FW: fp Avg Developer/User age

[dennis malen]

OK Bill, you are the man. I didn't know anyone else but me went back that
far with filePro. I started with filePro in 1979 on a TRS80, went to Xenix
and am still on AIX/UNIX.

Historically, the Radio Shack stores were so helpful with their prospective
customers. They spent an enormous amount of time with each customer until
their problem or needs were resolved. In addition, The Small Computer
Company did provide great support when Susan was there. I learned a lot
under Susan's tutelage and patience.

There must be something to be said about customer service. We all became
zealots in our use and defense of filePro. It was the best kept secret in
the industry. It allowed us to do things in half the time or less than other
platforms. It is still the best out there as far as I'm concerned. FilePro
can easily be taken to the next level where it can be used to convince
others to peak their interest in becoming a programmer or choosing software
to run their company. It still has legs.

Dennis Malen

-----Original Message-----
From: Filepro-list
[mailto:filepro-list-bounces+dmalen=malen.com at lists.celestial.com] On Behalf
Of Bill Campbell via Filepro-list
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2018 3:39 PM
To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
Subject: Re: fp Avg Developer/User age

On Thu, Jan 04, 2018, Richard Kreiss via Filepro-list wrote:

>Looks like am the old man at 74.

Moi aussi.

>Started programming on a model 2 (1980) with profile and h ad to learn 
>how to write print drive in assembler to use with my 9 pin dot matrix
printer.
>Replaced the Model 2 with a Model 16 and the hard drive with Xenix and 
>Profile 16.

That's similar to my experience on Microcomputers after I quit racing cars
full time in 1980.  I started working with computers in February 1966 as a
Jr. Electrical Engineer at Bendix Radio, but all my experience was on
mainframes, programming in FORTRAN, Assembly, ALGOL, COBOL, BPL, and various
other languages between 1966 and 1976 when I quit to race.

I went to work at a Radio Shack in October 1980 as an undercover computer
marketing rep. in a small store in northern Virginia that didn't have an 'X'
department.  The store manager was a corner worker and EMT at the sports car
races who wanted me to sell Model IIs which weren't really authorized at his
store, but Joe Collazo, the District Manager, had an office in his store,
and would approve anything I sold.  I read several years of Byte magazine to
get familiar with Micros.

In January 1981 I moved to a Radio Shack at 19th and K streets in D.C.
that had an 'X' department, working to Kevin Fowler and Ron Cohen, and was
supposed to take over managing the 'X' department when Kevin and Ron went to
the new Radio Shack Computer Center (RSCC) that was being built on M Street
a block or so from this store.  John Esak was a computer marketing rep. at
the new RSCC when it opened, and I learned a lot from him about FP and
Profile II then.

I left Radio Shack in October 1983 when one of my customers hired me to be
V.P. of his software company in Seattle to develop software for the building
and construction industry where we were working in Xenix on the Model 6000.
I did a lot of work with FilePro 16 there, integrating it with Radio Shack's
version of RealWorld accounting software.  I left that company at the end of
1984, and started Celestial Software working closely with Don Mackay at the
local RSCC to develop FP software for his business customers.  I met Laura
Brody at one of Don's seminars (she blasted me for posting about ABE=ASCII
on a Usenet or Compuserve group saying it was proprietary :-).

I worked extensively with FP developing software for a large appliance
retail store near Seattle, but ran into the too many files limitations on
Xenix, and moved my system to the Unify RDBMS where this wasn't an issue
although it required I write all my code in 'C'.

>Small Computer was located on 41st street at the time which was just 
>around the corner form my office on 40th St and 7th Ave in NYC.

...

Bill
-- 
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www2.celestial.com/ PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
Mobile:         (206) 947-5591  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
Fax:            (206) 232-9186  Skype: jwccsllc

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of
all industry and commerce.  -- James A. Garfield
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