So I hope to be seeing you at PCBWest next week.

If you notice someone that looks like this:

http://www.jaxpage.net/Jack/JaxHead.htm

Say hello, ok?

Jack


-=-=-=-

p.s. Here's what I remember from last year:

PCBWest Design Conference 2003 (Jax Remix)

It seemed that some of the familiar faces were missing at the PCB Design
Conference this year. If you were one of the unfortunates who wanted to go
but couldn't make it, I thought you might enjoy hearing my memory of it.

We were at the Fairmont this year. The convention center was a block or two
away, but with perfect 'sunny n cool' weather the daily walk was a pleasure
(and its not like I don't need the exercise, right?). My only complaint
about the location was the cost; Is a room service continental breakfast
worth $13.50 + $3.00 + 19% ??? Maybe I just don't get out that much, but
GEEZ that seems like a lot of money for a donut.
But Uncle Pete took good care of us over at the convention center, pastries
and juice and damn good coffee every morning for FREE! and can you beat
free sushi at the Jam? (thanks Intercept!) and free beer and wine and food
on the showfloor? I was in seventh heaven (now that I think about it, isn't
gluttony one of the seven deadly sins? Okay, let's move on...)

Did I learn anything? Yeah, I learned that a clothes iron is a great
substitute for a bagel toaster, but haven't I talked enough about food
already?

Well, one thing I learned is that lately I have gotten way out of touch. I
just found out Gary Ferrari has moved away from IPC and is starting a new
project with Rick Hartley. Best wishes, Gary! And I also learned that
Copper Connection is closing! Boy, things just never stay the same, ya
know? I never got a chance to see Mary Sugden this whole week but I hope
she's keeping her great positive attitude and sense of adventure.
And in case you were wondering where the PC Design magazine centerfold
went, rumor has it that one of our fellow designers threatened national
security by ALMOST publishing a photo of a top-secret design. Way to go,
Steve!

Anyway, When I go to the Design Conference I always try to attend
everything that will NOT be found in the proceedings; the Keynote Address,
any panel discussions, informal gatherings, etc.
The first discussion I went to had the impossible goal of trying to predict
what we would be doing 100 years from now. I would have been more
interested to know what will be happening FIVE years from now, and 45
minutes is just barely enough time to START an interactive-imagination, but
it was still a lot of fun. Joe Felstad imagines a supercomputer the size of
a marble that will simultaneously solve all of the world's computing
problems (and we thought the answer was 42!), Happy Holden obviously reads
a lot of science fiction, believes photons are passe and is looking at
bio-packs, and Phil Zarrow (a.k.a. "anonymous") is still sniffin'
conductive glue. (just kiddin' ya, Phil!). That reminds me of a factoid I
heard from Phil that I can't get out of my mind. He told a story of a study
in which a highly qualified inspector was shown the same batch of board
assemblies twenty times, looking for solder defects. Wanna know how often
he agreed with himself? 43%. Dontcha think 43% is pathetic? So much for
visual inspection... What is YOUR company doing?

One of the most unique presentations I've ever seen was given by Ken Gilleo
on "The 100 Year History of the Circuit Board". It was really interesting
to see slides of original patents and innovative thinking that was going on
back then, and the problems they were trying to solve. If you're a geek
like me and have an interest in how we started, you can probably get most
of the material from an article that appeared in PCFab, but you won't get
Ken's fast-paced humorous enthusiasm. Great job, Ken!

The Keynote Address was by Nicholas Brathwaite, chief technology officer of
Flextronics. He started out with an interesting look at the growth of EMS
over OEMs lately, and for me it was a rare glimpse of the big picture,
since usually I am sitting in a little cubicle in Nowhere, Illinois. Even
though one of his main points was collaboration, at the same time he was
talking I was missing my panel discussion on design collaboration (who
scheduled it that way, anyway?) so I bailed on the Keynote and sprinted
over,
got there just in time to hear a comment on the difficulty (or should I say
impossibility) of creating a common data format, even though so much effort
has been put into ODB+ and GenCAM (and now they are combining?) but the
Mentor rep said they are working on their own, and the Cadence rep said
they could never support anything but their own (a speed issue?). As it
turned out, they are of the opinion that the issue is developing a common
DESIGN DATABASE format, where I thought the goal was simply a common DATA
OUTPUT format for vendors and downstream. You know, like many different
software packages can create an MP3 file for music, but ALL players can use
them. In my opinion the world could really benefit from just the output
format, but maybe I'm missing the big picture. What do you think? In any
case, it doesn't seem like the "big boys" of the industry are doing much
for us in this regard, I'm disappointed to report.

The Top Gun contest was thrilling as usual, I saw some of the highest
scores and best designs ever since I've been a grader. Brendan of ODA and
Gil of RockSolid are our newest Top Guns, CONGRATULATIONS to all who
survived those three grueling days, you have more courage than I do!
As a side note we got Uncle Pete to take the written test this year, so as
a note of encouragement as long as you guys get at least a 63 on the test
you got HIM beat! Thanks for being a good sport, Pete!

The Blues Jam was moved to Thursday night this time, and was it me or did
that one extra night of practice really make the difference? I thought they
were superb this year. Kudos to Ronda for being the lone fine-line (unless
you count Kelly, haha) and I gotta say Pork Chop's rendition of a car and
train playing chicken (harmonica) was his best ever. The shirts were a
pretty cool design this year, I got one for being the first on the dance
floor.  Thanks Debbie and Terri and Anna and Jean for the dances! Yeah, I
had a good time.

I could probably say more, but this is already one of the longest posts
I've ever written in this forum.

So, I'm off to iron a bagel. Hope to see you at the next one (or at least
hope to HEAR about it if I can't make it).

Jack

http://www.pcbwest.com

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