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Mar 09Serial Port Pit Bull
by in Feature Articles on 2009-04-30
Shawn G. couldn't believe his eyes. A support ticket had just come in about a user who was having a problem with a DOS-based computer with a 286 processor!? Fresh out of college, Shaw was more used to working with PCs running Windows XP, and processor speeds and RAM amounts in the multi-"giga" ranges. Much to his surprise, he was getting ready to help a user with the equivalent of 1985's cutting-edge top model. Expecting the real problem to be a bug in their help desk software mis-reporting PC's default specs, Shawn gave the user a ring.
It turned out that yes indeed, the computer in question was based on the ancient yet venerable, 286 processor. But the kicker was that the PC wasn't a PC at all. Instead, it was a very expensive, mission critical, ruggedized "beige box" that was used by the engineers to calculate the efficiency of heat transfer for some very large and noisy piece of plant machinery. Despite feeling a little bit out of his element, Shawn figured he'd give a shot at troubleshooting and asked for a description of the problem.
Felix had an easier time making it to the gym five times a week than the average person, but that was probably because he worked there. It wasn't the ideal job, but it paid well enough for the summer between first and second year of university.
Dario sighed, placing the call on hold to answer another. "Network support, Dario speaking."
"No, it's not write 'click', it's right click, like click the button on the right-hand side." John R. realized his mistake as he said it.
The Sohcnum Family Convenience store chain knew two things about their fax-based price distribution process: it was extremely time consuming and completely un-cool. Managers at their twenty-eight locations absolutely hated having to write out, by hand and with a big marker, the hundreds of new price signs that came through every morning. It all seemed so unnecessary, especially considering that it was 1997 and "hi tech" was officially in. Plus, with their aspirations to grow the chain by impressing and attracting big investors, a whiz-bang price distribution system was a must-have.
The custom-built PHP-based content management system suffered from the classic problem of too many cooks in the kitchen. Every code file had conflicting naming conventions and coding styles, structures and duplicate methods all over the place; a 