[Coco] OT: Respect for hardware engineers

[Wayne Campbell]

Hi Boisy,

I have taken some time to think before posting this reply. First, I want to 
say thank you, again, for the assistance you provided to me back when I was 
developing DCom originally. Your help was invaluable, and I was able to 
understand things about I-Code that I had not understood before.

Your post to the hardware developers touched me, because that is exactly how 
I have felt about programmers like you for a very long time. When I was 
developing DCom originally, I was a wanna-be programmer and a total novice. 
After all of this time, and repeated attempts to increase my qualifications 
to become a programmer, I may know more, but I still feel like a wanna-be. 
And for you, in particular, because you were employed by Microware at the 
time, were already where I wanted to be. You already understood OS-9 
assembly, understood how an OS worked, understood how the processor worked. 
In comparison, I knew nothing, and still know nothing.

My hat is off to you, Boisy. You are so far above me, and you can recognize 
those who are yet above you. You may see a difference in knoweledge levels 
between you and them, but to me you know as much as they do.

Wayne Campbell

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Boisy G. Pitre" <boisy at tee-boy.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 7:01 PM
Subject: [Coco] OT: Respect for hardware engineers


> Please pardon this off-topic post; I never do this, but feel compelled to 
> do so for this reason:
>
> This semester I took a graduate level hardware course entitled: "Computer 
> Design & Implementation."  In this class, we worked with a Xilinx Spartan 
> 3AN FPGA development board and designed various adders and multipliers in 
> Verliog.  As a software guy, I found this course challenging to say the 
> least. There is a completely different dimension to writing for hardware 
> than software.
>
> My respect for the knowledge and experience that hardware engineers on 
> this list possess has grown significantly after taking this course. I will 
> never again question the time it takes to design and test a hardware 
> solution, especially one built on an FPGA.
>
> Specifically I want to tell James Daggett: I know I apologized to you 
> before publicly for taking you to task about your delays on the GIME 
> project, but this time I am going to prostrate myself and give you proper 
> deference.  I had no idea just how detailed and complex this stuff is for 
> just simple ALU constructs like adders, multipliers and dividers; now I 
> have a little bit of understanding.  Whether or not you complete the 
> project, you are courageous just for taking on the task.  My apologies 
> again for the past remarks I've made.
> --
> Boisy G. Pitre
> http://www.tee-boy.com/
>
>
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