After my stint working as a contractor on the IBM + Raytheon project, a friend of mine I knew from church who happened to know I specialized in Smalltalk reached out to me and got me an interview at Kronos, Inc. where they made time and attendance products. They hired me as a contractor.
Kronos was the market leader in this space and their breakthrough product was the combination of digital punch clocks with a magnetic card strip reader and an application developed in C to process all the data of employees coming and going.
Before I went there they had created a new version of their system called TimeKeeper C/S which was developed in Smalltalk. The C/S part stood for Client/Server, so Smalltalk application used a SQL Server database as its backend.
My task on this contracting job was to develop an extension to their TimeKeeper C/S application. Because they didn't have a database resource to work with me, I developed a dynamic object persistence system that was file based, and I also created a dynamic user interface mechanism to present application windows based on metadata.
It was an interesting project and the work paid well. Later on the contacts I made would help me again and again.
After the contract period was finished I went back to working on Liberty BASIC again.
Showing posts with label ibm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ibm. Show all posts
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Bugs Bunny and Raytheon
When we were well along in our project for the Defense Nuclear Agency, a couple of developers from our team were chosen to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico to field test the system. Part of the system was designed to help provide security by means of motion detection in the desert.
To make this happen we needed to build a custom computer that ran OS/2.. This PC included hardware which could interface with motion detection cameras in order to log motion detection events which included video frames showing what the motion was. So we were all excited to know that our system was going to take pictures of tumbleweeds and Bugs Bunny in the desert wasteland. ;-)
Most of the assembly of this custom hardware was done at the Wyman Street, Waltham IBM office where we worked, but Raytheon in Burlington, Mass was responsible for the final integration and shipment to the test grounds in Albuquerque.
So, off to Burlington we went with server in tow. When you visit Raytheon you have to go in the front door and sign in, and you have to have an appointment with someone who will meet you at the door. So one of my colleagues and I followed this procedure and found one of our other teammates working on the machine, trying to get OS/2 to start up and load all the drivers properly, but he was having some trouble.
Then a couple other members of our team showed up, but they were unescorted. So they were asked how they got into the building. They said rather innocently that they parked in back and as they approached the back door someone came out. That person held the door for them and they got in without signing in at the front desk! Uh, oh! Who was it that let them in? They didn't know this person, and presumably he went for a walk for took off in his car, so it wasn't going to be easy to figure this out. They didn't know they were breaking security protocol. Okay so they went to sign in.
Now we turned out attention to the server again. We were trying to figure out how to get all the drivers working and we were having some trouble. This fellow with a clipboard came to us and said that he needed to pack up the computer and put it on the truck to ship it to Albuquerque. We told him that it wasn't ready, and he walked off. Some time later he came back again and we told him it still wasn't ready. Finally he returned and said, "Okay let's ship this thing. I've got to check this off my list!" We game him a sharp look and told him firmly "Look buddy, this machine isn't going anywhere until it works. We will tell you when it's ready." He did not like this at all, but we really couldn't have cared less.
I guess he thought a non-working computer was good enough for government work.
To make this happen we needed to build a custom computer that ran OS/2.. This PC included hardware which could interface with motion detection cameras in order to log motion detection events which included video frames showing what the motion was. So we were all excited to know that our system was going to take pictures of tumbleweeds and Bugs Bunny in the desert wasteland. ;-)
Most of the assembly of this custom hardware was done at the Wyman Street, Waltham IBM office where we worked, but Raytheon in Burlington, Mass was responsible for the final integration and shipment to the test grounds in Albuquerque.
So, off to Burlington we went with server in tow. When you visit Raytheon you have to go in the front door and sign in, and you have to have an appointment with someone who will meet you at the door. So one of my colleagues and I followed this procedure and found one of our other teammates working on the machine, trying to get OS/2 to start up and load all the drivers properly, but he was having some trouble.
Then a couple other members of our team showed up, but they were unescorted. So they were asked how they got into the building. They said rather innocently that they parked in back and as they approached the back door someone came out. That person held the door for them and they got in without signing in at the front desk! Uh, oh! Who was it that let them in? They didn't know this person, and presumably he went for a walk for took off in his car, so it wasn't going to be easy to figure this out. They didn't know they were breaking security protocol. Okay so they went to sign in.
