My First Home Computer was an IBM-PC. There were so few of them that they didn’t even have a number or model. Looking back at history, I guess it did have a number – 5150. The history says it had an Intel 8088 processor at 4.77 MHz, included 16 KB of memory. And that was expandable to 256KB, included one or two 160k floppy disk drives and an optional color monitor. Starting price tags were approximately $1,500.
Barebones by today’s standard and expensive. There were four pieces – the case with the CPU, a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. And a dial-up modem. Oh and yes the floppy disk drive. I have a funny story to tell about the floppy disk but I’ll save it until later.
My First Home Computer – An IBM-PC
At the time I was working for a company called Data Design Associates – DDA for short. They were a software vendor who created and sold financial software to the country’s industries. It had a very unique design that made it easily modifiable to any companies formats. We had Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Purchasing, and Fixed Assets. My specialty was Purchasing to start and then later Accounts Payable. I don’t remember anymore why we were rewriting the programs. But it was a major project and I spent hours and hours writing code.
DDA was a very innovative company and was only around forty people when I first joined. We all worked long hours. And after a time, it was decided that if we wanted to, we could work from home on Tuesdays. But most of the time, we had to be in the office. We needed to be connected to the computer mainframe.
With the introduction of the IBM-PC, DDA provided the developers with a home computer. So we could really work on those Tuesdays (and nights and weekends). Management there were no dummies. When you have obsessed programmers dedicated to completing a project, just supply the tools and get out of their way.
Working from Home
And so began my career of working from home. Then DDA was sold to a company that was about 60 miles from my home. I petitioned them to allow me to work from home. The alternative was I would have looked for another job closer to my home. Home prices close to the new company were out of my price range. Subsequent to them allowing that, I decided to move from California to Arizona where I had purchased a retirement home.
Shortly after I made the move to Arizona, the “new company” sold the products I worked on yet again. And I became unemployed for a couple of weeks until I was able to negotiate a job. Again working remotely – with the new owner who was in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Working from home gave me great flexibility. And it virtually made every company in the US – actually the world – a potential employer. Programming is pretty much a solitary job. You need quiet to think, plan, concentrate, and code. Also quiet to sift through core dumps to find a bug. Some people like music or TV background noise – I just like the quiet.
My Funny Floppy Disc Story
And I promised you a funny story. Actually is was pretty sad, but for a techie would be funny. Somewhere along the years, I upgraded my initial IBM-PC to a newer model. One with an actual hard drive and more memory and smaller disc drives. The “floppy disc” was about 5″ square with a cardboard covering the vinyl internal disc that could be recorded on. The whole thing, cardboard and all, slid into the disc drive. And the writing (recording) was done through a small hole in the cardboard.
Well, when I got my new computer I decided to give my old one to my cousin. He was an Electrical Engineer retired. When he and his wife visited he was always interested in my computer. But I guess I should have given him more lessons. To make this long story short, I shipped the computer to him. With it I included a long explanation of how to assemble it and then how to “boot” it. I guess my instructions we not quite detailed enough.
Here comes the punch line
He called me one day to say that he couldn’t get the thing to run. After quite a lengthy conversation, I finally learned that he had taken the vinyl disc out of the cardboard. He couldn’t figure out how to get that floppy piece of vinyl into the drive. One of the floppy discs that I sent him had the OS operating system on it. He needed it to “boot” the computer. And I had no way of replicating it again because I no longer had “floppy” disc drives.
