[2210] in Humor
HUMOR: Going Toastal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sharalee M. Field)
Wed Dec 17 10:33:54 1997
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 10:24:30 -0500
To: humor@MIT.EDU, mowu@MIT.EDU, mgshea@aol.com, wheger@wbc-architects.com,
Kris_Kelly@notes.pw.com, jbran18610@aol.com, dunbar@MIT.EDU,
dahv@MIT.EDU, jsquill@MIT.EDU, mtsai@bqa.com, immer@MIT.EDU,
jack.gingras@ae.ge.com, barry.mendell@edwards.boc.com,
tlawlor@palmerdodge.com, celia_kent@harvard.edu,
Maryellen Fitzgibbon <mfitzgib@fas.harvard.edu>
From: "Sharalee M. Field" <sharalee_field@harvard.edu>
>From: abennett@MIT.EDU
>To: pug@MIT.EDU
>Cc: ljr@MIT.EDU, jhimawan@alum.mit.edu, chris@MIT.EDU, vrt@MIT.EDU
>Subject: Going Toastal
>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 10:13:15 EST
>
>
>From: Connie Kleinjans <<connie@nanospace.com>
>From: Paul Farley <<PaulFarley@compuserve.com>
>From: Tim Cyr, INTERNET:turtle_tim@rocketmail.com
>
>Going Toastal
>
>Day 1: My boss, an engineer from the pre-CAD days, has successfully
>brought a generation of products from Acme Toaster Corp's engineering
>labs to market. Bob is a wonder of mechanical ingenuity. All of us in
>the design department have the utmost respect for him, so I was
>honored when he appointed me the lead designer on the new Acme 2000
>Toaster.
>
>Day 6: We met with the president, head of sales, and the marketing
>vice president today to hammer out the project's requirements and
>specifications. Here at Acme, our market share is eroding to low-cost
>imports. We agreed to meet a cost of goods of $9.50 (100,000). I've
>identified the critical issue in the new design: a replacement for the
>timing spring we've used since the original 1922 model. Research with
>the focus groups shows that consumers set high expectations for their
>breakfast foods. Cafe latte from Starbuck's goes best with a precise
>level of toastal browning. The Acme 2000 will give our customers the
>breakfast experience they desire. I estimated a design budget of
>$21,590 for this project and final delivery in seven weeks. I'll need
>one assistant designer to help with the drawing packages. This is my
>first chance to supervise!
>
>Day 23: We've found the ideal spring material. Best of all, it's a
>well-proven technology. Our projected cost of goods is almost $1.50
>lower than our goal. Our rough prototype, which was completed just 12
>days after we started, has been servicing the employee cafeteria for
>a week without a single hiccup. Toastal quality exceeds projections.
>
>Day 24: A major aerospace company that had run out of defense
>contractors to acquire has just snapped up that block of Acme stock
>sold to the Mac-kenzie family in the '50s. At a companywide meeting,
>corporate assured us that this sale was only an investment and that
>nothing will change.
>
>Day 30: I showed the Acme 2000's exquisitely crafted toastal-timing
>mechanism to Ms Primrose, the new engineering auditor. The single
>spring and four interlocking lever arms are things of beauty to me.
>
>Day 36: The design is complete. We're starting a prototype run of 500
>toasters tomorrow. I'm starting to wrap up the engineering effort. My
>new assistant did a wonderful job.
>
>Day 38: Suddenly, a major snag happened. Bob called me into his office.
>He seemed very uneasy as he informed me that those on high feel that
>the Acme 2000 is obsolete--something about using springs in the silicon
>age. I reminded Bob that the consultants had looked at using a
>microprocessor but figured that an electronic design would exceed our
>cost target by almost 50% with no real benefit in terms of toastal
>quality. "With a computer, our customers can load the bread the night
>before, program a finish time, and get a perfect slice of toast when
>they awaken," Bob intoned, as if reading from a script.
>
>Day 48: Chuck Compguy, the new microprocessor whiz, scrapped my idea
>of using a dedicated 4-bit CPU. "We need some horsepower if we're gonna
>program this puppy in C," he said, while I stared fascinated at the
>old crumbs stuck in his wild beard. "Time-to-market, you know. Delivery
>is due in three months. We'll just pop this cool new 8-bitter I found
>into it, whip up some code, and ship to the end user."
>
>Day 120: The good news is that I'm getting to stretch my
>mechanical-design abilities. Chuck convinced management that
>the old spring-loaded, press-down lever control is obsolete. I've
>designed a "motorized insertion port," stealing ideas from a CD-ROM
>drive. Three cross-coupled, safety-interlock microswitches ensure
>that the heaters won't come on unless users properly insert the toast.
>We're seeing some reliability problems due to the temperature extremes,
>but I'm sure we can work those out.
>
>Day 132: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We've
>replaced the 8-bitter with a Harvard- architecture, 16-bit, 3-MIPS
>CPU.
>
>Day 172: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months.
>
>Day 194: The auditors convinced management we really need a graphical
>user interface with a full-screen LCD. "You're gonna need some
>horsepower to drive that," Chuck warned us. "I recommend a 386 with a
>half-meg of RAM." He went back to design Revision J of the pc board.
>
>Day 268: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We've
>cured most of the electronics' temperature problems with a pair of
>fans, though management is complaining about the noise. Bob sits in his
>office all day, door locked, drinking Jack Daniels. Like clockwork, his
>wife calls every night around midnight, sobbing. I'm worried about him
>and mentioned my concern to Chuck. "Wife?" he asked. "Wife? Yeah, I
>think I've got one of those and two or three kids, too. Now, let's just
>stick another meg of RAM in here, OK?"
>
>Day 290: We gave up on the custom GUI and are now installing Windows
>CE. The auditors applauded Chuck's plan to upgrade to a Pentium with 32
>Mbytes of RAM. There's still no functioning code, but the toaster is
>genuinely impressive. Four circuit boards, bundles of cables, and a
>gigabit of hard-disk space. "This sucker has more computer power
>than the entire world did 20 years ago," Chuck boasted proudly.
>
>Day 384: Toastal quality is sub-par. The addition of two more cooling
>fans keeps the electronics to a reasonable temperature but removes
>too much heat from the toast. I'm struggling with baffles to vector
>the air, but the thrust of all these fans spins the toaster around.
>
>Day 410: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We
>switched From C++ to Java. "That'll get them pesky memory-allocation
>bugs, for sure," Chuck told his team of 15 programmers. This approach
>seems like a good idea to me, because Java is platform-independent,
>and there are rumors circulating that we're porting to a SPARCstation.
>
>Day 530: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. I
>mastered the temperature problems by removing all of the fans and the
>heating elements. The Pentium is now thermally bonded to the toast.
>We found a thermal grease that isn't too poisonous. Our marketing people
>feel that the slight degradation in taste from the grease will be
>more than compensated for by the "toasting experience that can only come
>from a CISC-based, 32-bit multitasking machine running the latest
>multiplatform software."
>
>Day 610: The product shipped. It weighs 72 lb and costs $325. Chuck
>was promoted to CEO.
>
>
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