Wow! PCRegen still exists! 1

[pcregen]

I wrote this. At least the first 2 or 300 versions.

It started as a project in basic, and it was quickly obvious that basic wasn't appropriate, so I learned C.

BTW, I worked for Honeywell at the time. We had 3 support engineers, and Ericsson had 10. Well we also has Kurt Portnoff, and Lars Rangedahl to help, and they were no slackers. They were the best, actually. So we had 5, but not for the whole run at Honeywell. My boss, Mike Burke, decided that I was best used to "be a toolsmith", since we were short of staff.

I wrote pcregen so we could more easily restore systems, because the damned Tandberg tape drives were crap. All you had to do was run the print file with SAK, which I also wrote, and then run the print files through pcregen to get the flat text needed to rebuild a system. It started small, and did just a few commands, but soon grew to try and cover everything.

When Honeywell sold the base to Ericsson, they were horrified that we let our techs use SAK, and dig into the guts of the system. Ericsson just didn't believe in letting techs have training that would releive engineers of BS work.

And then there was SAK, which I won't comment about, but some old timers may remember.

Eventually pcregen, as I wrote it, came to have 5 versions, which were similar, but had different sources and destinations, such as US to International.

That was all back in the late 80's.

tom ring

btw, SAK meant Swedish Army Knife

 

[pcregen]

Here is a teaser from the old source code. None of which is source, it's my comments before the source started.



/*****************************************************************/
/* */
/* PCREGEN.C */
/* */
/* for ASB to ASB */
/* */
/* VERSION 1.00T1 */
/* */
/* 07-24-89 */
/* thru */
/* 10-02-89 */
/* */
/* */
/* COPYRIGHT 1987, 1988 THOMAS A. RING */
/* COPYRIGHT 1989 Ericsson Information Systems */
/* */
/* This version starts with 5.00PT of the */
/* ASBU to ASBU version and is modified from */
/* there to an ASB version. */
/* */
/* */
/*****************************************************************/
/* */
/* */
/* VERSION 1.00T3 */
/* 11-29-89 */
/* */
/* */
/* FIXES - MGMOI incorrect. */
/* */
/* In NA it's NUMTYP not NUMTYPE. */
/* */
/* ROCAI doesn't make a file. */
/* */
/* */
/* CHANGES - Move main screen into program. */
/* */
/* */
/* ADDITIONS - */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/*****************************************************************/
/* */
/* */
/* VERSION 1.00T4 */
/* 11-29-89 */
/* */
/* */
/* FIXES - RODDI has SRT value in NUMACK. */
/* */
/* GHGRI has CUST=100. */
/* */
/* CLODI is missing TIME if DIAL=ALL. */
/* */
/* SYTDS must have both CDNAL and CDNAS in ASBI. */
/* */
/* */
/* CHANGES - Split KSTSC line after first parameter. */
/* */
/* */
/* ADDITIONS - */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/*****************************************************************/
/* */
/* */
/* VERSION 1.00T5 */
/* 12-07-89 */
/* */
/* */
/* FIXES - ROCAI SEL parameter has 5 digits R3, 7 digits */
/* R4, 10 digits ASBI. */
/* */
/* If source file is R3, KSANI always has CAT=0. */
/* */
/* MGMGI is missing parameter "TYPE". */
/* */
/* DTFUI key should be "DKEY". */
/* */
/* */
/* CHANGES - */
/* */
/* */
/* ADDITIONS - Add ASPAC command. */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/*****************************************************************/
/* */
/* */
/* VERSION 1.00T6 */
/* */
/* 03-20-90 */
/* */
/* */
/* FIXES - RODDI is incorrect if the data comes from ASB R4. */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/* CHANGES - */
/* */
/* */
/* ADDITIONS - */
/* */
/* */
/* */
/*****************************************************************/

 

[Avstral]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for share this!

To add a bit of history.

Year 1976.
In Ellemetel (company formed by Televerket&Ericsson), the sides could not rich an agreement about size of the system - is it to be smaller or larger
And while specs changed few times, it was born an idea that satisfied both sides: expandable system on the base of Line Interface Module.
It is almost 30 years and yet on the market!

I heard this from my ex-boss in E/// (he is retired now).
He was involved in functions specs preparation in Ellemetel.

Regards

 

[HIREI]

Hi, all!

And the application system program concept was based on AXE-10 concept, earlier developed by Ellemtel too?

 

[HIREI]

As to pcregen and MD110 - if it's good program concept and good idea, why not be in the market? Radio transmission dated by XIX century and still in the market too with all this mobile and so on )) .