Take the Second Exit – a Memoir

Freshly out of training (1981), I started working on the trial of a new method of application development called online programming using fourth generation language (4GL). By the end of my second year with IBM, I was already part of a specialist group of systems engineers who were rolling out the new programming method and associated tools that did not use COBOL, the popular programming language for commercial applications at the time. I received my first IBM Marketing Excellence Award for my role in that campaign. 

Months of shadowing Jim (Boyle) to customer visits, planning meetings and late-night trouble-shooting expeditions at customer sites eventually paid off. In 1984, Jim and I went to Canada to work with our Canadian colleagues to update the banking software so that the banks could process requests from their customers using Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) belonging to other banks. Using the bank cards in automated cash registers at retail stores was the logical follow-up and Electronic Funds Transfer at the Point of Sale (EFTPOS) was made available to the general public. This facility allowed customers to use their plastic cards to pay for their purchase instead of using cash. It was 1987 and, for my effort, I was recommended by my colleagues for my second IBM Marketing Excellence Award.

The use of a new device called the Personal Identification Number (PIN) pad was being tested. One model of the device was manufactured in Australia and another one was a prototype from Japan. We failed to obtain approval to include the development of either model of the PIN pad in the scope of our project so we focused on enhancing the retail store system which was originally developed in the North Carolina store systems development laboratory. As the need for the EFTPOS functionality was more pressing in IBM Australia, I joined the US team in Raleigh NC as a resident specialist to complete the EFTPOS design. I brought back the design and managed the enhancements to the software and the update of existing cash registers in Target stores. We implemented EFTPOS in partnership with a local business which developed its own model of the PIN pad. Then and now, you see PIN pads everywhere and none of them displays the IBM logo. The frustration of repeated presentations and meetings to get the support for these initiatives from IBM executives in Australia, the US, Canada and Europe was shared by the core team of specialists comprising of Jim Boyle, Paul Addis, Earl Rudd and myself. On a few occasions, we had to travel to the meetings at short notice and be away from our families for extended periods.

The cash registers used a program that was originally intended for IBM’s early generation of personal computers (PCs). At the time, I was one of the few technical people in the field with a working knowledge of both large computers (mainframes) and personal
computers. On the invitation of colleagues in IBM’s Atlanta office, I joined IBM’s education team that was preparing a training program to educate application developers in transitioning from mainframes to personal computers. (It was 1989 and we were sitting on the edge of the launching pad for a new age of technology that will
slowly diminish IBM’s image as a leader in the field.)