The Dark Ages are Coming for Engineering Education...

Aside from that, this is a bit of rant... and this is what set me off:

Around Christmastime I was given one of these by my mother's boyfriend. Unfortunately somehow I had lost it during the move and with my mother and her boyfriend coming to visit soon-- I decided to go and buy one to replace the lost one. 

Meet my Apple "Magic" Trackpad.

It's nice.
I like it and enjoy using it.  After all, its a very well designed multi-touch capacitive touch bluetooth mousepad. It's exactly like the trackpad on my macbook, except I can sit on my couch and use it instead of having to have the machine on my lap. No problems here.

But, it's not the product that I object to...

It's the Marketing of the product.

Marketing a consumer electronics product as "magic" really does not do me any favors. Labeling electronics as "magic" gives the people the illusion that those who design/work with electronics are some class of "wizards and warlocks".

Just because you cannot see electrons moving with the naked eye, doesn't mean that it's magic.

Consider, several hundred years ago we couldn't see germs... and doctors in the middle ages were seen as a cross between a religious man and a wizard. There was no understanding on what made people sick, where disease came from-- and people lived in fear and superstition about life and death. The common man was vulnerable for those who wished to take advantage of these fears and superstitions. The practicing early health care professional struggled to overcome the emotion and misconception in order to advance their profession.

A Mid-Evil Alchemy/Health Chart

It wasn't until the breakthrough of understanding germs and micro-organisms did the medical profession begin to make significant advances. Furthermore, it wasn't until the layman understood these impacts did we see the benefits of these advances. No longer was being a doctor a charter handed down from God, but rather it was a learned skill to contribute to the common good. 

Look at modern day. Except the issue at hand isn't the germ, but rather how electronics work. In a day that more and more consumer applications are having higher levels of electronic content, it's odd how little the common person understands the mechanics how those devices work. As the dependency on these items increases so should the amount of people who understand them. But it's not the case. 

In America, it's harder and harder to recruit students to want to become electrical and computer engineers working with electronics. Engineering is difficult to begin with, but Electrical and Computer Engineers are seen as a subclass within these groups. 

I remember when I was in school seeing a shirt that said, "You can't spell "Geek" without EE". More recently I saw a similar one that said, "You can't get spell "Creep" without EE." 

The overall issue? It's difficult to get students to relate to and understand what a EE or CE major does. 

Mostly because there is a sort of misconception that what they do is on par to communing with the "dark arts" and only those with very special powers should/could/would want to do that. 

After all, "magic" can only be preformed by a select few.

As comical as it is to imagine looking at the electronics industry almost like a Harry Potter book... as an Engineering Education professional, I'm more alarmed by the subtle cultural impact these attitudes have.

First, it perpetuates the "us" versus "them" mentality. That knowledge of electronics would not normally cross camps and should be concentrated to an elite few (which is probably why Apple also refers to their store helpers as "geniuses"). 

Second as a result of elitism around electronics understanding there comes a risk that there are too few players in a market that...

Thirdly, is growing and people are starting to shape their lives around and become dependent upon.

 (If you don't believe me on this dependency, go and put a little ball of paper between the ethernet jack on your router/modem and the ethernet cable... and watch how vehemently the occupants needing the internet act when they can't figure out what's wrong. Props for anyone who has someone in their house that will unplug it and look to see what is causing the issue, but I doubt they would go through the trouble). 

Fourth, this same population that is trusting that the technology they are using is there to enhance their lives will be first to cry out and call foul when a perceived offense occurs... and somehow the lack of their ability to make an informed decision is blamed on the few (pretty much analogous to the American Financial Systems where people were taking out home loans they didn't understand trusting that the Bank would tell them if something was amiss).

Lastly, other countries don't appear to have this same passive attitude for understanding electronics. And although we may be innovators today-- as the supply of engineers dries out, we will have to turn to other countries to fill those demands. Instead of driving innovation by having the best and most creative minds at work, we will just be maintaining the status quo.

If anyone were to make a significant impact to helping reverse this?... it could be Apple.
Apple with their incredible reach, cult following and ability to inspire people to appreciate technology is  amiss their responsibility here.
Instead they choose to perpetuate the gap between electronics know-how and the layman. Charging a premium for the "ease of use" and benefiting from the fact that many people can't bother to learn how the product works.
After all, why would you when a "genius" will answer your question about your "magic" product?

Type in the word "Magic" on the Apple Store and these are the results...

On that note...
I have to go to work.
And I will need to resist the urge to re-name all of my daily interactions at the semi-conductor company I work for with World of Warcraft references.



PS.
IF you are interested here's a link to the Trackpad teardown.
I do appreciate how well designed the trackpad is. I just don't want to diminish the amount of brilliant engineering to something as superfluous as "magic".

