Industrial design Picasso style - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 02:15:49 am
content: Just got a Microchip ICD3 programmer and still cannot wrap my head around its enclosure "design". I wonder what that designer idiot smoked before going to work that day. Neither I understand a connection between hockey and microcontroller programming, nor what convenience or benefits a roundly shaped enclosure provides on the bench. It does not save space, it is too light and does not stay where you put it, and the USB and programming cables going in and out at 120 degree angle make it even worse in terms of taking bench space and seem inconvenient for operation. Oh man, I hope it is just me and there may be someone in here in this forum who loves hockey pack shaped programmers.Feel free to share your cases of similar industrial design stupidity in this thread. I guess this kind of distorted reality things might be OK for a desk speaker at home but as an electronic tool is an absolute waste of efforts.

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 07:02:59 am
content: C'mon dude, loosen upWhy do all things electronics have to be square and black? Still don't understand why Fluke patented the yellow, no one would have used it anyways...

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 07:46:47 am
content: I went for the MPLAB Real Ice mostly because it was a rectangle.Joking aside thats a gimmicky design, looks kind of cheap, probably adds cost and no benefits. Not a deal breaker if the kit is what you need but still strange selection.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 10:02:33 am
content: Reminds me of the people who had a shitfit when Windows XP came out because it dared to not be gray on gray.

author: igendel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 03:23:13 pm
content: Rectangle, hockey puck, a pig standing on its hind legs... whatever shape it takes, my only wish is that it would work without complaints (unlike my *cough*AVRISP MKII*cough*)

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 03:56:38 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on August 16, 2014, 10:02:33 amWhich promptly got set right the hell back to Windows Classic as soon as it reached my hands...

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2014, 05:42:31 pm
content: Quoteand continued support, for a reasonable period of time,Dragon is actually a better programmer in my view. But it dies too easily.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2014, 07:02:41 am
content: Quote from: igendel on August 16, 2014, 03:23:13 pmWhat kind of problems do you have with it? I never noticed any.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2014, 08:41:08 am
content: This sort of thing is annoying - it's not the sort of product that anyone makes a buying decision on based on looks. All it does is increase cost unnecessarily - custom case, multicolour printing, wasteful circular PCB.What pisses me off even more though is that after they've gone to all that expense, they don't even bother printing useful stuff like pinouts on the case.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2014, 09:23:26 am
content: It is called macisajt design.It is a creme chese, no idea what it has to do with bears. pictures not working

author: igendel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2014, 01:44:07 pm
content: Quote from: zapta on August 17, 2014, 07:02:41 amThere are some mysterious issues with the drivers (Win7 64-bit), causing the Atmel Studio not to recognize it at all, or to mess up its clock speed (I know of several other people who encountered this). After a long, exhaustive dialog with the support, they acknowledged there's an issue - were even able to replicate it - and suggested I wait for a future version of the IDE that will have it fixed.Some further experiments revealed that if I disable the driver authentication on Windows, things do work - but that's a very dangerous thing to do, and it has to be done manually on each reboot of the system.

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2014, 04:52:27 pm
content: Quote from: igendel on August 17, 2014, 01:44:07 pmThanks for the explanation. I use avrdude on Mac OSX so this may explain the experience difference.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2014, 05:59:13 am
content: Quote from: igendel on August 16, 2014, 03:23:13 pmI started using this ICD3 and have figured out this is not the case with it - when in Debug mode, if I move the programmer or the target circuit on the desk, the programmer crashes it MPLabX session. Cable connections are solid, why the damn thing does not like physical movement I have no idea.

author: geppa.dee
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2014, 11:45:30 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on August 16, 2014, 03:56:38 pmFor me, even Win7 (when I finallyhadto start using it) got the same treatment.I'm not a luddite, many times I'm an early adopter of new tech but I hate "technological progress" that only amounts to (subjectively) annoying visual changes that at best bring nothing to the table from a functional POV, or worse, hinder functionality (fat quasi-transparent window borders f.e.).

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2014, 01:27:36 pm
content: Quote from: geppa.dee on August 18, 2014, 11:45:30 amSwitching to the classic theme disables hardware window compositing, so you're just making your system slower.

author: sunnyhighway
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2014, 02:19:32 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on August 16, 2014, 02:15:49 amI don't understand how you even got the cables connected to the round box.Maybe this image explains a bit how it was intended.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2014, 02:21:22 am
content: sunnyhighway, nice!I think I know what happened - the Microchip guy used a shoe polish can for the prototype, then he got some more his smok'n stuff and watched a hockey game on TV, and when returned back to Earth his boss told him they go to production tomorrow, so no time left to design a proper enclosure. So he decided not to bother, just used plastic to make it even cheaper.

