4 Dec
2008
4 Dec
'08
2:58 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 4 Dec 2008 at 21:17, Tony Duell wrote:
...
This is very similar to the engineers who resisted
using LSI (then)
ICs. I recall having a long conversation with an engineer who was
designing a serial interface (nothing special) for an existing mini.
I pointed out that there were MOS UARTs available that would do the
job just fine, but he inisted on designing his own UART using some
flavor (DCTL, ECL?) of SSI--and taking 6 months to do it at company
expense.
A friend and former coworker was at Atari coin-op in its heydays, right out of Berkeley.
I met him about 1991, and at the time he still had the 1978 atari design mentality, but
was trying to adapt.
The video game machines didn't require pushing the limits of technology in terms of
hardware design, so their approach was to use lots of the cheapest TTL they could find. I
realize there are pc board, assembly, test, and reliability issues that offset the short
term view of six 15 cent parts vs one $1.25 part, but that isn't how they saw it.