USB- I hate you

Let me preface this may be a bit of a rant.
After a particularly grueling day where I have been running around with my head chopped off-- only to realise that it's already 5:00, my email is overloaded and I haven't even gotten to item 4 on my epic TO DO LIST-- I had the following voicemail on my mobile (I removed his name):

"Hi, This is J_______ from University of _______, I am calling because I cannot get a response out of your e2e forum. I posted a question and didn't get someone to answer it. I am having a lot of problems with the USB that is found on the TI Launchpad. The computer doesn't seem to see that there is anything attached. I reinstalled the software. Please call me back to fix the issue with your chip and development platform." -Message left at 3:41 PM CST duration 1:44 minutes

Um...Not a yelling message, but it was definitely the calm condesending tone that an older brother would take with a younger sibling that got me irritated.
Irritation is one of those things that will quickly foul up any situation for me.
I am as transparent as they come-- so in order to still be professional--I had to take a break from the situation and  get out of my head. In particular, the irritating closing, "Please call me back to fix the issue with your chip and development platform," bit.

After typing for a few minutes (I find free writing really helps me purge nasty thoughts)-- I realised my issue.

I hate USB.

I'll clarify that I don't actually hate the standard USB, but rather the perception that it creates with certain people...
On one hand-- it's vastly convienent and a standard and everyone seems to understand it-- and on the other? It's so common and prolific that people take it's operation for granted!

Where do I think this perception came from?
... the wall outlet.
The fact that people are able to plug a USB cable into a charger and charge a device, just like they used to plug in a wall adapter-- makes them think that it's the same deal when you plug into your computer.

**Side note***It's funny because other standard interface products don't deal as much with these issues. 

Perhaps not as prolific, but you don't see HDMI wall outlets today... nor people using Ethernet cables to charge their smartphones.

More often than not, problems with Development Tools before Development happens-- are often things that can be solved with a little bit of training. 

Once upon a time, my company used to put these sorts of documents out for mass consumption:

These were vastly useful. 

Before every set of datasheets on a particular product, it would step you through the reason why that particular chip's function existed. 

Perhaps that's a different issue to be talked about on a different day-- but these types of documents are only available in pdf form now. I'm lucky that I happen to work in an office where people are constantly coming by and giving them to me (perhaps my reputation as a books hoarder precedes me). 

Although the document is slightly outdated (it only covers USB 1.1),  in preparation I was able to put together a semi-explainitory email that stepped him through checking all of the steps for why his MSP430 Launchpad was not getting picked up by his computer.

An Aside** Oddly, my approach when I am helping solve technical support issues-- comes from my mother. When I was a child, my mother used to solve every issue in the house with the process of elimination. She would ask, "WHO DID xyz". To which my sister and I would respond. If both my sister and I denied the action she would then go into, "Well, If I didn't do it. And Serena (my sister) says she didn't do it... and there are only three people in the house... then I ask you again, who did xyz?" Although it wasn't always actually the third person who lived in the house--- it was effective in getting the conversation started. **

So, with a USB problem there are three players here.

There is the Device

The Host

and the user.

So before I went digging into what would possibly be wrong with the Launchpad Development Kit's USB--- I had to go through the exercise and determine who was the most likely to blame.

1.) Tell me about your launchpad? Did you just receive it? Have you ever used it before? Did it ever work before?

2.) What type of computer are you using and what Operating System? Do you know if your drivers are up to date? (Most machines this is a given for the current operating system, but every so often, it's a custom Linux machine or it's a really old computer!)

3.) This may sound silly, but can you describe how you connected your device to the computer?

Step by Step, you got the box, opened the ESD Bag, pulled out the board--- then what?

Only 1 out of the 3 is directly my company's responsibility. The best we can do for 2 and 3 is try and make it as easy as possible. Save mandating a custom connector and a PC that we control (once upon a time Texas Instruments made PC's)-- there is a lot of extra consideration that we have to afford to be able to get one of our devices running on a computer.

That's at least 3 major operating systems, with 100's of hardware systems + multitude of drivers that are available... all things that don't deal directly with our core competency of : Making Silicon Chips...

Then-- add user error into the mix... and our platforms get a lot of blame for things that may not have been part of the initial product design. 

(I will say, we've gotten a whole lot better in solving them, but the point should be made that we have now learned how to do that after years of cranky USB issues). 

So armed with my excellent USB Guide-- Combination of the TI Bus Solutions Interface Databook (SLA067A- which is not in available anymore in data book format) and one of the best websites about USB-- Here-- I called the professor back. 

I found out he was using, the brand new launchpad I had handed him at ASEE conference, a Windows 7 HP Dell Laptop... the interesting issue was #3...

He scoffed that I asked him about the process to hook up the launchpad...

"Well, I opened the launchpad and connected it using a USB cord to the PC's USB Port."

"Did you use the cord that came with the launchpad?"

"No, I just used the one I use for my phone all the time."

"Can you do me a favour and use the one that came with the launchpad?"

"Okay..."

"I just need to know for sure that it's not the cord, USB cables sometimes are really picky..." 

I heard the computer in the background and stayed silent...

"Oh, it appears that the cable may have needed to be changed, " he drew out...

"No problem. I'm glad it's that simple... "

"I guess the phone cable I was using doesn't have the data pinned out."

"Yeah, that happens periodically, well good luck and I'm glad that the it wasn't the platform's issue!"

We ended the phone with some niceties and I sent him my preparation email anyways-- just as a reminder. If we still did databooks-- I amy have included that in my next care package to his school. 

Rant aside-- I am glad I didn't have to chase down a USB driver problem-- because that's not my area of expertise. I just wish that it wasn't so easy to blame our development kits.