MINOS Modem
We had previously employed a young technician to assist with manufacturing and when she left we took on an technician / engineer who had previously worked with me at the university. Mike became involved with the work we continued to do for Huwood Electric, expanding into interfacing for the NCB / British Coal MINOS (Mine Operating System) in 1986 with the development of a 600 Baud modem designed to work in mines.
Staff and Office Expansion
We originally had just the top floor in the Cattle Market, Hexham for both office and technical work. As we started to expand we needed more space – there’s a limit to how many people you can employ in one room! The 1st floor in the building became available to rent and we took it on to give us a ‘front office’ capability. Upstairs now became tech. Downstairs included a front desk, welcoming space for visitors and office facilities.
What next?
With the end of development for Huwood Electric in 1986, we had to choices to make on how to proceed. We produced a new marketing leaflet for Hexatec but then decided to stop any further hardware development and specialise in PC software.
SCAN1000
Testoterm had developed a modular, expandable scanner system capable of taking up to 1000 inputs. Our experience with our own IBM PC / XT and my use of IBM compatibles whilst still working at the university enabled us to develop a new, larger product still based on the Testoterm scanner hardware. The software for this new product was a radical departure from our previous designs. Using the IBM PC base meant a wide range of development tools were available. Also, either of two graphical based desk top environments could be used. Digital Research of CP/M fame had released the GEM system and Microsoft the Windows system. We evaluated both. GEM appeared to offer better multitasking capabilities which would be important for the real-time processes we wanted to develop. However, whilst attempting to get more information about the product I found the only person who could answer our queries from Digital Research in the UK was in hospital with a broken leg! Microsoft, at the same time had a well established UK presence and could offer us the support as required. Microsoft also had a range of development tools including a Pascal compiler. We chose Windows! The product was advertised in late 1986 although only became available in early 1987:
The modular design included the Recorder which could regularly store and display data from upto 100 inputs. Multiple copies of the recorder could be loaded with each having its own window on the display. Each windows could show one of ten ‘pages’ each of which included 10 inputs, either analogue or digital. Alternatively, an Annunciator display could show all 100 inputs latest values along with alarm conditions.
One thing of note… Windows (1) could not display overlapping Windows. This was due to the agreement Microsoft made with Apple to avoid legal arguments over design because of Apple’s existing Lisa and Macintosh products.