Went down to the Embedded Systems conference in Boston the other day. Word of the day: SOC (System On Chip). Also saw more single board computers in one day than I've seen in my whole life. Geek fun.

I noticed one thing about the conference that I don't remember from any other conference I've been to: the smell. For a conference room full of miniature, presumably low-power, computing devices they sure put out a lot of hot electronics molecules. This was no doubt helped out by the guy demonstrating his unsoldering product for surface mount components, which involved lots of smoldering solder and hot circuit boards. Jeff thought it looked like an infomercial.

The other smell was hot chocolate chip cookies. One of the vendors was making a grand effort to liken their offerings to cookies. Eating a hot, gooey chocolate chip cookie with a cold carton of milk in hand was a nice break, even if it meant having to sit through a sales guy in a chef outfit speaking in a bad french accent on how chocolate chips are just like an SOC with your own IP over USB...or something like that. All I remember is . . . g o o d . . . c o o k i e

We picked up piles of brochures, talked to a bunch of booth people, and then got ready to head back north. I had my powerbook and digital camera stuffed in the backpack along with the ten pounds or so of trade show crap. Stopped in the bathroom, hung the backpack from a metal peg in the toilet stall and, you guessed it, someone slammed a nearby stall door and sent my precious laptop plummeting.

Powerbook on ceramic tile, what a horrifying sound.

It's the sound of precision electrical, mechanical, and emotional constructs being released back into the unorganized brownian motion that is the universe. It happened too quick for a reaction and then I just sat and stared at the fallen backpack, imagining piles of parts and a shattered screen, maybe a few big clock springs jutting out for effect.

When I was in the Air Force working as an electronics tech we used to have what we called a "three foot tune-up." Usually reserved for the older, tube type HF radios, this last-ditch effort involved raising the stubbornly broken unit up a couple feet above the work bench and letting gravity have a shot at fixing it. Can't say it ever solved anything other than relieving the frustrations of having to work on such ancient gear.

With a lump in my throat I waited until we got back to the car before surveying the damage. Zipped open the pack, eased out the powerbook, and laid it on my lap. Hmm, it looked pretty good. No springs. The PCMCIA eject button was sticking out like a blown circuit breaker and there was a slight indentation in the titanium case, but otherwise no rattling of parts or cracks across the screen.

Opened it up, the screen illuminated and everything...just...worked. Thanks Apple!

UPDATE: forgot about the camera being in the same backpack and when I checked it today I found that the case has sprung open a little bit. Time to take it apart.

Update to the update: after much fun and small screw finagling the camera was opened, the parts re-aligned and reseated, and the whole thing clipped and screwed back together just like new. It was tempting to keep taking things apart, but I resisted.

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