How Talking Over A Wall Changed My Direction As A Programmer

I started my programming career in October 1981 at a large defense contractor (GD). At the time, my goal was to work for a couple of years and then continue my education with a Ph.D. in Chemistry (I had already been accepted).

The office I worked in was a whole floor, broken up by occasional cube walls; most of us worked on metal desks in open areas. Since it was the early 80s, no one had a computer on their desk, and all terminals were in a bullpen with sign-up sheets.

Across the wall from my desk, there was a little team of two called the "Microcomputer Group." Their job was to plan and facilitate the introduction of PCs (a generic term, not just IBM or clones) into the company. The manager and I started talking over the wall since we both had Apple II's at home. We shared our adventures with them. He wasn't a programmer but more a tinkerer.

One Friday in fall 1983, he told me over the wall that some folks had come from Headquarters along with people from every division to talk about something involving Apple II's and invited me to come along. I thought it would be a fun diversion from my usual work (I think I was still working on testing the Jovial compiler we were having built). Little did I know, this would change the direction of my life.

Leading the meeting, filled with many people I didn't know, were two VPs and what today would be the CIO (a title not in use at the time). Apparently the President of the company had requested that someone build an app so he could read his email at home on the Apple II he had bought for his son. At the time email was only available to executives (or more often their secretaries), and reading it at home was unheard of. They had ignored him, since there was a commercial app (VT-100 terminal emulator) that could be bought, and they figured they could just buy that if he insisted. However, when they tried that he got mad and insisted he wanted it built in house, so he gave them an ultimatum of some kind, and so they panicked. Thus this meeting was to find someone to not only build a VT-100 emulator on an Apple II (with only a 40 column screen), but do it in a week!

So when they asked who could write 6502 assembly on an Apple II, I raised my hand figuring everyone here was a programmer—and found only my hand had been raised! So they dismissed everyone else and explained to me what I had to do.

The job was to write a VT-100 terminal emulator, that called a modem bank in St Louis, in 6502 Assembly and display the 80 column data on a 40 column screen (somehow). All I would have was a couple manuals, some sample code from Apple on talking to a Hayes modem, an Apple III with a dev environment plus an Apple II and modem, and exactly 7 days. Plus they would stay local—I guess they were worried about their job or something.

I had written things in assembly languages at work, but all I knew about 6502 was a little play coding at home. None of the projects I had worked on had a UI, and I had never done any communications programming. Of course there was no Stackoverflow, open source, internet, or anyone I could ask for help.

Somehow I was able to build the app, figure out how to flip the screen to show 80 column messages, and built the app by the following Saturday where I was able to demo it using one their logins. I worked all the last night (they fed me bad pizza at 2am causing some delay when it "returned"). It worked, and the President was thrilled.

Now I decided having conquered a somewhat impossible task, I wanted in on the Microcomputer Group. My manager's manager said no, but I used my new friends in high places to get in.

Soon I became the only PC (Apple and IBM) programmer that I knew of in the world largest defense contractor. I had a great time with that manager, we both got email addresses at a local bulletin board, but the only people we knew to email was each other. After a year I left to eventually start my first company.

Basically talking over the wall, and going to that random meeting, gave me the idea that I should stick to programming, and never looked back.

About 15 years later I ran into that manager again, and he was close to dying from a kidney ailment. I spent a day with him, driving him around so he could take some photographs, and having lunch. We didn't talk much about work, mostly he wanted to get out of being in bed and see the world a bit.

He passed away soon afterwards. But I will always remember how a shared interest between us changed the direction of my life.

(Today I make generative art, see it on my website)