Trying to Make Things Work

I wish I could tell you how, or even what I did, but I'm not a computer guy, I looked through the program, fiddled with what I wanted it to do, and made little changes. Seriously, that's all I did, I just kept trying to make things work... Let me explain.

It was 1970, I was just out of the Navy and worked for a global publishing company, my 'take-home' pay was $74 a week. I remember thinking 'if I could just get to $200 a week, I'd be set for life'. In 1972 I married a girl I met in a bar, don't judge me, a lot of people meet that way. Anyway, she finished up her teaching degree, but as 'we' got pregnant on our honeymoon, she became a stay-at-home mom. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment behind a garage. Our son's "bedroom" was actually the hallway near the kitchen.

The apartment was across the street from the Bayside Long Island Railroad station, but I didn't make enough money to take the railroad. Instead, I drove my '68 Volkswagen to Corona and parked off Roosevelt Ave, on 111th street, or a side street nearby, and took the #7 train from there into Grand Central Station, the office was only a few blocks away from there.

After work, I went straight to school. I was taking a full load of night courses at Queensborough Community College. My degree track started as pre-engineering, but I changed to Management and Communications when we started calculus. I wasn't bad at math or even physics but just didn't get calculus. I thought, 'I'll be a better manager than engineer anyway.'

After school, I delivered pizza for a little place just off Kissena Blvd, on the fringe of Flushing, until just after 11 PM, I was home, in bed, by 11:30 and started the whole thing over the next day at 6:00 AM.

With all the hours and night work, we started to do a little better and even saved a little money. We found a $36,000, 3 bedroom condo in Holbrook, on Long Island. The builder was anxious to sell units and paid the closing costs. We got it for no money down with low monthly payments.

I gave up delivering pizza and transferred to Suffolk Community College. It meant a longer commute into the city and less time at home, but we weren't paying rent and I thought we were happy working together for our future.

The economy took a hit and our condo community fell on hard times. At one point, of the 500 or so units, over 200 were empty and owned by the bank. People were actually moving out in the night and taking their shrubs with them. I never had a financial mentor, but when the bank started offering the foreclosed units, renovated, for $20,000 with a new Chevy Vega and a guarantee that if the buyer lost their job, they would pay the mortgage for 2 years, I saw an opportunity.

I always thought partners in a marriage should make large money decisions together, but when I suggested we buy as many houses as the bank would let us, she thought I was crazy. Her exact words were, "don't be ridiculous".

I knew I was right, if I had been braver, or smarter, I would have bought them all, but I didn't. I bought five, 3 bedroom units and was scared to death. I rented them out for a hundred dollars more a month than the mortgage and slowly raised the rent over the next few years. By the time the economy was bouncing back, units like the ones I owed, were selling for over $50,000. I had saved the money from selling the Vegas and most of the profit from rent.

So one day I asked my wife,"Why don't we sell the condo and get a nice house near the beach, maybe West Hampton..." Great idea, right? Nope, my wife always wanted to live on the north shore of Long Island, it was a status thing that was fed by her insecurity. So after looking around for a few months we found a house in Belle Terre, just outside of Port Jefferson. We sold all the condos losing the rental income, but she got her dream home.

At first, I was still commuting into the city, working on the weekends to take care of the 3+ acres and all the things that can go wrong with a house...

...but it wasn't enough. She'd spend every penny I brought home. After a while I guess she figured she got as much out of me and my "ridiculous investment schemes" as she could, because she started on a new tactic; a barrage of nagging: 'Why couldn't I get a better job?', 'Why didn't you become an engineer?', 'Why do her friend's husbands make so much more and spend more time at home?'

I had started to work from home, but she never asked why or how. It was clear my wife had little respect for my efforts and hard work, but it got worse and worse as she compared her life, our life, to her new friends who were mostly the wives of doctors, dentists, and lawyers.

I didn't believe in divorce and thought we would eventually get past, what I called her "me, more, now" phase, but it was not to be. I won't bore you with all the details, but after some years of isolation by neglect, nagging, and berating, with her having more than a couple of affairs, she finally decided I wasn't living up to her expectations and filed for divorce. That's right, she had the affairs, she spent every penny she could, and yet it wasn't enough and she filed for divorce.

Of course, she wanted and asked for everything. Clearly, she had been coached, 'demand everything so you can settle for more than half', but I surprised her, and her coaches, and made it simple. She could have everything except the only bank account I had in my name, she knew it was where my VA disability check went every month, and a little portfolio of stocks, she knew nothing about but was sure they were foolish investments.

At first, her gang of coconspirators suggested it was some kind of trick and that I would blindside her at the last minute... these people never knew anything about who I was, I always keep my word.

"That stupid little account, with your useless $56 a month in VA disability, and your ridiculous investments? ("You're not spending our family money on your foolish ideas and stock schemes, use your VA account.") What would I do with that? Of course, you can have that, but that's all you're getting, maybe you can even save another dollar or two each month to build your imaginary empire."

"Are you sure? Those little deposits do add up, if you prefer we can just split everything 50/50."

She knew what she wanted,

"Of course I'm sure."

