77 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
77 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
TO: GORDON BELL DATE: TUE 18 NOV 1980 8:30 AM EST
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DICK CLAYTON FROM: KEN OLSEN
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JACK SHIELDS DEPT: ADMINISTRATION
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JACK SMITH EXT: 223-2301
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LOC/MAIL STOP: ML10-2/A50
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SUBJECT: 11/23 AND RX02 FLOPPIES
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I had an 11/23, a pair of RX02 floppies and a letter quality
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printer delivered to my home. I'm terribly embarrassed by these.
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I've never seen such poor mechanical design and such poor system
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thinking.
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Will you send a note to me saying:
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1. Who designed these units?
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2. Who packaged them?
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3. Who approved them for Manufacturing?
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4. Who approved them for Field Service?
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I think it's time we identify who does poor design and make sure
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they don't do design for us again. For years we've been doing
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poor design, keep doing it, and I think we're embarrassed to find
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out who does the poor design and, therefore, we never stop it.
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I'd like to know who looks over the whole system to say that it
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is a product we'd be proud of.
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The LQP came in a box which must be five feet tall and so big it
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won't go through most of the doors in my house. Two people have a
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terrible time carrying the empty box without the table and
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printer in it. Inside there's a printer which is just the size
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of an IBM typewriter and probably lighter in weight. We probably
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had good reasons originally to put the printer on a table and
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then the box so it wouldn't get damaged, but no one stopped to
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think of how much space we wasted, how much warehouse space we
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wasted, how hard it is to ship, and the overall cost.
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The 11/23 is a micro-processor on four dual boards which takes
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very little space but they're put in a huge steel box which is
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very heavy, very hard to carry, and quite vulnerable in shipping.
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I don't know why we bother making large scale integrated circuits
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when we put them in boxes like this. All our work in integrated
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circuits is a waste and our packaging is so dumb. We even do
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things like not taking advantage of the metal covers for
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shielding because we don't ground the covers.
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The dual floppies are put in a huge metal box which the
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automobile industry would be embarrassed to ever ship. It's "fit
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and trin" is terrible. No way can you make the trim look good.
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The floppies take up approximately a third of the volume of this
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box and the rest is empty air or poor design. We went to new
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small floppies because this box is so big. Anybody in their
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right mind would have made a box to fit the floppies rather than
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make small floppies. We could put small floppies in the same big
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box and gain nothing.
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This equipment is filled with loose screws, each of which has a
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serarate washer and a separate lock washer. I am not completely
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unhandy in taking things apart and putting them together, but I
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have a terrible time with all these loose screws and washers.
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I've lost one washer inside the equipment which I'm afraid might
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cause trouble later on when we turn it on. Many, many years ago
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people learn[ed] not to put things together this way.
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Gordon Bell says the Japanese are coming because of their
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financing and better manufacturing. They're going to kill us by
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better design. This is absolutely atrocious and I want to know
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who did it and who approved it.
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KHO/em
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13.10
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