You did what?

Staff -- Test & Measurement World, 3/1/2001

Thanks for no memories
Years ago, I worked at a company for which I developed embedded systems. The time came for a demonstration of a system, so I came in early and programmed a final set of EPROMs. It took some time to program these devices, and I had to get everything right. Resources were tight, so we had no EPROMs to spare. I put an adhesive label on each chip to identify its proper socket number in the system and then took the EPROMs to the technicians' bench. I stood guard as the techs transferred the EPROMs from a static-proof carrier to the prototype sockets. I wasn't watching carefully enough and neither were they. When we turned on the power we saw each EPROM emit a brief warm orange glow under each label. With all the attention to getting the chips in the right sockets, we had plugged them all in backwards. Damn.—Don Taylor, Portland, OR

Roy G. Biv, phone home
I worked as a field technician at an industrial-automation company that produced a system that had as many as 100 I/O cards for AC power control, switch sensors, 4–20 mA current loops, and so on. To check the system, I built test harnesses using 50-pin D connectors: 24 signal lines and 24 ground lines per connector. We had a lot of color-coded wire around, so I wired the connectors in what I thought was a logical fashion, and recorded the scheme in my notebook. After I left the company, I heard the hardware engineers were cursing me because my notebook got lost and they couldn't figure out the wiring. Finally, someone recognized the sequence: brown—pin 1, red—pin 2, orange—pin 3, yellow—pin 4, and so on. Until then, no one recognized the standard resistor color code.—John Kuivinen, P.E., Vista, CA.