[apt4ssx8] Intro: etc.

From: dave <dengvall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: apt4ssx8@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2012 06:47:22 -0700
List:
    I was very heartened this evening when I picked up my mail and
    found new messages. 

    I became interested in APT because it seemed a logical and well
    organized way to express part geometry. That part of I deal well
    with. Actual milling of the part is a different story but I'm
    learning. It is nice to have a couple of compatriots in the NW but
    with the net distance really doesn't make much difference. I asked
    Stuart why he uses APT (NCL) and he said because I can do anything
    with it and it is reliable; which I interpret to mean predictable. 
    My hope is that this group will get the VAX code running and put
    together enough documentation so both hobbyists and commercial
    shops can use it for easy and difficult projects. 

    Except for this recent foray into apt4ssx8 I've not done any
    FORTRAN for many years. That does not mean I've not been exposed
    to languages, eg. FOCAL(DEC), FORTRAN(360/390), COBOL(360/390),
    RT-11(DEC), FORTRAN(DEC), and finally C on pc's.  

    Background:
    I'm a retired chemist and have been retired for 19+ years. My
    degree is in Microbiology but I found chemistry more interesting
    and it paid better. My experience is a bit varied. Industrial X-ray
    on the missile sites, both Atlas and Titan_I. A couple of years
    doing plague survey (drafted in the Berlin wall panic) and sent to
    Dugway Proving Ground. A couple of years doing C14 dating of
    archaeological objects and deep well water and finally many years
    as a chemist doing consumer protection in feed and fertilizer and
    trying to convince very conservative supervisors to invest in
    technology (computers) to make the laboratory tests less expensive
    and more reliable including a lab information system where C
    programs coupled the instruments and analytical balance to Informix
    as a database. 

    None of that really leads to machining except for the computer
    experience. 

    I got into emc when is was still difficult to get it running.
    Patch the kernel which sometime worked and sometimes didn't; then
    build the system. I was Jon's first sale of a ppmc. I had the first
    Motenc card which I couldn't make work. So I'm not all that good,
    just experimental. BDI's helped and it just got better from there.

    Now that I've got all of you completely bored, I'll stop. ;-)

    Dave
[apt4ssx8] Intro: etc.

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