Have you ever looked at the schematic for the Apple II? It was bases
| on the MOS technology 6502 processor and support chips. Its probably
| the simplest "Computer" ever sold and most of the design was in the IC
| data books, just like the original IBM PC was quite close to a sample
| design published by Intel. The only real difference was that the design
| was broken up into modules. Neither of the original designs were
| anything to brag about. Monochrome displays, Apple's half assed
| "custom" floppy disk interface that threw away most of the capacity to
| keep it cheap. The PC was shipped with a cassette interface and no
| floppy drive. It had BASIC in ROM, and was fairly useless until floppy
| and hard drives were available to do any real work.
|
| If you think this is an easy project its time to put up, or shut up.
| Design your simple, "It'll sell billions" project and prove everyone
| wrong, or just shut up.
|
| --
| Former professional electron wrangler.
|
| Michael A. Terrell
| Central Florida

I do work, what the heck to you guys do where you are never pressured to get
anything done--

you know, this is reflected in your text!!! Go do something!

Warmest regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!

"Harold E. Johnson" wrote in message
news:ZSkge.71560$NU4.55508@attbi_s22...
|
| You have no idea what you
| are talking about,
|
| And there Michael, you have defined Johns problem. Richard fed him a
| question he couldn't answer and he crept off with a lame excuse of
pressing
| work until he thought everyone had forgotten about it. I was just
| celebrating, when someone else fed him and he's back again in full force.
If
| he's ignored, eventually, he'll go and bother someone else on someone
elses
| newsgroup. You don't argue with children, don't feed the troll.
|
| W4ZCB
|
|

Well, whatever you did before, great!!

Now what are you doing? Finding out why nothing else can be done? Perhaps
this is why you are no longer working there...

Regards,
John
--
When Viagra fails to work--you are DOOMED!!!

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...
| Joel Kolstad wrote:
|
| Michael,
|
| If you don't mind my asking, what sort of professional electron
wrangling did
| you do prior to becoming disabled?
|
| Good luck on converting your garage... I think there's a good chance you
can
| get a decent amount of equipment and supplies donated once it's clear
(to the
| outside world) that you're serious about what you're doing.
|
| ----Joel
|
| I worked for L-3com/Microdyne at their Ocala plant as a production
| and engineering tech. I also worked with purchasing to find and qualify
| replacement sources for components, and the nasty job of removing long
| time vendors from our approved list. I worked in every area of the
| product line, built test fixtures, wrote test procedures and fought the
| apathy of a couple older engineers to fix old design problems. I knew
| more about our oldest products than anyone in engineering, so when a
| problem cropped up they came running to my bench to ask questions rather
| than take the time to research the old records. The last product I
| worked on was their RCB-2000, a dual DSP based telemetry receiver, to
| take it from the engineering prototypes to the production floor. I was
| laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
| did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.
| Suddenly, I was deemed "Not a team player" because I could barely walk
| out the door after my shift. I was troubleshooting and testing the
| signal processing boards under a stereo microscope and I did most of my
| own rework rather than wait for it to go through the rework department.
| I hand soldered 288 pin SMD chips under the microscope. After the
| cleaning room was done, QC couldn't find my work on the PC boards. This
| radio was introduced to the market at about $80,000. One of the VME
| based boards in it cost about $8,000 to stuff, reflow and test. I miss
| the work, but I doubt that I'll be able to do that kind of work again,
| and the high tech companies have pretty well left this part of the
| country.
|
|
| --
| Former professional electron wrangler.
|
| Michael A. Terrell
| Central Florida

Gary S. Idontwantspam@net wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2005 20:24:45 -0500, "Clair J. Robinson"
wrote:

Roy Lewallen wrote:

This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon on my wall:

PHB (Pointy-Haired Boss), pointing to flip chart graph of declining
sales: "Our sales are dropping like a rock."

PHB, pointing to flip chart graph labeled "Future" and steadily rising:
"Our plan is to invent some sort of doohickey that everyone wants to buy."

PHB, to Dilbert: "The visionary leadership part is done. How long will
your part take?"

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Wonderful! I missed that one somewhere.

73, CJ K?CJ

The really funny thing about Dilbert is that people who work in that
type of environment see only that the character names are wrong for
their office.

Reminds me of a Will Rogers quote, "I don't make jokes. I just watch
the government and report the facts."

Scott Adams worked in a high-tech office, and reports the facts.