Now we turned out attention to the server again. We were trying to figure out how to get all the drivers working and we were having some trouble. This fellow with a clipboard came to us and said that he needed to pack up the computer and put it on the truck to ship it to Albuquerque. We told him that it wasn't ready, and he walked off. Some time later he came back again and we told him it still wasn't ready. Finally he returned and said, "Okay let's ship this thing. I've got to check this off my list!" We game him a sharp look and told him firmly "Look buddy, this machine isn't going anywhere until it works. We will tell you when it's ready." He did not like this at all, but we really couldn't have cared less.
I guess he thought a non-working computer was good enough for government work.
Friday, January 1, 2016
How to make a RAID array failsafe
The computer that we used to manage the source code for our Defense Nuclear Agency prototype was an IBM System 95 server. One of the nice features of this system was a three hard drive RAID array. The special property of this system was that if one of the drives failed, the contents of that drive are recomputed on the fly based on the other two good hard drives. The drives were hot-swappable, so it was possible to eject the bad drive and replace it with a new one while the system was running. That drive would then be formatted and it contents rebuilt from the other two drives while the system was in use. Very cool technology!
One day we decided to reboot the server. When we did the OS/2 operating system produced an error message on startup saying that one of the drives in the RAID array had failed. We were shocked. We should have received an indication of this when the drive actually failed.
So what happened? These special hot swappable hard drives have an error light that turns on, and also a piezo buzzer that sounds when the drive fails. The trouble is that the drive failed so completely that the piezo buzzer also failed. We never heard the audible error sound that we were supposed to hear. This was a vulnerable moment for us. If one more of the hard drives were to suffer failure we would have lost work. We did back up our code periodically to an external cartridge, but it had not been done for weeks.
So clearly IBM had some work to do perfecting their RAID products. For example, if the piezo buzzers on the other hard disks were designed to sound when any of the other drives failed, this might have proven much more effective.
One day we decided to reboot the server. When we did the OS/2 operating system produced an error message on startup saying that one of the drives in the RAID array had failed. We were shocked. We should have received an indication of this when the drive actually failed.
So what happened? These special hot swappable hard drives have an error light that turns on, and also a piezo buzzer that sounds when the drive fails. The trouble is that the drive failed so completely that the piezo buzzer also failed. We never heard the audible error sound that we were supposed to hear. This was a vulnerable moment for us. If one more of the hard drives were to suffer failure we would have lost work. We did back up our code periodically to an external cartridge, but it had not been done for weeks.
So clearly IBM had some work to do perfecting their RAID products. For example, if the piezo buzzers on the other hard disks were designed to sound when any of the other drives failed, this might have proven much more effective.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
The IBM dress code
Our contracting work at IBM in Waltham was back when IBM had a particular dress code. All the men had to dress like the agents in the Matrix (without sunglasses). All the women also needed to wear a lady's business suit.
However since we were not employees we could wear whatever we liked. The fun part of that is that we got to wear IBM badges which gave access in and out of the building, to the cafeteria, etc. I got the biggest kick out of this because the IBM employees gave us the strangest looks. They clearly could not figure out who we were and why we were permitted to dress in casual attire.
However since we were not employees we could wear whatever we liked. The fun part of that is that we got to wear IBM badges which gave access in and out of the building, to the cafeteria, etc. I got the biggest kick out of this because the IBM employees gave us the strangest looks. They clearly could not figure out who we were and why we were permitted to dress in casual attire.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Onward and upward!
In my time at CFC Incorporated I had several interviews for work in Smalltalk. One of them was in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They focused a lot on Unix in the interview, or at least that's the way I remember it. I never got a call back from them.
Another interview was with a company in Waltham called Marble Associates where my friend Laird Popkin worked. This job seemed fantastic, and the interview was going great. But when they told me that it was a traveling job which required that I fly to the client every Monday through Thursday I regretfully declined because I was unwilling to be away from my wife and children and also my church community in that fashion.
One day in 1995 I was contacted by one Peter Statterman, and he told me that his company GEM Consulting was looking for an experienced Smalltalk developer for a joint IBM and Raytheon project for the Defense Nuclear Agency of the US military.
We met at a coffee shop in Natick, Massachusetts and he interviewed me. I must have said something right because he hired me! It was exciting to be working on a project for IBM on the OS/2 operating system platform. I was already working on Liberty BASIC for OS/2 and so this gave me the experience I needed to jump right into the project.
