Moving Out...

Of the office, I mean.

Here we are all packed up and ready to go. Instead of the old CRT, I'm only taking the Dell TV/monitor that I had lying around. I still haven't found a power supply for it, but I hope to pick one up in the extra refuse that we're not taking with us.

Update: And here we are in the new location:

It's a little bit smaller, I think. If you notice, now we've got fancy IP phones. What sucks is I brought that Dell TV/monitor instead of a CRT, only finding a power supply now. And it doesn't work! Ah well, instead, I borrowed the LCD from the other PEY student. And some of you might recognize that calendar there...

First Day of Work

Well, first day at Broadcom, that is. Not too big of a deal. Most things were the same. Except we were on a new network setup. Which means no access to the AMD company intranet, and more importantly, no access to Office Communicator. Whatever will I do when I need to talk to one of you?

I also wasted some of the day trying to figure out my email password. We got new Broadcom-y emails, for which we set the password a few weeks ago. Normally, this would be fine, but that day really sucked, sleep-wise, so I didn't remember what I set at all. Tried calling the IT desk, but it didn't seem to work. We thought it was just busy from everyone forgetting their passwords, but actually there was some long-distance code we needed to enter for it to dial.

Anyway, that's about all that happened on my second "first day". Of course, I did some real work, too. But I don't think that's as interesting.

Last Day at AMD!

Yep, that's right. Today was my last day of work at AMD. Now, don't go jumping to conclusions that I quit PEY or anything. Like I said before, the DTV division was sold to Broadcom. Well, here's to my first day at the new company tomorrow. It doesn't look like a whole lot will change just yet anyway. Sure, there's a new network, new email address, new badge, but it's still the same building, and I'll still go to the cafeteria for lunch.

A couple of weeks ago, we got our offer package. There sure were a lot of forms to fill out. It was just like starting a new job entirely. Fun thing though, they stickied the locations for the signatures. Just take a look at all these stickers!

On the other hand, now I have a whole bunch of "Sign Here" stickers. There were thirteen signatures necessary. I wonder what I'll do with them.

To round this post out, I've got one more photo from AMD. A little sign from outside the 1^st floor offices in 33CV. I guess I can't exactly go randomly wandering around there. If you didn't know, only 2^nd and 3^rd floors are for DTV. So I guess now we aren't supposed to go to the offices or the production area downstairs.

Intermittent Bugs

I hate intermittent bugs.

You know, those ones that never always happen in a reproduceable manner. I had to test this bug that seems to happen 1 time in 20+ tries. Not to mention that I needed to do it from a cold boot, so it took 1-2 minutes per trial. Fortunately, I was able to automate it so I didn't need do anything except hit the power button every time it worked.

Twenty tries and I get nothing. So I send an email saying so, and that's just when the bug shows up. Then had to try a few different versions to figure out when it was introduced. But in the end it seemed nobody else could reproduce the bug (though someone could before).

Swapped development boards with someone and couldn't reproduce the bug after 50 tries... What a waste of a day...

Expensive Toys

So I'm sure you've seen that I have those 6 monitors and maybe a TV or two to play with at work. We all know how much those cost, a few hundred per monitor, maybe a thousand or two for a TV.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I got this card to set up in a computer. It's a modulator card that takes some video file input and has the ability to output in various modulation schemes, like 8VSB, DVB, QAM64, and a few others. I was told it was expensive, but I didn't think it was too much. It's pretty cool, because I can set up whatever type of input signal I want. So I happened to find the packing slip with the box.

The packing slip also had the bill: the card cost as much as 3 or 4 (regular) TV's!! Good thing it's safe in the box... ;)

They said it would be around now...

Can you believe it's been 4 months that we've been on PEY?

Those PEY office guys say we'd really start to notice it around now. All our friends would be starting class, and we wouldn't. But you know, I don't think I've quite noticed it yet.

Normally over the summer, I usually don't see a lot of people (besides a few random gatherings). So in fact, since I see so many PEY students at AMD, it's completely not like a regular summer. Anyway, it's been a week of school now. There's been enough dinners and things so far to keep me from noticing.

I admit though, it was a bit weird not going to university on that very first morning, or for F!rosh week. But after being on campus a couple times lately, I noticed that there really aren't a lot of people there (that I know). Perhaps it's just that a lot of people are on PEY, or it's so early in the year. Normally, I'd run into a lot more people on campus.

I wonder when it'll really sink in...

DTV Sold...

So, it looks like it's official now.

The DTV department from AMD has been sold to Broadcom. I'm not really sure what that means for us yet. They say they're going to offer contracts to all employees from DTV, and even some non-employees who assist with DTV. We're supposed to talk to our managers over the next two weeks. There's just one thing... Our manager's on vacation for the next two weeks. :P

Anyway, not many people seem to be too concerned right now. It's probably going to be until at least the end of the year before everything's all done. And things will probably change about as much as when AMD bought ATI, which is not all that much as I hear.

I just hope we don't have to change buildings. Then we won't get to play cards at lunch. :P

Vacation

So how did this happen?

Somehow not only does my team lead (who gives me work and I ask questions) have vacation next week, but so do my mom and dad. I, on the other hand, technically have no vacation since I'm on contract.

Well, at least my sister doesn't have vacation. ;)

My messy cubicle

Well, it's not really that messy, but it sure is full of stuff...

Let's see what we have here...

On the left is my Linux computer. I was using the monitor on top of it for that, but I got tired of the CRT-ness, so I got that next 17" LCD over for it.

The oscilloscope is for testing output from my test board, which if you ask me, looks nothing like a square wave, but apparently is quite alright for DTV. The test board is right above it, though you can't see it too clearly. I can't give away all AMD's secrets, now can I? ;) That pole there has a TV feed with some random stuff for testing. And CityTV, if I really feel bored.

The darker screen behind the keyboard is the Windows laptop. It's kinda old, and I don't like trackpads, so I use Synergy to control it from the Linux machine. Darn old keyboard and mouse, but they're way better than working on a laptop. The larger CRT at the right is a second display for the laptop. At least it does 85Hz, so it's not so tiring as the other one.

At the top are testing displays. The Dell on the right doesn't have a power supply, so I don't use it yet, but I probably will for some dual-output tests. The Samsung's a lovely 24" widescreen which I'm using to test board output. Evidently, things aren't working, as that garbled mess you see should look something like the image conveniently hiding everything on the three other displays (That's right, no secret information for you!).

Finally, off camera to the right, there's another test board taking up the rest of my desk. I have just enough room to fit my AMD coffee mug (filled with water, of course) and Engineering notebook. On the floor, there's also a 40" Sony I get to play with as well (You'll just have to believe me). I seriously ran out of plugs to connect all these things.