No, I'm not talking about hacking an Internet file server. At CFC, Inc. we kept the CNC drilling and routing programs on a file server running Xenix which was a Microsoft branded version of Unix. The CNC machines were plugged directly into this file server using RS-232 ports. Until we purchased this server we had been keeping all our programs on punched paper tape and stored on shelves but now we could keep all this stored electronically.
Okay, this new way of doing things would have been great except that the file server cost lots of money and it wasn't reliable. Every so many weeks or months the computer would crash for one reason or another. When this happened it would run fsck on bootup. This would sometimes find some file system records to repair because the machine didn't have a chance to write everything to disk when it crashed. The end result? We would sometimes lose files from the file server. Bad, bad and worse because all our backups were on tape and we had really bad luck restoring from tape.
We didn't want to spend any more money on this file server. I wanted to develop a replacement in house. It would run on DOS which didn't have the bad habit of delaying writes to the file system. Not bulletproof, but bullet resistant and cheap. But, I had a problem. The only documentation I had which explained the communication protocol for the file server was very thin and hard to understand. I was stuck.
Remember the RS-232 monitor that I grabbed at the GTE auction? I knew right away how useful it would be for this project! Back at the factory I installed this monitor between one of the CNC machines and the Xenix file server. With the ability to see data moving back and forth I was able to figure out how the file server worked. It was tricky because data was actually delivered in packets. There was a non-trivial conversation that happened between these machines but it looked like the code for this was going to be fun to write!
I was ready to get started!
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Apple II+
My job with Mr. Alessi started out with a software project he called Forecaster-Buy. The idea was to create a trend following inventory management system for distributors and manufacturers so that overstocking was a thing of the past. The computer we did all our initial development was:
An Apple II+ with 48K RAM and Applesoft BASIC in ROM
Two 143K Apple Disk II floppy drives
An Epson MX-100 dot matrix printer
Later we added a Microsoft Z-80 Softcard but didn't do much with it
I learned so much about programming with Mr. Alessi. We worked in the basement. There was a small room at the bottom of the basement stairs where the computer was kept, and in the larger basement space there was a TV and some chairs. We would talk about the software (and politics) and I would go into room and write software. Mr. Alessi would come in and ask me how I was doing. He'd make suggestions to which I would sometimes respond "That's impossible!" Of course it wasn't impossible, but if I didn't know how to do it, that is what I sometimes said. Then we'd talk and I'd think it over and come up with some sort of code to do the previously impossible.
Working with Mr. Alessi was a great experience. He was smart enough to know what sort of software to create. He'd bring me endless coffee and cookies. On Saturdays he would make me breakfast. He made very nice scrambled eggs. His two sons Tom and Michael were a little older than me and they'd always be around. I remember I used to play with them (and with all the other kids around the block) up at the park at the end of my street; kickball, pickle, keepaway, capture the flag, and hide and seek with the whole neighborhood as our hiding place. :-)
Yeah, working with Mr. Alessi was a great opportunity. It didn't pay much, but I learned a ton!
An Apple II+ with 48K RAM and Applesoft BASIC in ROM
Two 143K Apple Disk II floppy drives
An Epson MX-100 dot matrix printer
Later we added a Microsoft Z-80 Softcard but didn't do much with it
I learned so much about programming with Mr. Alessi. We worked in the basement. There was a small room at the bottom of the basement stairs where the computer was kept, and in the larger basement space there was a TV and some chairs. We would talk about the software (and politics) and I would go into room and write software. Mr. Alessi would come in and ask me how I was doing. He'd make suggestions to which I would sometimes respond "That's impossible!" Of course it wasn't impossible, but if I didn't know how to do it, that is what I sometimes said. Then we'd talk and I'd think it over and come up with some sort of code to do the previously impossible.
Working with Mr. Alessi was a great experience. He was smart enough to know what sort of software to create. He'd bring me endless coffee and cookies. On Saturdays he would make me breakfast. He made very nice scrambled eggs. His two sons Tom and Michael were a little older than me and they'd always be around. I remember I used to play with them (and with all the other kids around the block) up at the park at the end of my street; kickball, pickle, keepaway, capture the flag, and hide and seek with the whole neighborhood as our hiding place. :-)
Yeah, working with Mr. Alessi was a great opportunity. It didn't pay much, but I learned a ton!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Microsoft BASIC
The original story of how Bill Gates and Paul Allen created their first BASIC for the Altair microcomputer is a fascinating one, especially for me since I am also the author of a BASIC language. Here is a fun site with one take on how Microsoft got its start.
http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/story.php?ii=20
http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/story.php?ii=20
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