GEM Consulting hired me as a subcontractor. The money was really good, but it was only a three month contract to create a prototype. If that went well they would extend that to another six month phase.
My intention was to focus on Liberty BASIC when the contract ended and try to launch a full time business.
This was the start of a new chapter in my software development career!
Another interview was with a company in Waltham called Marble Associates where my friend Laird Popkin worked. This job seemed fantastic, and the interview was going great. But when they told me that it was a traveling job which required that I fly to the client every Monday through Thursday I regretfully declined because I was unwilling to be away from my wife and children and also my church community in that fashion.
One day in 1995 I was contacted by one Peter Statterman, and he told me that his company GEM Consulting was looking for an experienced Smalltalk developer for a joint IBM and Raytheon project for the Defense Nuclear Agency of the US military.
We met at a coffee shop in Natick, Massachusetts and he interviewed me. I must have said something right because he hired me! It was exciting to be working on a project for IBM on the OS/2 operating system platform. I was already working on Liberty BASIC for OS/2 and so this gave me the experience I needed to jump right into the project.
GEM Consulting hired me as a subcontractor. The money was really good, but it was only a three month contract to create a prototype. If that went well they would extend that to another six month phase.
My intention was to focus on Liberty BASIC when the contract ended and try to launch a full time business.
This was the start of a new chapter in my software development career!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Enter IBM
After I had worked on a couple of projects on the Apple II+, Mr. Alessi decided it was time to develop software for the IBM PC. I think he bought his at the Sears Business Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. He purchased one with two floppy drives, an expansion unit housing a 10MB hard drive (the first one I had ever used), and a green phosphor monitor. He also bought a daisy wheel printer so we could produce letter-quality documentation for our software.
I enjoy discovering a new computer, but my initial impression was not all positive. The machine was big and expensive. It felt slow. This didn't make sense to me because even though the PC's 4.77MHz Intel 8088 processor was clocked at nearly 5 times higher than the 1MHz 6502 processor in the Apple II+, the Apple felt much, much faster. Steve Wozniak's hard work on the Apple II+ was clearly more efficient in many ways.
In addition, the computer came with PC-DOS 1.10. I was expecting something more advanced than CP/M from IBM but was disappointed. In fact PC-DOS seemed to me to be nothing but a ripoff of CP/M.
Overall, this computer was underwhelming. With IBM behind it this design would be copied widely. The variety and innovation in the microcomputer market was slowly wiped out by this computer and its imitators.
I enjoy discovering a new computer, but my initial impression was not all positive. The machine was big and expensive. It felt slow. This didn't make sense to me because even though the PC's 4.77MHz Intel 8088 processor was clocked at nearly 5 times higher than the 1MHz 6502 processor in the Apple II+, the Apple felt much, much faster. Steve Wozniak's hard work on the Apple II+ was clearly more efficient in many ways.
In addition, the computer came with PC-DOS 1.10. I was expecting something more advanced than CP/M from IBM but was disappointed. In fact PC-DOS seemed to me to be nothing but a ripoff of CP/M.
Overall, this computer was underwhelming. With IBM behind it this design would be copied widely. The variety and innovation in the microcomputer market was slowly wiped out by this computer and its imitators.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The Northeast Computer Show
The year was 1979. What an impression it made to me when my father took me and my brother Ernie to the Northeast Computer Show at the Hynes Auditorium in Boston. Compare this show to COMDEX or E3. It was a cornucopia of computers.
Before IBM blandified the computing landscape by killing off people's imaginations with the IBM PC there was an unbelievable amount of variety in computers. Computer companies were popping up everywhere and non-computer manufacturers were also getting into the game.
Some things that stand out most in my memory are:
Before IBM blandified the computing landscape by killing off people's imaginations with the IBM PC there was an unbelievable amount of variety in computers. Computer companies were popping up everywhere and non-computer manufacturers were also getting into the game.
Some things that stand out most in my memory are:
- A really cool red and white R2D2 style robot that was roaming around the conference floor. There were other robots too.
- A computer that you programmed with geometric symbols as part of the syntax. I can't remember the name of the computer unfortunately.
- The RCA COSMAC VIP computer. Boy did I want one of these. It was a single board computer you could plug into your TV set. You assembled it yourself and programmed it in 1802 machine code using the hex keypad. The VIP had a cassette storage interface. It was expandable with a real keyboard. Very cool. I wish I could still get one of these! :-)
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