[sdiy] Radio Shack catalogs

[Oren Leavitt]

On 5/12/2010 3:17 PM, Paul Schreiber wrote:
> c) I designed a video graphics card (pre VGA ICs) that used a lot of 
> 74Sxxx logic and very fast DRAMS. The DRAMS had critical drive current 
> and waveform compliance specs and had terminated lines. This was to be 
> a 6-layer pc board, the FIRST one every at Tandy (they were having 
> kittens over it). I spent HOURS writing a detailed parts placement 
> document for the CAD guys, with detailed descriptions about trace 
> length, width and such. I left nothing to chance.
>
> I got back the prototype boards (all nicely wavesoldered) and noticed 
> all the DRAMS, instead of being in  1 long row close together, were 
> randomly scattered all over the pc board. Of course th board failed 
> the diagnostics (which I had running on wire-wrap). I stormed over to 
> the CAD manager's office and he stated that their CAD tool had 
> "minimized all the connections" and that "this was the preferred 
> layout". I asked about my 12 page document and he said "we didn't have 
> time to read it". So they had to pay a guy to lay it out BY HAND using 
> Bishop tape on Mylar.

"Oh boy" indeed!
Paul, I am pretty sure you just wanted launch a computer off of the top 
of a building (ala Bob Pease) after that incident.

- Oren (there should be a course on managing "management")