An Ending
After twenty-nine years, nine and a half months, today was my last day at Eastman Kodak.
It was a very different company when I joined on. The big news that summer was that Kodak had bought Spin Physics, a maker of magnetic recording heads, to get the technology they needed to build 8mm cameras and projectorsfor home movies with sound. Kodak was growing fast, fueled by its success with the Instamatic and Pocket Instamatic cameras. I worked in the brand-new Elmgrove Plant complex, in Rochester's western suburbs. Over the years I saw that plant grow to four times its initial size. Thirteen buildings in all. Slowly, all the consumer camera manufacturing was moved offshore, and the copier business was shut down. About five years ago they moved the rest of out out of the old Elmgrove plant and sold it.
My job has always been making software, mostly for embedded systems. My first job was on the team that wrote the control software for the Komstar COM (computer output microfilm) device. That was a box the size of a big office copier that hooked up to an IBM mainframe computer and produced microfiche output. The embedded computer was a Data General Nova 1220 minicomputer. We wrote Nova assembly language code on coding sheets that we gave to keypunch operators who punched it onto cards. The cards were run through an IBM S/30 mainframe where, after several hours, they produced a paper tape containing the machine code for the Nova. We loaded the programs into the Nova with a high-speed paper tape reader when we were lucky, and with an ASR-33 Teletype (10 characters per second - chunka-chunka) when we weren't. The Nova had core memory that would remember the program even when it was powered down. All debugging was done with the front panel lights and switches on the Nova. Today we type our own high-level C, C++, and Java code into desktop computers which compile it nearly instantly, and then use blazingly fast Ethernet and USB networks to load it into embedded computers the size of a postage stamp.
Over the years I've worked on microfilmers, photofinishing gear, blood analyzers, document scanners, software tools, laser printers, and X-ray equipment, all bearing the Kodak brand. I've been an individual contributer, a technical team leader, a supervisor and a Technical Product Manager. I've architected systems, written code, done quality assurance, written a PostScript interpreter, been a system administrator. I've run a Unix tools shop, been a champion of structured design methodologies, (and later, an opponent of structured design methodologies that promised more than they delivered). I've earned several patents. I've made my mark on products that sold well, others that flopped, and some that were killed before they went to market.
Kodak is well on its way to becoming a smaller, successful digital imaging company. Part of that process involved shedding its Health Group. Once a major supplier of X-ray film, the Health Group had produced a successful line of digital X-ray equipment. Alas, competing in that industry required more R&D funding than the new, smaller Kodak could supply, so the Health Group is no more.
It was sad leaving the plant today and seeing the "Kodak Health Group" sign being taken down.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about A Beginning.
It was a very different company when I joined on. The big news that summer was that Kodak had bought Spin Physics, a maker of magnetic recording heads, to get the technology they needed to build 8mm cameras and projectorsfor home movies with sound. Kodak was growing fast, fueled by its success with the Instamatic and Pocket Instamatic cameras. I worked in the brand-new Elmgrove Plant complex, in Rochester's western suburbs. Over the years I saw that plant grow to four times its initial size. Thirteen buildings in all. Slowly, all the consumer camera manufacturing was moved offshore, and the copier business was shut down. About five years ago they moved the rest of out out of the old Elmgrove plant and sold it.
My job has always been making software, mostly for embedded systems. My first job was on the team that wrote the control software for the Komstar COM (computer output microfilm) device. That was a box the size of a big office copier that hooked up to an IBM mainframe computer and produced microfiche output. The embedded computer was a Data General Nova 1220 minicomputer. We wrote Nova assembly language code on coding sheets that we gave to keypunch operators who punched it onto cards. The cards were run through an IBM S/30 mainframe where, after several hours, they produced a paper tape containing the machine code for the Nova. We loaded the programs into the Nova with a high-speed paper tape reader when we were lucky, and with an ASR-33 Teletype (10 characters per second - chunka-chunka) when we weren't. The Nova had core memory that would remember the program even when it was powered down. All debugging was done with the front panel lights and switches on the Nova. Today we type our own high-level C, C++, and Java code into desktop computers which compile it nearly instantly, and then use blazingly fast Ethernet and USB networks to load it into embedded computers the size of a postage stamp.
Over the years I've worked on microfilmers, photofinishing gear, blood analyzers, document scanners, software tools, laser printers, and X-ray equipment, all bearing the Kodak brand. I've been an individual contributer, a technical team leader, a supervisor and a Technical Product Manager. I've architected systems, written code, done quality assurance, written a PostScript interpreter, been a system administrator. I've run a Unix tools shop, been a champion of structured design methodologies, (and later, an opponent of structured design methodologies that promised more than they delivered). I've earned several patents. I've made my mark on products that sold well, others that flopped, and some that were killed before they went to market.
Kodak is well on its way to becoming a smaller, successful digital imaging company. Part of that process involved shedding its Health Group. Once a major supplier of X-ray film, the Health Group had produced a successful line of digital X-ray equipment. Alas, competing in that industry required more R&D funding than the new, smaller Kodak could supply, so the Health Group is no more.
It was sad leaving the plant today and seeing the "Kodak Health Group" sign being taken down.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about A Beginning.