So it was agreed, she got the house of her dreams and everything in it, her Mercedes SUV, anything in the savings and checking, our jointly held stocks, and any investments she made with her mother's money. The kids had grown so no child support and no alimony. Her lawyer thought that it was a great deal for her, she signed and it was done. I got my 'stupid little account' and 'ridiculous investments', my clothes, and the 1985 Chevy station wagon.

That was 2001.

After the divorce, I really needed to get away from Port Jefferson, my ex, and 'our' so-called friends. I dropped out of College without finishing and moved back to our old neighborhood in Queens. I found a studio apartment near the same railroad station in Bayside, only now I could afford to take the train directly to Penn Station. I found a small studio and still worked from home.

There was a lot my wife didn't know about my work during the time we were married, especially how much my work and "that stupid little account" had changed.

Back in 1970...

I know it's hard to believe, but when I first started working, not that long ago, there were no personal computers, only mainframes that took up an entire floor, or two, of huge buildings. There were cables running all over the building to 'dumb' terminals that were used only to enter and display data.

Telex had been around since the '30s, however by the '70s there were two systems; Telex and TWX, they each used teletype/teleprinters and expensive dedicated lines. Telex was owned by Western Union and primarily used for international messaging and TWX, was owned by AT&T, and was used mostly for domestic messaging. They were the predecessors to fax and then email... the systems did not speak to each other.

They both worked the same way, the user typed the message, it was "saved" to a paper tape that recorded the message using a code made up of holes punched into the paper tape. When ready to send, the operator dialed one of their remote locations, and when the machines connected, sent the tape through the reader which in turn sent the message at a much faster rate than someone could type. Every company that had a remote office and customers, or international connections, had either a Telex or TWX machine.

Large companies were able to use their mainframe computers to send and receive telex messages. In that case, ITT would allow uploading of messages from 'your' mainframe to 'their' mainframe, it would then translate the message and send it out as a high-speed batch to another ITT computer somewhere near its destination. It was then forwarded as a local Telex. It was cheaper than direct Telex but still expensive.

By the mid-'70s, dumb terminals were slowly being replaced by simple desktop computers. They were expensive, in the range of $7000+ each. in '70s dollars, so most people couldn't afford one for their home.

My job was purchasing assistant, so I got a computer for order tracking, inventory control, and purchasing spreadsheets. We were only taught the basic applications needed for our jobs. I slowly got to learn little things about my computer and the software that came with it. There was even a modem that let me send messages to other terminals in the building or connect with remote computers.

I loved fooling around and even installed some non-job-related software. One of my favorite programs was ELIZA, it was free back then and let me have a 'conversation' with my computer. I used it to 'talk' through little problems every now and then. Eliza is still around, maybe even smarter, you should check it out and consider how amazing it must have seemed in the early days of computers.

Our Director called the data processing and purchasing departments into a conference room for a meeting... there was a serious issue with implementing our current purchasing system with what the new mainframe computer could handle. While we could enter the correct information, when it posted and displayed on the screen, there were duplicate purchase order numbers. I'm not sure why, but our purchase orders were alphanumeric and had a decimal point in the center of a 12 digit number. Our numbering system was confusing the computer causing duplicate numbers to be used for unrelated purchase orders.

I thought the meeting was interesting because I was having a similar problem with ITT getting some of our telexes mixed up and sent to the wrong recipient, they said it had to do with country codes vs our message numbering system.

I did some research and found a software company in Texas called EDS. They had software made for mainframes called TelexAssist. I called and asked for the president's office.

His secretary answered "Mr. Perot's office".

I apologized for bothering her but was looking for more information on one of their software programs. She was very friendly and said she could help by putting me through to the head of software development. Funny how it worked out, here I am, really a nobody, being introduced by the President's office to the head of software development. Sorry, I can't remember his name, but he was very helpful, and when I told him I wanted to see if I could use their software to work on my desktop. He was sure it wouldn't work but agreed to send me a copy on a 5.25 floppy disc. I agreed to let him know what I did and if it worked out. (In case you're wondering, yes it was Ross Perot's office and it was his personal executive secretary I spoke to.)

A few days later the software arrived and I started playing with it. Remember I really had no idea what I was doing, but it also meant that I didn't understand the limitations, which probably helped. I was too dumb to know what I wanted to do wasn't possible.

Well, I got it to work. I was able to communicate with the ITT mainframe from my desktop using just a portion of the EDS software, tweaked by me. As promised, I called and told them I was successful and what I had done. EDS came out with a program designed to allow desktop computers to 'speak' to ITT's (or any really) mainframe to send and receive domestic and international telexes. I told my boss that I had a solution that would allow us to send telex's without the teletype machines, over standard phone lines. I estimated that we'd be able to save a few hundred thousand dollars a year, if company-wide we eliminated the dedicated telex and TWX lines, removed the teletypes, and switched to using desktop computers. He was really excited after my demonstration and took the floppy disc to his office for a meeting with the head of data processing.

