Retirement Mail - 30th May 2019

 Dear Colleagues,

I have chosen to retire at the end of this month, on this Friday.

As I was reminiscing about my career, it occurred to me that a few of my career and life events might interest some of you, so I am writing this long mail.

As a B. Tech student of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras, I learnt my first programming language FORTRAN IV about 46-47 years ago. Then, we did not have any computer and the instructor visually verified the code that we wrote on paper.

Next year, an IBM 370/155, then the second largest computer in India, was installed at our institute. Because of my fascination with that system, during the final year I looked around and managed to find a project that allowed me to use the computer for project work.

To use those mainframe computers, your program must first be punched into a deck of IBM Punched Cards using a Card Punch before it can be input to the computer through a Card Reader.  After classes, we reserved half hour slots of punching machine time to punch our program code into cards. Then, we submitted our decks at the Input Output counter and came back after many hours to collect the printouts to see the results of the program execution. One typo, many hours would be lost before we can try again. So, we went through our deck very carefully before submitting it for execution.

After B. Tech, I went on to do M. Tech in Computer Science at the same institute. In fact, I had topped the aptitude test used in the selection process. Ours was the second batch and had place for 20 students. Even after 3 rounds of selection, the batch was not full as students preferred more traditional engineering technologies over the emerging technology of Computer Science.

I was recruited from the campus, to develop software for exporting to Eastern Bloc countries, using IBM 360 compatible computers (EC-1022, EC-1033) by an organization that is not in the software business any more. While working on my first project, using IBM 360 Assembly Language, I found debugging difficult. So, I created my own tool called “Execute and Trace System” to trace code execution for personal use.  Later the organization found an export market for that tool and sold it as “Online Debugging System” to the centralized purchasing agency ELORG of USSR, which was localized and sold throughout the nation. The organization encouraged me to present a paper about that tool and its utility at that year’s Computer Society of India convention in Delhi.

Through that organization I had been to Moscow and Leningrad in USSR, Zagreb in Yugoslavia, Helsinki, Finland, and Paris, France for finalizing product specifications and delivery of products. I was also in Sydney, Australia for 4 months working onsite. I have promoted the organization products at different vendor gatherings including a trade show at Singapore.

When new products like Sinclair ZX Spectrum,  Tandy TRS-80 and IBM PC were  announced the organization would receive samples to explore the possibility of developing software around that product for export. That was how I learnt about microprocessor-based technologies like PC during the days when there was no Internet. You literally had to read the fine manual and there were no other alternatives like PDF. Almost all that I learned were done by reading paper documents during those days.

That organization later diversified into hardware manufacturing and one such diversified organization “Lipi Data Systems” is still a successful printer manufacturer in India.

In January 1990, I moved to a new organization that was established by two former IBM employees to export software from Noida Export Processing Zone. Through this organization I had been in USA 9 times working on diverse Main frame, Unix and IBM OS/2 products at client locations of IBM, Cisco and EMC, for not more than 4 months at a time. When cancer afflicted the owner of that organization, he could not manage the company and downsized it until it finally wound up. I was laid off and unemployed for some time.

It was at this time, I got a 3-month contract as an Adobe Temp to work on xxxxxx which was then overdue. I developed xxxxxx etc. That original work led to others and now I have been with Adobe for 15 years and 3 months working on different things.

Some of the gadgets that I received from Adobe as a part of organization wide distribution are 1^st generation iPod Shuffle, iRiver U10 and my first smart phone HTC Desire HD. This smart phone had more capacity than the IBM 370/155. I gave the U10 to my son and it is still working. When the phone software became outdated, I upgraded it with latest custom rom available while experimenting with custom ROMs.

Almost close to 30 years I have been having home PCs beginning with Intel 486 to the current Core i7 based system. These systems were either assembled by others to my specifications, self-assembled and upgraded or purchased on-line. Possibly the exposure to computer since childhood made both my sons choose Software Engineering as their profession. My daughter, after trying out couple of different things, has now settled on writing as a profession. Some of her writings are available at https://www.amazon.in/Rebecca-Vijay/e/B071HKZBFD. She is now building a business around writing and publishing.

The likelihood of me meeting any of you personally in future is rather slim. However, I expect to be connected virtually. My email id is pandiaraj@yahoo.com. If you are logged into Facebook, you can locate me at https://www.facebook.com/FJPRaj. It has been quite some time since I have updated any of my blog posts. You can locate them through https://www.facebook.com/fjpandiaraj/. My blog post that I like best is http://fjpandiaraj.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-god-i-believe-in.html.

As a born and born-again Christian, I strongly believe in the God of The Bible. I am thankful to Him for having sustained me throughout my career while I still enjoy good health without taking any prescription medication.

My wife and I are scheduled to travel to Minneapolis MN, USA on 12^th June to visit our son and his family for a couple of months.

If you like to reply to this mail, please send it to pandiaraj@yahoo.com and I will look at it in leisure.

Great to have known all of you and to have interacted with you while at Adobe. Continue developing excellent print products. Drop me a line about any significant Print Technology events that I can follow up online.

Good Bye,
F J Pandiaraj

Email: pandiaraj@yahoo.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FJPRaj

Blogs: https://www.facebook.com/fjpandiaraj/ and http://fjpandiaraj.blogspot.com/