Tool of the day: soldering iron!

Yes, it's true, today's log entry doesn't have to do with software. Today I'm writing about the most annoying tool I have to use from time to time: a soldering iron.

Yesterday I finally changed my wife's Tungsten E's battery. I had already received a cheap battery from 100000volts.com, and yesterday was the day. Palm's idea of soldering the battery to the board was just an unhappy one - oh, well, I'm being unfair, at least they put the on/off button on the right place, on the exterior!

Ok, the battery replacement was not as bad as I though. It is just clumsy. The truth is I hate soldering, maybe because I had to soldier a bunch of cables on one of my first professional projects.

The project itself was a software one - I had to port a VT220 application to a series of other terminals (VT100, Data General DG412 and 460?, IBM 3270?, Bull?, Unisys?, hell I can't remember...). Clients sent us terminals, and I configured a termcap like layer I had developed. The problem was getting the right pinout - mostly a try-and-error process.

Yes, just soldering a simple cable is a stressfull task for me - I can't imagine myself performing a precision soldering on a board.

Thank god for software :)