author: SirNick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2014, 07:41:49 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on August 18, 2014, 01:27:36 pmNot to mention that Win7's 2D theme makes 9x's gray-on-gray look positively stunning by comparison.Mostly, I just don't like that OS upgrades feel the need to impose a new look upon you. It's like having someone come in to re-paint your house if you want the furnace to keep working. You get a chartreuse accent wall now! Don't like it? Why? Afraid of change or something? No, I just have preferences and there's nothing at all wrong with that.FWIW, XP's look grew on me. Still unsure of Vista/7. I really prefer the flexibility of e.g., StyleXP and a vast collection of contributed themes though. That should have been stock behavior. Similarly, the whole iOS 6 to iOS 7 thing sucked for many reasons, one of which was that I happened to like the old aesthetic. I'll take new kernels and my choice in graphics, please. Would that really be so hard? (Enter Linux ....)

author: geppa.dee
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2014, 12:13:57 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on August 18, 2014, 01:27:36 pmRealy? Hmm... I might be wrong (its been a rather long time since I was concerned with how the internals of MS Windows worked) but I'm under the impression that no window composition is faster than hw accelerated window composition. It's actually one of the reasons to disable it for me. I don't need it. I'm perfectly happy with apps handling the painting of their respective windows by themselves as log as they're still able to. Windows has had 2D hw acceleration for both the GDI and the GDI+ since... I think win95. As far as I know that hasn't gone away and in this case, that's all is needed.My system is mostly busy with other things (even when booted to windows). I couldn't care less about what DWM (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff468822%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) brings to the table.Quote from: SirNick on August 19, 2014, 07:41:49 pmWin7 classic theme looks exactly like the WinXP classic theme in almost all regards (that is to say, a little better than 9x's in my opinion). Once you get rid of the big, goofy, half link, half icon, thingies they put on the taskbar by default and bring back the proper "quick launch" toolbar it's hard to visually differentiate it from XP.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2014, 12:37:58 pm
content: Quote from: geppa.dee on September 06, 2014, 12:13:57 pmWithout compositing, an application must redraw its window contents when obsured by other windows (those white blotches you get when eg. dragging a dialog across a window). With compositing, the window contents are drawn into an offscreen surface, and the window manager can repaint the exposed portions using the graphics hardware essentially for free. Because of hardware compositing, effects like window shadows and the Windows 7 translucent title bars also cost nothing.

author: geppa.dee
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2014, 02:34:39 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on September 06, 2014, 12:37:58 pmYou're not telling me anything new, I've been writing software professionally for about 15 years now.Quote from: andersm on September 06, 2014, 12:37:58 pmNah... you only get those in edge situations:... the app is borked (message pump and/or main thread blocked), Windows is borked (multitude of possible reasons... ), no graphical drivers installed... all situations in which desktop compositing (let's call it what it is) won't help much anyway.Quote from: andersm on September 06, 2014, 12:37:58 pmI agree but I think it's a moot point in real life. Like I said before, my main (and only one that has Win partitions) machine spends very little time redrawing parts of windows that get shown by other windows moving away. With 3 full hd screens (1horiz + 2vert), I have very little need to move windows. Or to even overlap them too often. I remind you that my argument was subjective from the very beginning. I was talking about my situation.As for window shadows... don need or want them. As far as desktop shadowing goes, I only want it under the mouse pointer and that's hw accelerated, DWM or not. About the window chrome translucency... it might be free (or at least very cheap) computing wise but it's ugly and wasteful in screen real estate. So again... I don't want it.To summarize: the argument was subjective in that it applied to my situation and preferences and no... I don't think I'm making my system slower.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2014, 04:39:49 pm
content: Quote from: geppa.dee on September 06, 2014, 02:34:39 pmThings have changedsince then.

author: geppa.dee
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2014, 05:44:40 pm
content: Quote from: andersm on September 06, 2014, 04:39:49 pmAbout your link target: please tell me what new information it brings to our conversation, I see no points that I haven't addressed. I do see a bit of snark with a dash of egocentrism (presuming that we should all find pretty what he (an apparently you) find pretty and that we should also prefer it. I remember when Raymond used to be funny and insightful... now I don't know about insightful anymore because like I hinted before... I care way less about Windows than I used to, my development these days is mostly for big, hunking and graphicsless Linux servers) and the funny... hmm... Ctrl+F didn't find it on that page.On top of that, I already explained how even if you consider something pretty (which is highly subjective) and it's not that computationally expensive, it can be expensive in other ways and so counterproductive, depending, again on one's POV.Now regarding your anchor text... I see what you did there. Also, I did say "for about 15 years" not that I was doing it then and have been growing bees ever since (no disrespect intended to bee keepers).Cheers.

author: SirNick
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2014, 07:34:32 pm
content: Point is, looks are subjective. Why is it necessary to force changes to the UI along the way? If I find a window manager I like, there is no reason in the world I shouldn't be allowed to use it forever. If I really, really liked Win 3.x's line-drawn borders and gray space-bar control menu icon, my Windows 8.1 kernel should be able to cope with that fine. Instead, someone else decided I should be using Metro tiles now. Nope, let me off at the next stop, please.Seems to me, adoption of a new OS would be trivial if a) your critical apps still work, and b) there's no need to play "find the control panel applet" every couple years.AND... the new DirectX stack broke Starcraft. That's just unforgivable.