While a student at Carleton University (officially for Geography, but more in computer science), I joined with two friends to see if we could “hack” the university mainframe — a Xerox Sigma 7.
I don’t think the work “hacking” was yet in common use. We were just interested in seeing if we could do it, as a personal challenge.
Long story short, we succeeded in finding an unprotected super account that gave us access to everything. To prove our success, we printed out a list of every user account and password on the system, some 50 pages, at the blinding speed of 15 CHARACTERS per second. The task took about 5 hours. And because we each wanted a copy as our “trophy”, we ran the process simultaneously on three teletype terminals.
Since we didn’t have any sinister motives, we then bound the printout like a booklet, and made an appointment with the computer center director. He was understandably shocked, but we didn’t face any disciplinary action because we explained that our motive was to show the vulnerability.
He then told us that they knew that “something” was happening, because the entire system became very slow for those few hours. (This was in a time when computers were still quite primitive — the multi-million dollar mainframe had only 256MB of memory, and about 1/1000 the power of a typical smartphone of the 2020-era!) He also told us that with what we had accessed, we potentially could have altered student grades, or even run the staff payroll — and no one would have questioned it!
I believe my participation in this venture is one of the factors that led to the job offer a few years later, when I went to work for the computer center.
As part of my thesis research I worked under the direction of a bright Polish professor, who had been working for years on using a mathematical construct called a decision table to analyze computer programs.
Without getting all technical (at this point I barely understand it myself!) suffice to say that I embarked on building an actual processor to use decision table techniques to analyze programs while they were still being designed. If done correctly, this could uncover logic bugs and inefficiencies in the design, long before the actual program was coded.
As an aside, I chose to write the processor in a language called APL. This language is no longer in use, and is extremely cryptic and difficult to master, but had incredibly powerful mathematical and matrix handling capabilities that are still unmatched.
At one point, once my automated processor was working, my advisor suggested that I write a paper about it and submit it to an upcoming national computer conference. (Little did I know then that if I published this work it would no longer be able to be used as my theses — something that I was very angry about later!)
So I wrote and submitted the paper, and it was accepted for publication! As part of this, I was invited to do a live presentation of the paper to a bunch of computer scientists at the conference!
I did so, and by and large received a lot of blank stares, as it was a difficult subject to explain, and the concept was, to most, unbelievable. In any case, I’ve attached the actual paper and the cover of the conference proceedings book in which it was published.
When I moved back to Ottawa in April 1976 to take a job at Carelton University’s Computer Center, I was already fascinated at the prospect of actually owning a computer. There were a very few computer “kits” on the market already, including the Altair and Imsai.
Having no significant expenses, I decided to splurge and purchase the IMSAI 8080 — and have the kit assembled for me at extra cost. Although called the “8080” after the Intel processor, a newer processor called the “Z80” had recently emerged and was not only compatible, but much more powerful. Of course I ordered mine to be built using the Z80.
Initially this was a personal experiment. I was interested to see what these new “personal” computers could amount to. Admittedly, although I saw great potential, I felt that their time had not yet arrived.
My system consisted of the processor, a whopping 40KB of memory, a single floppy disk drive, a CRT monitor (made for security systems) and a keyboard (which was not enclosed in a case, just the raw circuit board on a piece of bubble-wrap.
Programming was done either in machine code by entering steps via the front panel switches, or using a very simple BASIC programming language that was then available.
Although I didn’t do much with it other than experiment, I did write a demo calendar program that displayed a month calendar on the screen for any year… and the demo could be run so that the months progressed automatically. I offered the program to the store that I purchased the computer from, and they actually had it running in their window for a while!
One day I got a call from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper asking if they could send up a team to interview me. Seems they wanted to do a story on this new “home computer” phenomenon, and the store told them that I had one of the most powerful systems in the city!
The photos are not of my actual system which sadly I junked when we moved to Chicago in 1993, but they are of the exact system I had. The original newspaper article is also below.
The photo of the only remaining original memory card from that system IS real. That board measures about 10″ wide and 1/4″ thick and contains 16 KB (16,000 bytes) storage. Contrast that to today’s fingertip-sized micro-SD cards in your phones… As an example I gave to my classes: It would take 1 million of these cards to match the capacity of a 16 GB micro-SD. Placed end-to-end, those cards would stretch about 144 MILES. Stacked, they could make a pile almost 4 MILES high! Not to mention that these 16KB cards cost about $100 each, so 1 million cards would cost $100 million!
And today 16GB is a very small SD card, with capacities approaching the TERABYTE range!
Memory card provided only 16KB Ottawa Citizen article Jan 5, 1978
Sometime around 1991 I was put in touch with a guy in Chicago who had developed an innovative product and was looking for people to help market it. Being in Canada, it was an opportunity to have my own territory if I was interested.
