Page 169 - The Art of Designing Embedded Systems

156 THE ART OF DESIGNING EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

the tools, we did get them, and developed an expectation that we’d always
have access to whatever the job needed.
Then I started consulting.
Suddenly, those wonderful tools we had so long taken for granted
were no long available. My partner and I shared an old Tektronix 545
scope (that used vacuum tubes-you know, those glass-shelled things with
filaments and high voltages). We scraped up enough money to build an
emulator-such as it was-from mail-ordered Multibus boards. A $400
CRT terminal and daisy-wheel printer were all we could afford in the way
of new capital equipment.
We learned all sorts of ways to extract information from systems,
pouring loads of time into projects instead of cash.
Then I met a fellow whose high-school kid had a lab of sorts in his
home. He had a new Tektronix scope! I was flabbergasted. Though the unit
wasn’t top-of-the-line, it sure beat the antique I was saddled with.
A few discreet questions turned up the fact that he rented the scope,
for a lousy $50 a month. Somehow it had never occurred to me that there
were options other than coming up with thousands in cash. This kid had
shown me that the quest to obtain the right tools is aproblem, one like any
other problem we run into in engineering and life, one that takes a bit of
creative energy to solve.
Ain’t America grand? Easy credit, available to practically any warm
body, means we can satisfy practically any whim . . . as far too many of us
do until the inevitable day of reckoning comes.
Look at the computers advertised in any PC magazine. Every ad has
a caption giving the low, low monthly payment they’ll require. If your
business has any income at all, then the hundred a month or so for a high-
end machine is a pittance.
Test equipment vendors all offer similar plans. You’d be surprised
how low the monthly payments on a scope are, when spread over three to
five years.
Most companies will bend over backwards to finance your purchase.
Those that have no in-house financing ability work with third-party finan-
cial outfits. Test equipment companies really want you to have their latest
widget, and they’ll do practically anything to help you purchase it.
Renting is a traditional means to get access to equipment for short pe-
riods of time. However, unless you’re quite convinced that the project will
end as planned, be wary of rentals. Few short-term projects fail to increase
in scope and duration. Since rentals generally cost around 10% of the
unit’s purchase price per month, once the project slips more than a quarter,
you may have been better off buying than renting.