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The first computer I was introduced to was the Xerox STAR word processing system. It used 8" floppy disks.

We had 12 of the initial systems in the Joint Service Command I had just joined for shore duty. We were the test bed to see if DoD was going to buy several thousand of the machines. It used the first real Graphical User Interface. I am convinced that Microsoft copied the idea to make Windows.

I was super annoyed that a bootable floppy formatted on one machine could not be used to boot another machine. I thought that this was silly and so made it my mission to get around it. It took me about three weeks.

I spent a lot of time with the Xerox repair person when they were there. I asked why one disk couldn't be used in another machine. He told me that the format process wrote the machine serial number on the disk during format. The serial number was clearly posted on the label just inside the side cover. From him I also learned that there was a boot diagnostic that would let you read and edit the hex data on a disk.

After he left, I formatted a new disk and rebooted the machine short circuiting the boot into the diagnostic. From there I just looked for the machine serial number on the floppy. When I found it, I edited it to all zeros, saved and rebooted.

Imagine my NOT surprise when the machine booted and I could use the disk. I then went and checked it on three other machines. Worked good. I told my office mate, an Army LTC who had just come from being the CO of an Army data center. He was amazed that someone with no previous computer experience could do something like this.

Needless to say, word spread fast in the command that I could make bootable floppies that would work on any machine.

Then I did something that, in hindsight, I'm not sure I should have done. I wrote a rather scathing letter to the President of Xerox and the head of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) explaining exactly what I had done and why their policy of tying floppies to a single system was stupid and counter productive to both Xerox and their customers.

Well, that's when the excrement hit the air handling machinery. Xerox almost fired the entire regional sales staff convinced that they had helped me. I don't know why. I had told them EXACTLY how I had done it. I initially got a reprimand from the Chief of Staff. When the General found out he shut that down. He thought it was wonderful that people could now work anywhere there was an open machine and told the president of Xerox that in no uncertain terms. Magically, six months later an OS update from Xerox did away with the tying of floppies to specific machines.

My reprimand turned into an Joint Service Commendation Medal for that and other things I did at the command. It also put me on track to playing with computers for the past 42 years. I eventually got my Masters in Computer Science.

It is amazing what companies will pay someone with an MS CS, a patent in electronic warfare, and a TS/SCI clearance from NSA.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)