[lzell]

That's part of what makes it exciting! I was a hardware engineer before switching to software. At that time, we used to say to the software guys "if you guys screw up your design, you recompile; if we screw up, we have to update the schematic, update the cad drawings, order new pcb boards, wait a few weeks, and hope it works next time". The pressure made it fun. Not to mention playing with oscilloscopes and function generators. If it was a minor glitch you could get by by chopping some pins or doing some soldering. Man, that was a good first job out of college. Oh and I'm definitely ordering one of these, even though I haven't used Windows in a few years either. I've got a box with xp somewhere...

[tkahn6]

He's not frustrated with the unforgivability of hardware design. He's frustrated with the overhead involved in getting started learning the ropes (finding the right tools, learning about the conventions involved in identifying the right parts).