It gives me rather considerable pleasure to report that Scott Adams also
appears to monitor, or participate pseudonomously in, some of the other
newsgroups and mailing lists I frequent. Incidents from more than one of
those groups/lists have appeared in Dilbert essentially unchanged within a
few days of being posted to the group/list.

Sometimes I think Scott works for WeBuildHighways, where I'm employed.

--
Mike Andrews W5EGO 5WPM
Extra
Tired old sysadmin working on his code speed

"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer before
they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers, techs,
scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...

Which Apple computer do you mean? The Apple II? Steve & Steve built the
Apple I before then (you can do see one down at the Computer History Museum in
the bay area if you'd like) and I'd bet a nickel they had built other folks'
designs prior to that (e.g., the old Rockwell KIM, perhaps some of the popular
S-100 machines available at the time, etc.). It was "revolutionary" in a
sense, but much more evolutionary from a dry, engineering perspective... but
then again, almost everything is if you look closely enough!

Thanks Michael, that's a very colorful career you've had.

I was
laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.

If you still had some supervisors "on your side" who were willing to go to bat
for you, you might have had very good prospects with a lawsuit based on the
ADA? I'm sorry to hear your company ended up being run by folks who couldn't
see the forest for the trees (or even the broad side of a barn for their
sitting in the outhouse); it's an unfortunate trend in many companies
(especially as they become larger), and I tend to agree with people who
suggest it's often due to technical companies being run by business school
majors (without any engineering experience whatsoever).

---Joel

Joel Kolstad wrote:

Thanks Michael, that's a very colorful career you've had.

I was
laid off when my health no longer let me work overtime, even though I
did more in an eight hour shift than any two other people on the line.

If you still had some supervisors "on your side" who were willing to go to bat
for you, you might have had very good prospects with a lawsuit based on the
ADA? I'm sorry to hear your company ended up being run by folks who couldn't
see the forest for the trees (or even the broad side of a barn for their
sitting in the outhouse); it's an unfortunate trend in many companies
(especially as they become larger), and I tend to agree with people who
suggest it's often due to technical companies being run by business school
majors (without any engineering experience whatsoever).

---Joel


I wasn't legally declared disabled until January of this year, so I
couldn't sue under the ADA. It doesn't matter now, because the company
doesn't exist. It was adsorbed wholly by L-3Com. Several hundred
people lot their jobs, they dropped all but the RCB from the product
line and took less than a dozen people to their new plant up north.

I've also worked as a broadcast engineer, CATV engineering, and owned
an industrial electronics company that did commercial sound, CCTV, MATV,
and oddball systems used by local schools and factories. I built Ch 58
TV in Destin Florida from scratch, starting with a 1952 built TTU-25B
UHF transmitter. I'm in my 50s, and I never planned to retire, but its
being forced on me in several ways.

Still, I find ways to keep busy. I have a couple hundred databooks
in my library. I repair oddball equipment that strike my fancy. Two
current projects are a TS-382 audio generator and a National NC-183R
rack mount receiver. You can check out my personal web site from time
to time to see what I'm working on, and maybe find a manual or oddball
part you need. The link is on the "Organization" line of the message
headers. I am designing a receiver from scratch, but its slow going
because I have to budget carefully for the parts I don't have in stock.
The VA service office told me I'm allowed to make a little money from a
hobby, but they haven't been able to give me a dollar amount, so I'm
holding off trying to make a little extra money till I get their answer
in written form.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

Well, I am not even ready to argue that point...

You missed the point... what I propose is simpler... it is a radio--not a
computer... and still can be done by those who ignore the nay sayers, no
matter how loudly these nay sayers attempt to shout down progress...

I feel like a pimp in an old age home with hookers, no takers and everyone
there wonders why I am there proposing the ideas I am... grin

Warmest regards,
John
--
Sit down the six-pack!!! STEP AWAY!!! ...and go do something...

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in message
...
| "John Smith" wrote in message
| ...
| I don't think the "apple boys" had ever designed a complete computer
before
| they did--indeed, don't remember anyone else (or team of engineers,
techs,
| scientists, etc...) doing a desktop before then...
|
| Which Apple computer do you mean? The Apple II? Steve & Steve built the
| Apple I before then (you can do see one down at the Computer History
Museum in
| the bay area if you'd like) and I'd bet a nickel they had built other
folks'
| designs prior to that (e.g., the old Rockwell KIM, perhaps some of the
popular
| S-100 machines available at the time, etc.). It was "revolutionary" in a
| sense, but much more evolutionary from a dry, engineering perspective...
but
| then again, almost everything is if you look closely enough!
|
|
|