What he didn't know, was how I had modified the software. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I did or how to explain it. The idea came to me while 'talking' to Eliza. Eliza seemed to be programmed to ask questions when it recognized certain words. So I changed the program to look at the file name, in our case a number, and if it didn't recognize it, it would automatically change the file name, giving the message a working 'title' that the computer could understand and then send to ITT. I put a hidden (reminder) line in each message that allowed the computer to retrieve the original file name (or in this case, number) when it was sent to the receiver's machine or desktop. It all happened in the background without anyone knowing. While no one said anything officially, and I never got credit for my work, the company started to switch out dumb terminals and teletype machines and teleprinters for desktop computers.

That small success made me braver and gave me another idea. Maybe I could use that little trick with our invoice numbering problem. The data processing guys looked down on us mortals "who just didn't understand the complex workings of advanced computer systems". So I didn't speak to them about it, I just played with my computer, using some of the software from my modified EDS program.

I was able to solve 99 percent of the problems, but there was one small issue when we got out to 6 places to the right of the decimal. The solution seemed obvious, just forget those last 2 digits, but the numbering system was entrenched across the entire corporation and our clients, so dropping the digits might create a duplicate invoice for a different client. So I tried what I called my Telex Solution. In other words, I gave every invoice a computer-generated random 'name', dropped the last two numbers, saved them in a database and if the original invoice was ever called up, the computer would use the new name to retrieve the hidden data and then add the last two digits to make the original number complete. No problem, what could go wrong? I set up the database on a hard drive and it was done.

I presented my solution to my boss and once again he and the DP manager had a closed-door meeting about what I called "my software". I felt great, I had saved the company thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and allowed the processing of countless purchase orders while streamlining long distant communications. No, of course, I didn't think about getting copyright protection, it was the EDS software, not mine. Besides, I thought it was part of my job to save the company money.

A few days later my boss presented me with another problem, he wanted to know if 'my software fix' could work with account receivables. I had no idea what he was talking about, he said that when we billed clients for publishing work, often the price of materials was based on weight and when there were quantities of less than a pound it would generate fractional totals, so an invoice could be $129,272.6543 or something like that. Of course, the accounting program couldn't understand those numbers and there were mistakes and adjustments being made that were costing the company money.

I said why don't we just round it off. The issue was, how to round it off and to what value. Someone would lose out and that wasn't acceptable. I promised I would look at the problem, but reminded him that I wasn't a programmer.

Over the next few days, I played with 'my fix' and tried some options, the best I could do was to solve the problem before it became visible. What I did was to ask the computer to calculate the complete price, as usual, take the thousandths of a cent and put it into my account for the test. Then calculate with only 3 decimals until the final totals. When I tried it, the accounting program balked at the extra tenth of a cent, so while it still showed on the printout I made the program ignore it until the end of the billing cycle. At that point the invoices were totaled showing 2 decimal places for every transaction, but when it was totaled only a few tenths of a cent were rounded off. Basically, it looked like the computer was working to one-thousandth of a cent, but what it was really doing was calculating to a tenth and then dropping the fractions from the total. For the test, anything more than the 2 decimal places went into my bank account.

I tested the program for a month with three smaller clients, and they loved it. I noticed that 45 cents had been added to my bank account. In the real application, the money would go into a corporate account and be retrievable as needed.

I was ready, I told my boss I had come up with a solution and that I had actually tested it with three clients. They were happy, so he was very happy. He called the DP manager in and had me show them what I had done. They both seemed pleased, but in a strange way... they seemed pleased with themselves instead of me.

I was about to tell them about the 45 cents when everything went south...

"Bob, thank you for your work, but it has come to my attention that you spend personal time on your computer with a program called ELIZA. You installed an outside program onto a company computer putting our entire business at risk. We can't accept this gross abuse of company time and property."

I said, "But, but, I only used it at lunch or on a break. It helps me think and plan..."

As I was speaking security entered and my boss said,

"Please make sure Bob cleans out his desk, takes only his personal property, and then escort him from the building."

I said, "What about all the work I did to save the company money."

The door was closed in my face and they didn't respond.

I literally was pushed out the front door. I went home and was devastated, I couldn't believe it. I was always taught, do your best no matter what the task, your hard work will be rewarded. I was lost.

I still commuted to the city every day, but after a few days and looking for a job, without a recommendation, I called my friend at EDS and told him that I had left the publishing company and was saving to buy a computer so I could play with more of his software and see what else it could do. We spoke for a few minutes when he became thoughtful and said,

"We love the work you did on TelexAssist, it's simple, but our guys missed it and it's making money for us... I have an idea. We're not hiring right now, but why don't I send you a computer and a couple of our programs and you can play with them."

I was blown away, I didn't know what to say. So I said,

"That's amazing, you won't regret it."

"I know, anyway I think we owe you."

"No, we had an agreement, I just did what I promised to do."

I told my wife I would be working from home, she didn't ask why, and obviously didn't care.

Once the computer arrived I started to work, they had all kinds of software in the works, mostly controls, processing, and data linking with multiple computers and platforms, but I was able to take small parts and make little helpful software 'packets' that could be added to pretty much any DOS operating system.