Just Who Do You Think You Are! (Part 4)

The left episode left Marc writing Windows-based equity workstations for Goldman by day, and packing word processors and text editors at night. (Because the ME Text Editor was one of the first 50 applications written for OS/2, Marc got to go down and show the editor at the IBM OS/2 booth at 1988 Spring COMDEX... learning OS/2 turned out to be a good move, as we shall see in a minute.)

Two opportunities came along at the same time that Marc could not pass up. Marc's wife was a Cobol/CICS for Drexel Burnham at the time (remember Michael Milkin???). Somehow, her boss's boss found out that there was a developer who was writing Windows software for Goldman at the time, and developer who could be enticed away for a certain sum of money. In addition, a new development manager who had just been hired by Microsoft had been looking for an OS/2/PM developer who could help him write software for his new group. Marc could not refuse either, so he accepted both!!!

So, now it was writing a DOS and Windows trading system for Drexel, and helping Microsoft write software for a product that they had licensed from Sybase and renamed.... SQL Server. Marc also started writing articles for Microsoft Systems Journal, which was run by the great Tony Rizzo, bless his soul!!!

Believe it or not, the Drexel contract was the more interesting of the two by a longshot! The problem was that, whatever was written for the Windows version of the trading system had to be replicated on the DOS version as well.... the traders had laptops that could not run Windows very well.

So, Marc had an idea..... why not write the Windows-based trading system in C, using the Windows API. And, for the DOS version, use the same API. This involved reimplementing the Windows API in a DOS library. This led to another product.... the Magma Extensible Window and Event Library... or MEWEL for short.

Next chapter.... MEWEL kicks Magma Systems into high gear....

©2005 Marc Adler - All Rights Reserved