Comments on: Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Tony Monti

Fri, 04 May 2012 18:28:53 +0000

I was employed at Honeywell as a debug technician in Brighton MA, when I was asked to go to Incoterm in Northborough MA to learn how to debug their hardware. It was suppose to be a short term adventure. I was only 26 years young! I lived in Marlborough and I thought how great this would be for me. I think I was there maybe perhaps 6 months or so.

Anyway when I got back from my Honeymoon from Bermuda Sept 1981, driving back from Logan, my father-in-law broke the news to me. He said "Honeywell bought out Incoterm and they are moving the product to Brighton". I was devastated! I just started to get use to the nice people there in Northborough.
He showed my the big article in the Boston Globe.

So, there I was. Caught in the middle of my first acquisition!! I did not know companies did this.
People at Incoterm now looked at me as some type of spy! My test bed got sabotaged. One day I turn on my test bed and a senior tech stuck a short cigar in my cooling fan. Tobacco flew wverywhere. Then he wired a ground wire to my chassis. I still want to kick his butt for doing that.!

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Larry Ragan

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:43:26 +0000

RIP A true innovator. I don't think anyone realizes the impact the Incoterm product line had on our lives. Thanks Jean and Jim.

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Erin Tariot

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:53:42 +0000

THE PASSING OF JEAN N. TARIOT

Dear extended/virtual Incoterm Family:

It is with great sadness that I must inform you that Jean Tariot passed away on April 17, 2012 following complications due to stroke. For those interested and able to attend services in Massachusetts on April 22nd and April 23rd, information can be found in his death announcement (Jean-Noel Tariot) at www.legacy.com

He has fond memories of his time at Incoterm, and exceptionally proud of the accomplishments of the Incoterm Team. Family would welcome attendance during the visitation period or during the graveside service by any and all whom remember him.

Warm regards, his granddaughter Erin

TariotEY@yahoo.com

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Cherie Harper

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:07:38 +0000

My name is Cheryl Finch (previously Cherie Harper). I worked at Incoterm UK in Uxbridge for a short while in the 70′s. My boss was Brendan Hallahan and I remember Alan Rymer and John Burgoyne. I was a Logistics Technical Clerk responsible for logging in units for repair and ordering spares such as resistors, diodes and capacitors etc. I worked with the engineers and remember them flying off to various airports to repair the terminals. I have many happy memories working at Incoterm.

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Trevor Lambert

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:17:15 +0000

It is great to hear the memory of Incoterm is still around with names I can still remember. The other day I came accross Dick Gorgan's " Last will and testiment on leaving " it is a masterpiece! My time at Incoterm was a wonderful time with the design of computers systems changing so fast . So many great people pulling in the same direction it was an inspiring experience. Have since worked with Gil Moreira and Seth Stowell working on automated advertising systems on cable TV. I am now retired in Florida.

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Richard

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:31:42 +0000

We had Incoterm 20/20′s as front-end processors for our Honeywell mainframe. Started off with 8″ floppies running RDE forms to provide data validation. Eventually the systems were upgraded with Pertec drives and 128K memory (via bank switching). The new RDE language allowed for ISAM-like disk files. It really was a cleverly designed system although I suspect the majority of Incoterms were used for their terminal emulation capabilities rather than their programability. Lost count of the number of times we had to switch off the 20/20, open it's "coffin" lid and re-seat the boards. As a bonus though, they doubled-up as great space-heaters!

When Honeywell announced they were scrapping Incoterm I set about writing an RDE emulator. It was developed on the Honeywell MSE microcomputer using Pascal and eventually moved to a multi-user Concurrent CP/M machine (Jarogate Sprite). My FDMS software behaved exactly like RDE and I could transfer RDE forms to the Sprite by connecting the Incoterm current-loop printer port to the aux port of a Tatung terminal the main RS232 port of which was then connected to an input port on the Sprite. Start the capture program on the Sprite, hit "print" on the Incoterm and the form's code would be transferred.

We sold quite a few of these systems to UK companies that needed to replace their Incoterms - including one for the Bank of England's bullion vault, as mentioned by Chris Mills above (August 13th, 2010).

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Larry La Mont

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:32:34 +0000

Hi all,

Incoterm Field Service was my first job out of the Air Force in 1973 in Atlanta. I was only with the company until 1976 when I went to work for United Airlines Computer Services division. I remember a lot of names in this thread….good reading. Those were some of the best days of my working life. Anybody remember those horrible old Printer, Reader Punches? Or the CDC printers that used to "dance" across the floor?

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Jonathan D. Addelston

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:44:57 +0000

It's great to read about the old days of Incoterm. And thanks to Cheryl for the compliment!

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: Surjit Chana

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:01:10 +0000

Hi
Today was the day (on of the greatest days in my life) exactly 31 years ago I first started to repair INCOTERM. It was , as we called it, 10/20 terminal and the first EVER job was to repair the DATA FLOW board using a test rig with a lots of lights and switches. O my wonderful and golden days I will forever fondly cherish.

Comment on Window to the Sky: the Incoterm A103-06 by: David Follett

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:03:28 +0000

My father Ron Follett was a director at Incoterm during the 1970s and through him I got a summer job in engineering from 1977-1979. In 1977 I was a teenager and not knowing what to do with me I was assigned to help the programmers by fetching printouts, etc. By day 3 I started making coding corrections to the printouts and by day 5 I was coding. The first systems I worked on predated the microprocessor, ie. it was Incoterm’s proprietary instruction set, coupled with 2K of core memory. Over the next three summers I was thrown at a dizzying array of tasks including adding small features to the OS, tracking down obscure bugs, testing emergency patches and adding oddball communications protocols. My greatest business contribution was tracking down an OS bug that was causing large numbers of deployed systems to display random bizarre behavior ultimately requiring resets.

It’s hard to overestimate the impact Incoterm had on me and my career. Incoterm’s engineering department was pure adrenaline and full of very impressive people. The culture was great and there was an intense focus on the customers. The only thing that really mattered was what you contributed, heady stuff for a teenager. I learned a ton about computers and how healthy startups work. Later I learned how large acquirers, Honeywell, destroy their acquisitions through ignorance.

After graduating from college I went to AT&T Bell Labs Murray Hill, NJ which at the time, pre-divestiture, was the largest corporation in the world. While I enjoyed my time and colleagues and was extremely successful I never adjusted to the lumbering speed and lack of direct customer focus. In 1993 I founded my own startup, GigaNet, where we successfully pioneered virtualized networks ultimately selling the company to Emulex in 2001. GigaNet allowed me to apply many of the lessons I’d learned about culture and focus from my time at Incoterm.

I was extremely lucky to have worked at Incoterm. Fond memories.