>> If you're making something like an LCD mounting bracket, do you 
>> actually do a detailed simulation for that component?
> 
> Only if it's in a place where someone could grab hold of it and tug it. 

Figures.

> It has to be able to withstand somebody grabbing hold of it and pulling 
> to help themselves out of the car, in that case the metal is much 
> thicker and we run finite element simulations to check.

How long does it take to do a computer simulation to check that 
something won't break? How complicated is the process, and how much 
computer time does it take?

> It's further 
> complicated because during an accident if someone hits the display it 
> must collapse backwards and not be rigid, so you kind of need 1-way 
> strength :-)

So... corrugated? Or something.

>> Or do you just do "OK, well we're using 0.3 mm steel for the rest of 
>> the frame, so let's use 0.3 mm steel"? (And change it if it turns out 
>> to be too weak...)
> 
> For most other things, yes, or just based on our experience from the 100 
> other LCDs we've made over the last 10 years.

Heh, yeah. I guess if you've made something similar before it helps a 
lot. ;-) I was just thinking, I imagine for "most" manufactured items, 
the designers probably have a basic intuition about roughly what 
thickness of metal is required. I don't suppose they do an exhaustive 
mathematical derrivation of optimal thickness for every single component 
ever designed.

> On a recent project we 
> had to change from 0.3 to 0.4 mm metal after some clips that were 
> designed by the customer were not strong enough.  Nobody tested for this 
> or simulated it, but to be honest there is no need as things like that 
> always show up in the early samples before we get anywhere near making 
> the mass production tools.

Right. So you take an educated guess, and if the prototypes fall apart, 
you figure out which bit broke?

>> The fun thing is if you want to ran GHC on an unsupported platform. 
>> This apparently involves asking GHC to compile itself into ANSI C, and 
>> then using a suitable C compiler for the target platform to produce a 
>> working binary.
> 
> And I guess the C compiler can be cross-compiled on a pre-existing 
> platform.

Almost every platform known to man already has a C compiler - even if it 
has nothing else. The C compiler is typically the very first thing that 
gets built. ;-)

Itanium? Yep, that has a C compiler. UltraSPARC? Yeah, C compiler.

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