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My first job after undergrad ('88) was creating a Mac-like GUI for Etak for a vehicle tracking company in Los Angeles. GUIs were still new, DOS was still king,

My first job after undergrad ('88) was creating a Mac-like GUI for Etak for a vehicle tracking company in Los Angeles. GUIs were still new, DOS was still king, I had experience working on the Mac OS as a beta OS developer, and I'd been working in a 3D graphics research lab (yeah, 3D graphics was research back then), and this company named TeleTrak needed a real time updating map. So I made the GUI for their mapping application, using my knowledge from writing early Mac GUIs, 2D video games and early 3D graphics. Etak was literally Alienware, in it's data structures and extremely efficient processing. Where I'd been expecting significantly slower performance, I'd made a foundation expecting to use various tricks used to the game industry to make it appear like things were happening while loads occurred and so on. None of that was necessary, as Etak was the fastest aspect of the entire software bundle. A single 386 PC with a some type of memory expansion so each had an additional 1MB of RAM above the ordinary 640KB would run the software, and the software was capable of real time tracking above 30fps around 20 vehicles. If tracking a single vehicle, the mapping was fluid with at-the-time incredibly sexy real time 30fps rotations of the map as the vehicle turned corners. While working there, PacTel bought the company. Renamed PacTel TeleTrak, the company suddenly had tours from US and Israeli military brass, so I quit.

fuzzfactor 3y ago
Remember what it was like when you have wonderful kilobytes of memory and megabytes of storage? Your programming is constantly focused, not on the limitations this imposes, but on the opportunities opened up by this vast blank canvas like never before. Imagine what it would be like if programmers still got as much user-utility per user-kilobyte as they did when that's all they had. Back in 1982 with the mass-production of Ataris I thought it would be good to have a cartridge for each city which had the map data plus the visual landmarks. Like a 3-D driving simulator but using real maps. Which could be played as a racing game, I guess something like GTA. And with further development would provide a framework for on-board navigation using a battery-powered computer. Just one of the many things you never expect early-adopters with more resources to not already be doing.
- bsenftner 3y ago
  I remember when I was hired, because of my past having made and sold video games (Vic-20 & C-64), TeleTrak make me sign a work agreement that included I would not try to write any games or goose eggs in their software. > Remember what it was like when you have wonderful kilobytes of memory and megabytes of storage? We've exceeded on multiple fronts what I thought I'd see in my lifetime. I can't imagine what people entering the field will see if they stay in the career. I started coding in '76, professionally in '82. My first deployment hardware had 3.5K, and today it's just ridiculous the resources on has, and exponentially so if one can still drop in assembly when needed. :)

fuzzfactor 3y ago

Remember what it was like when you have wonderful kilobytes of memory and megabytes of storage? Your programming is constantly focused, not on the limitations this imposes, but on the opportunities opened up by this vast blank canvas like never before. Imagine what it would be like if programmers still got as much user-utility per user-kilobyte as they did when that's all they had. Back in 1982 with the mass-production of Ataris I thought it would be good to have a cartridge for each city which had the map data plus the visual landmarks. Like a 3-D driving simulator but using real maps. Which could be played as a racing game, I guess something like GTA. And with further development would provide a framework for on-board navigation using a battery-powered computer. Just one of the many things you never expect early-adopters with more resources to not already be doing.

bsenftner 3y ago
I remember when I was hired, because of my past having made and sold video games (Vic-20 & C-64), TeleTrak make me sign a work agreement that included I would not try to write any games or goose eggs in their software. > Remember what it was like when you have wonderful kilobytes of memory and megabytes of storage? We've exceeded on multiple fronts what I thought I'd see in my lifetime. I can't imagine what people entering the field will see if they stay in the career. I started coding in '76, professionally in '82. My first deployment hardware had 3.5K, and today it's just ridiculous the resources on has, and exponentially so if one can still drop in assembly when needed. :)