Reply to: Dead end tools and technologies you wished you hadn't bothered with

[sbakoola]

C++ .... I spent lots of time and effort learning and perfecting it but then investment banking jobs moved to C# and I got put on many "maintenance" roles where all you would learn was a particular end client's API and system with no scope to do something interesting or selling the skills acquired in such an environment, did this for many, many years and regret it now.

[Doggy Styles]

Partially correct, only the Antenna assembly was in the nose cone proper, the radar body was in the extended part of the forward fuselage. The LRUs did fit around in a circle but I don't recall them being noticeably bigger or smaller at one end than the other and that's from daily handling of said items.

Ah, you must be right, I haven't seen one for 25 years, could be just the board shapes then. I mostly worked on the boards outside the assemblies.

Actually, the different sizes could have included the test equipment, which seemed to comprise more boards than in the aircraft.

PS Haven't heard the term LRU for many years.

[Gibbon]

Because the avionic boxes formed a sort of circle around the inside of the nose-cone fuselage, the PCBs in them had to fit into angled bays, i.e. not rectangular, so depending exactly where they went they had some odd angles, mostly just at the top end (away from the connector).

Also, if I recall correctly, because the boxes had to fit inside the nose cone, the boxes were smaller at the front than the back, hence different sized boards.

This was back in the old days, they might have redesigned a lot of it with new DSPs etc since then, which allowed smaller units, which allowed more standard sizes.

Does that sound like gobbledegook?

Partially correct, only the Antenna assembly was in the nose cone proper, the radar body was in the extended part of the forward fuselage. The LRUs did fit around in a circle but I don't recall them being noticeably bigger or smaller at one end than the other and that's from daily handling of said items.

[Sysman]

Does that sound like gobbledegook?

I´ve never worked in that industry, but Nope.

[Doggy Styles]

Correct, what's with the odd shaped PCBs?

Because the avionic boxes formed a sort of circle around the inside of the nose-cone fuselage, the PCBs in them had to fit into angled bays, i.e. not rectangular, so depending exactly where they went they had some odd angles, mostly just at the top end (away from the connector).

Also, if I recall correctly, because the boxes had to fit inside the nose cone, the boxes were smaller at the front than the back, hence different sized boards.

This was back in the old days, they might have redesigned a lot of it with new DSPs etc since then, which allowed smaller units, which allowed more standard sizes.

Does that sound like gobbledegook?

[Gibbon]

That was Tornado wasn't it? Or 'Airborne Interceptor'. Odd-shaped PCBs to fit in the nose-cone.

Correct, what's with the odd shaped PCBs?

[OwlHoot]

.Net ?

Worked with it for a year, but no experience since, and it's still taking up valuable brain cells I could use for something else

[SupremeSpod]

We always just got a fixed price for the job. Publishers tended to offer a choice of fixed price, or no down payment and royalties later; even with decent ones like Ubisoft, putting in months of work on the off chance of an unspecified sum sometime next year made no sense.

At Ocean it was all "fixed price" - Btw, Gary Bracey, if you can read this, I just wanted to say "you're a w4nker!".

[NickFitz]

Did you get paid a fixed sum or did you get royalties?

We always just got a fixed price for the job. Publishers tended to offer a choice of fixed price, or no down payment and royalties later; even with decent ones like Ubisoft, putting in months of work on the off chance of an unspecified sum sometime next year made no sense.

[SupremeSpod]

Now I think about it, I haven't had much call for my 68000 assembly language skills recently

However I always liked the 68000 so I'm glad I bothered with it

Did you get paid a fixed sum or did you get royalties?

[Doggy Styles]

Worked along side them on the F3 Radar when I was in the mob.

That was Tornado wasn't it? Or 'Airborne Interceptor'. Odd-shaped PCBs to fit in the nose-cone.

[Sysman]

Gibbon - See what I can do sir, could I have your empty fag packet to do my detailed design on?

Them were the days!

[Sysman]

VAX/VMS

That kept me going for a good few years in the eighties and was handy when the recession hit in the 90s.

[NickFitz]

Now I think about it, I haven't had much call for my 68000 assembly language skills recently

However I always liked the 68000 so I'm glad I bothered with it

[Sysman]

Are Ada and Coral still about? We used them for military software back in the 1980s.

I was still using Ada less than 10 years ago. Not for military purposes though.