Priorty Interrupt by Steve Ciarcia After Ten Years, Inside the Box Still Counts

Writing an editorial for the tenth-anniversary issue is a little like sitting down at the dinner table for a special occasion. Your first inclination is to simply say grace and thank everyone responsible for making the day happen. Certainly, this is no different. Any successful magazine is the work of many people and not just the achievement of a single individual. Still, a tenth anniversary is a cause to celebrate the past, analyze the present, and predict the future.

As for the past, probably the greatest cause for celebration is being successful against the odds. How many magazines have you subscribed to during the last 10 years that no longer exist? I'd like to say we're still here because of our technical prowess and foresight. While there's no doubt they're among the principal reasons you read INK, in truth, these attributes are the de facto result of simply letting an engineer choose an editorial course most interesting to other engineers. Our motto is and has always been that we are a magazine written for engineers, by engineers.

Of course, today, I've come to interpret "engineer" to more appropriately indicate an engineering cast of mind rather than any strict degree designation. It would be far too egotistical of me to diminish the valuable contribution of professionals and programmers who don't strictly call themselves engineers. My personal programming language may still be solder, but this is simply my choice and not a campaign platform. The technical cross-pollination involved in today's embedded control designs certainly makes such divisions meaningless.

As for the present, what can I say? "Give me the means and I'll control the world!" The options are more varied today than ever. There are dozens of processors, scores of tools, and even more marketing hype as to the direction designers should take. In a world filled with 4- to 64-bit system solutions, I'm hopeful the real applications we document in the pages of INK help separate hype from reality.

We'll continue to bridge the gap between trade magazines and technical enjoyment. Believe me, it's no easy task. As you see more of the large semiconductor companies in our pages, consider the value of the achievement. These companies finally discovered that their engineering departments read INK. Of course, the marketing guys didn't know this because they never saw any issues lying around. (Leave INK around where it could get taken? No way, they take it home!) Of course, trade magazines are easy to find. They're in unread piles on every desk.

As for the future, it sounds trite, but there is a multitude of possible alternatives. If I mimic today's popular press, I'm supposed to be warning you about the dire meltdown associated with the millennium issue. Apparently, when the clock clicks over to January 1, 2000, there will be massive software glitches causing considerable confusion and financial loss. Banks will start posting mortgage interest from 1900, insurance annuities will cease, and ICBMs will head the wrong way.

Personally, I think all this is a bunch of over-anxiety. Forewarned is forearmed. While it's conceivable the rest of the world might not know that 00 follows 99, I can't see that a traffic-light sequencer or a soda-machine coin counter cares what year it is. Much of what we design will be immune (for what isn't, see Scott Lehrbaum's article, "Year 2000 and Embedded PCs"). Nevertheless, I am prepared for the Department of Motor Vehicles to cancel my registration because they can't calculate a negative age. Forewarned doesn't mean anything to the bureaucracy.

All levity aside, I do have one future prediction. It's easy for us to look at the Internet as simply a neat way to run searches and download datasheets. But, that may be a gross underestimation of its potential application in embedded controls. I believe that the power of all those connected resources combined with the rapid evolution in phone and wireless communication technology will define a new Internet that will offer a completely new control methodology. Cars will have dashboards that download maps, upload vehicle performance, and provide customized entertainment. Televisions, pagers, wrist communicators, and perhaps even microwave ovens will contain chips connecting them to TCP/IP. A browser will connect you to the world.

Certainly, the politics of all this connectivity will play a significant role in its adaptation. As for the technology, you can depend on our tenacity to stay the course and tell you how it's implemented. It may have been ten years, but to this day, I believe that the title on our first issue is still a great truth: Inside the box still counts. We won't let you down.

steve.ciarcia@circuitcellar.com

Published: January-1998