3 ms·
In the mid 90s I worked for a small ISV that wrote at GIS that ran on windows 3.1 (a 32 bit operating system that ran 16 bit processes (that could have 32 bit c
by pacaro 3y ago
In the mid 90s I worked for a small ISV that wrote at GIS that ran on windows 3.1 (a 32 bit operating system that ran 16 bit processes (that could have 32 bit code segments))
One of our customer required perfect uptime, which was a problem with the GetTickCount wraparound described here
Our solution was to run under NuMega SoftICE [1] and once a month, or so, dispatch an engineer to the customer to simultaneously patch the kernel value for the tick count and also the expected value in our software (and also clean up various handle based cruft)
This worked for years. Unfortunately the engineer in question was also an alcoholic, so a particularly spectacular bender spoiled an approx 3 year uptime
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftICE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftICE
- bruce511 3y ago>> One of our customer required perfect uptime In all honesty, these are the kind of clients I politely point at someone else. They seldom have the resources to fund the requirement, and one absurd requirement leads to another. I'm sure they had good reason, and good on you for pulling it off, but trying to keep Windows 3.1 up for multiple years sounds like a risky task to take on. Who knew there wasn't another time-sensitive bug in there that kicked in at say 365 days? To be fair the insane requirements I've come across are just delusional so they're easy to walk away from.
- ponderings 3y agoTwice I chat with someone who worked exclusively with customers no one else wants. One just grinds them down into a normal project, the other transparently charges what is reasonable for the unreasonable. $5000 for the first chat 24/7, for that money he explains how it is normally done, what it costs and what it costs to meet the insane requirements. If they chose normality he doesn't want the job.
- pacaro 3y agoWe had a CEO who would sign up just about anyone as a customer. He nearly destroyed the company a few years before I joined by underbidding on a contract that they were completely unqualified to fulfill. Software failed and people died (a government inquiry was scathing about the company's unsuitability for the contract but did ultimately exonerate them w.r.t. the fatalities). Lessons were not learned.
- wtracy 3y agoNow you have my curiosity piqued. Is the report from the inquiry available to read online?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]