Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

Cusp: Noesis

It was the fall of 1985 and I had spent nearly a year as a data entry clerk, programmer, and system manager for a small import company, working on a Compupro 8/16 S-100 system running MP/M-86, a multi-user version of the venerable CP/M operating system. It was fun, I loved the system, and the people I worked with were pretty cool. Unfortunately, the owners of the company decided to return to china and not pay the employees. After a month or so, we all went, en masse, down the the EDD to file a complaint and sign up for unemployment benefits.

Meanwhile, I was keeping company with a gal with whom I had gone to high school. I didn't really know what I was doing, and she wasn't really interested in that anyway, but we had fun and I bought a lot of nice toys for her daughter. Anyway, I mentioned that I was looking for a new job and she suggested I talk to a woman she knew who worked at a computer company. This woman was the office manager and did all the accounting, and since I had a lot of experience in that area, I might be able to help out. Well, sure enough I got a job as her assistant, for eight hours a week at Noesis Computing Company. It wasn't ideal, but I was still living at home at the time and it was better than nothing.

One of my duties, initially, was to hand write checks to all the suppliers and then enter them into the accounting package they used. Now, I hate writing -- the physical act of taking pen to paper. I pointed out that the software had the capability to print checks and that the company could save a lot of time (and thus money) if I entered the payments into the system and then told it to print the checks. In addition, since this was a computer company, having computer-printed checks would definitely look better than handwritten ones. The lady I worked for told me she didn't know how to set it up, but if I wanted to figure it out, I certainly could. I'll add that the checks I was supposed to write out by hand were continuous-form checks -- designed to work with this software and be fed through a printer. Naturally, laziness won out and I got the computer to do my work for me.

Well, the eight hours a week soon turned into eight hours a day and instead of just helping with the bookkeeping, I quickly moved into helping out the operations folks. I was doing backups and printing reports for clients (the company also offered timesharing on their computers) and learning a lot as I went. The computers they used were -- wait for it! -- HP 3000's. Yep, they had an old series III and a newer series 42, taking up two rooms of the office. The series III was a five foot tall cabinet, complete with front panel switches and blinkenlights. The series III was named Adam and the series 42 was, of course, Eve. As others moved on, I ended up becoming the system manager, responsible for the care and feeding of both machines and for keeping the programmers and clients happy.

What I really wanted, though, was to be a programmer. I took home the manuals for the language they used, a 4GL called Powerhouse. I even did a project or two for in-house use. They didn't have, however, any need for another programmer, let alone one new to the language. The president of the company, however, pointed me to another company located across the Golden Gate in Sausalito that had hired a number of former Noesis folks. Well, I got a job there and my career as an HP 3000 programmer was off and running.

There are several reasons that Noesis was such a pivotal cusp. The first is the HP 3000. I had been a DEC man prior to that when it came to minicomputers. Noesis put me firmly and happily in the HP camp. (I will note at this point that DEC was bought by Compaq which was in turn bought by HP, so I guess in some way I picked the winner.) Second, Noesis introduced me to Powerhouse. While I've been doing an awful lot of COBOL for the last ten years or so (and virtually no Powerhouse), Powerhouse work was the staple of my career for a long time and was what got me in the door at Long's Drugs (where I was a contractor for nearly ten years and an employee for several more after that.) Lastly, Noesis introduced me to a lot of great programmers (including Leo -- I miss you man!) and Benson Software which helped get me started as a contractor.

Noesis is no more, but the people and the company remain dear to me. We even blocked traffic on our way to Tahoe so I could point out the old Noesis office to the kids. Not only did I work there, but my brother-in-law worked there with me, as did at least three of my four genetic siblings and, last but not least, Rachel. So, Shannon, thanks for giving me Sylvia's phone number over at Noesis. It helped out more than you could have ever guessed.