First it is necessary to understand that at this time small portable cellphones didn’t exist for the general public. The only cellular options were built-in car phones, and something called a “bag phone”, which was a fairly bulky and heavy cellphone-and-batteries in a bag.
The product was basically a car phone built into a rugged aluminum briefcase. The large required batteries were under a false bottom in the briefcase, and a charging connector was on the outside of the case. A small metal antenna was mounted on the top of the case, as were some status lights and switches.
So basically this was like a super large and heavy bag phone. Where it differed greatly was that it came with a computer terminal that attached in the case on velcro strips and could communicate through the cellphone. Also available was a portable fax machine that could attach to the same velcro (in place of the terminal).
The target market for the fax machine were professions such as lawyers, real-estate salespeople, etc — anyone who in those days relied heavily on FAX communications. The terminal market was hoped to include all sorts of areas that could use a rugged and portable computer terminal connection — like for example on a construction site, law enforcement, etc.
I liked the concept even if I was unsure if it would take off. So I got a unit (including both the terminal and the fax machine), and tried my hand at marketing it. Again, I re-used the Soft-Touch name. I recall that I did bring it to several businesses for a demonstration, but although they were all impressed, none turned into sales.
One interesting story: Shortly after getting my own unit, I received a support call from the Four Seasons hotel in Chicago. They were experiencing a computer problem and it was affecting their operations so it was considered urgent. Having given them my “cellphone” number, they contacted me on this device. I was driving on the 401 highway in Toronto at the time.
When they heard that I was driving, they figured that they would not be able to have my help until I got to my destination but I told them I would try. I pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway and used the computer terminal to access their system in Chicago via the built-in cellphone. I found and corrected the problem in about 10 minutes, then called them back to let them know. They were astounded! No one else had the capability in those years to do that while on the road.
As innovative as the system was, it was probably a bit ahead of its time. In any case, small portable cellphones were commercially available within about a year, so this went nowhere. Once again, I showed my tendency to jump into something that was a bit too innovative for its time.
The attached photos show the terminal, and also a couple of construction site photos that I took for potential marketing purposes.
As a technology manager, one of the most critical needs is for easy and accurate communications. Cellphones were not yet in general use, and until the late 1990’s, every IT group carried pagers. Those pagers simply beeped to tell you that someone needed a call back, and displayed the callback number; then you had to get to a wired phone to call in.
In 1997 a Canadian company called Research In Motion (RIM), and also an American company, Motorola, each came out with an interactive pager with a keyboard. Being always interested in new technologies, and in a position that allowed me flexibility within my own budget, I immediately requested samples of each one to test them.
What I found, was that the RIM pager was far and away the better device. It was clearly designed by people who actually needed such devices and used them personally. Just as one example: When the Motorola pager received a message, you took it off its holster, flipped open a cover, and pressed a button to open your message. When the RIM pager received a message, you took it off its holster and looked at the screen — a tiny magnet in the holster signaled to the pager that it had been removed, and triggered the message to be displayed. This small difference was huge in situations like board meetings, where it was possible to discreetly slip out the pager and glance down at the message.
There were many other advantages, which I detailed in a comparison chart, feature by feature. When I showed my little chart to the RIM salesperson, he practically begged me for a copy, saying it was better than the sales materials the company had provided!
In any case, having done my evaluation, I ordered these RIM pagers for everyone on my team. Although the company was RIM, these devices were known by what I presume had been a development code name and then became identified as this device — the Blackberry pager. [Many years later, RIM actually re-branded their company as Blackberry.]
These devices could run numerous “apps”, including email, note-taking, instant messaging, etc. The instant messaging was quite unique, and was the first instance of BBM (BlackBerry Messenger). It pioneered many of the features that we today associate with Whatsapp and the like — a notification that you message was sent, a further notification that your message arrived on the recipient’s pager, and yet a further notification that the recipient had read the message. Seeing that little “R” show up was very comforting, knowing that your message had been seen!
A few months after we started using these Blackberry pagers, I was on vacation in Florida, on a beach with the family. My pager alerted me, and it was a critical situation that I had to quickly mobilize several team members and tell them exactly how to proceed. A few months prior and I would have had to leave the beach and find a phone. But I was able to use BBM to quickly reach the needed people and explain what they had to do. The “R” notification gave me the assurance that they got the messages (no possibility of someone saying they never got the message!) and they were able to chat with me in real time with any questions. The situation was resolved quickly without me having to disrupt the family beach time! I was very impressed; it was clear to be that Blackberry was going to be a corporate fixture!
One of my original Blackberry pagers, turned on in about 2015, with some old 2003 email messages still in the inbox!
Anyone who had anything to do with computers towards the end of 1999 will remember the industry panic over the “Y2K problem.”
