Programmer/Analyst
Triple PC, Peterborough, Ontario Aug/1996-Feb/1997
www.TriplePC.com
Technologies Used:
Pick Operating System
PickBase
Built-in heirarchial database
Intel-based systems
Borland C
Midcom Reader
Triple PC is a software development company. It also supplies, installs, and maintains computer networks for its clients. At the time I worked there it had developed software for the:
The company developed its software using the Pick Operating System. Pick OS has its own version of the Basic computer language called PickBasic. It has a built-in hierarchial database system which all of TriplePC's products used. It has a character-based interface where color and graphics are nonexistent. It was possible to connect dumb terminals to a central server using serial cables in addition to using pc's.
Since I left, it has reduced its software offerings to just that for the Fuel Oil Industry and moved it to the FreeBSD Unix system.
I was hired because of my Visual Basic programming skills. TriplePC planned to develop Windows versions of its software. This development would be done using Visual Basic 4. It sounded like a very good long term opportunity for me because I would be helping a company expand its products into the newest technology for the time.
I was to learn and program in PickBasic for the first few months so that I could really understand how their programs and the Pick OS worked. I did this.
Data Transfer To/From Midcom Card Reader
My first project was written using Borland C. This was a program to upload/download text files between a
microcomputer's floppy disk and a Midcom card reader. This program was used in the Fuel Oil Industry.
A RAM card was used to transfer customer delivery information from the office to computer systems on fuel delivery trucks and back again. As a truck delivered fuel oil to each customer, the amount was recorded. At the end of the delivery run, the delivery information was downloaded to the RAM card. The card was then taken back to the office and read using the card reader which was attached to a microcomputer. The data from the RAM card was then dumped to a floppy diskette on a microcomputer running MS-DOS. The floppy diskette was then taken to a Pick microcomputer and the information read from the diskette into customer files.
The card reader was a serial device so communication with it was through serial ports. Communication could take place at one of several baud rates depending on the settings of the reader itself and through one of the serial ports. I wrote the program to interface between the serial port and floppy drive, and to provide a way to select the baud rate and serial port. It also remembered the selections in a configuration file.
PickBasic Programming
I next began to learn and program in PickBasic. I designed and wrote an email application for the Pick system. I wrote
a Bill of Materials application under the guidance of one of the partners. I wrote the School Bus Non-Riders,
Pricing/Product Codes and RAM Card File Uploading/Downloading Diskette modules.
Other Duties
Assembled microcomputers and cabling for clients. Assembling microcomputers for clients usually meant installing
motherboards, cpu's, hard drives, tape drives, floppy drives, video cards and the Pick Operating System. I changed
the hardware settings for the Pick OS and tested the systems.
Assembling cables for clients meant wiring serial cables with the appropriate D25 connectors. It also included the odd printer cable that had to be wired for serial use.
Wrote step-by-step procedures for the assembly and testing of microcomputers using the Pick OS.