For those who may not, here’s the situation in a nutshell: Since commercial computer programs were created from the 1960’s on, programmers needed a way to signal to the program that processing was complete; that there was no additional data to be processed. Back then, the assumption was that those programs would certainly be replaced within a decade, so it became a convention to use the year “00” to signify “the end”. No one ever thought about more than a 2-digit year until the 90’s.
Suddenly, in the 1990’s it became clear that there were tens of thousands old computer programs still running everything from payrolls, to elevators, to air traffic control… and many of them were programmed to stop working if they encountered “00” as the 2-digit year!
Lots of experts sounded the alarm that every company worldwide would have to embark on a huge “Y2K (year 2000) project” — to test, certify, and possibly re-program systems to ensure that they would keep working when the date flipped to 01/01/2000.
Like companies everywhere we at IRI also had to re-certify every piece of software that we used. This was a bigger effort than it sounds like. We had to find times off-hours when systems were less busy, to simulate the change of date and test each program’s operation. Code that failed had to be examined re-coded, and re-tested. I had a team devoted to this testing. Luckily in our case, most of our software was not so old as to have used that old “end processing” convention, so there were few failures. Still, everyone held their breath when 01/01/2000 actually arrived. I had team members out at the data center at midnight just in case something slipped though testing.
After the successful date transition, I presented a small gift to each of my Y2K team members. It was the latest gizmo: a digital music player. No, the iPod didn’t exist yet for another 10 years! This was a unit called the Diamond by Rio. Although the appearance inspired the Apple iPod, the “wheel” was just a series of buttons.
This device came out in 1998, sold for about $200 with 32 MB memory for about 30 minutes of music! But wait! For another $200 you could pop in a whopping 64MB card and then hold a full 90 minutes of music. The team loved them!
As part of my duties taking care of all the physical aspects of the Bnos Rabbeinu High School Dorm, I took safety and security very seriously. As someone who was also always interested in the latest technology, I also looked for products that would be best suited for such purposes.
To keep the dorm secure and yet allow easy entry for the students, I found an Israeli-made digital door pad, which I wired to the old door “buzzer” system. This allowed me to create a set of digital codes (one for students, and separate ones for cleaning staff, trades, etc that I could disable when they were no longer to have access.)
One concern I had due to the age of the building (about 90 years), was fire detection. Since the building was three floors and a basement, I worried that a small fire alarm in the basement could go unheard on the floors above. In researching this, I found that there was a new type of smoke detector that allowed for a series of units connected wirelessly such that any unit that was triggered would sound the alert on all units. In addition these added carbon monoxide detection — important in a building with gas-powered stoves, furnace, hot water tank and dryers.
I purchased these units and installed two per floor. I even ran some tests and a couple of “drills”. (In one case I took one of the detectors outside and held it near the tail pipe of my running van until it registered a CO alert!)
Some months later, while all the girls and the principal were in the basement practicing for their upcoming production, a night-time fire broke out on the 1st floor due to a short in some old lighting wiring. No one was there to see or smell it. Thankfully, the detectors did finally register and the alert was sounded throughout the building. At first suspecting a false alarm, someone ventured upstairs and quickly saw the flames and smoke — and thankfully everyone was able to evacuate safely. Unfortunately, the old building went up in flames very quickly and by the time the fire department arrived, all three floors were ablaze!
Realizing how invaluable these type of detectors were, I replaced the old wired smoke detectors in my home with these as well. At the same time, I found out that older detectors were really only reliable for about 10 years, even if they tested ok!
I decided that such information needed to be spread, especially in my religious circles. So I wrote an op-ed for a New York based web site, urging the adoption of such detectors in all schools and homes, and pushing for an organization to be established to help finance them for poorer families. I have no idea if such an organization was ever set up, but I did get a lot of feedback thanking me for educating people about this.
Playing around with various efforts to add small revenue streams, I decided to try my hand at sales of small technology goods online. It was an education researching products in China, contacting and conversion with Chinese factory representatives, and the like.
To start small, I identified a unique USB cable that had actual springs at each end for strain relief. This cable was also on of the earliest ones to use higher gauge wires so that it supported faster charge times for phones.
I chose the name “Skadget” and convinced the Chinese supplier to engrave my logo on the cables even though I was only ordering a small quantity (I think 100-200 total, in 2 colors)
I wrote up a great product listing, including a technical article on the benefits of the higher-gauge wires, and listed them for sale on both Amazon and Ebay.
I quickly discovered that selling on Amazon was only useful if you had products that could move in very large quantities — the fees involved were just not worth the effort for low-priced items in limited quantities. But Ebay became my focus, and I did manage to see all my stock over several months — and got some great feedback about the cable quality!
However, I quickly decided that this was not a venture I really wanted to pursue, because I simply didn’t have the capital to invest, and to do this properly meant having dozens of products and ordering significant quantities. Once again, it was a great learning experience even if it didn’t pan out as I had initially hoped.
