My career as a programmer, an amazing journey
By Scott Perry
I began programming in 1974 during 9th grade at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. I took a Computer Sciences class that involved learning to program with FORTRAN using a room size computer that consisted of a series of cabinets with reel-to-reel paper tape readers in them. Our state-of-the-art daisy wheel printer was about the size of a modern full-size all-in-one copy machine. First, we wrote the program on a legal pad, then we would use a teletype machine to turn the code into a stack of punch cards. Next, we input the cards into the reader that fed the information into the computer. The program we wrote was to find all the prime numbers between 1 and 1000. It took the computer 45 minutes to calculate the data and the printer 5 minutes to print it out.
On July 5, 1978, my eighteenth birthday, I began a National Tool and Die and Precision Machinists Association (NTDPMA now NTMA) certified machinist training program in a local Baltimore area machine shop. I was trained on manual machines, tool grinders, NC and CNC machines, and sinker type EDM machining. It didn’t take long to see who was making the most money in the shop, and that was the people that could write programs to produce parts on the computer-controlled machines. I found my career path; I wanted to be the best CNC machinist / programmer around. I had the opportunity to join some of my co-workers at our supervisor’s house twice a week to learn G-Code programming. Two years later I took my first job as the only programmer / set up / operator for 1 mill and 1 lathe in a 6-man shop. That was the first step of my dream, I have been a CNC machine tool programmer ever since.
The first off-line programming system I learned was Compaq II, a language based, no graphics system that had to make a phone call to the company that sold it and hook up through an old hand-set modem, in order to post-process the code so we could punch a paper tape to roll on a reel and feed into our machines. The only verification of the program that was available was to look at the motions the machine made when you hit the run button. None of the machine tools in the late 1970’s, and very few throughout the 1980’s, had a “distance to go” indicator, which always made the first run a very tense situation.
In the early 1980’s, before there was a common platform for Personal Computers (PCs), I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Chicago for a week to learn how to program Fanuc’s “big yellow box”, a self-contained suitcase style PC. As with most PCs of that era, there was no hard drive. The operating system, as well as the application software, was all stored on 8” or 5 ¼ “ Floppy discs, so not much computing power was available at this level. There was still no graphics, and they never were able to get a post-processor to work for any of the 4 CNC machines my shop had. The system was only useful one time in its first year, and that was to find the tangent points between two intersecting lines and a fillet between them.
In 1986, with 8 years of experience under my belt, I was able to secure a position with a start-up division of a major East Coast machine tool distributor as an Applications Engineer. I had already contracted with Maruka Machine, one of the first U.S. distributors for Mori Seiki machine tools, to train several of their customers with new installations. So, I was known among several employees of the new start up as a man that learned quickly and was able to successfully train all levels of students. Once again, I was blessed with the opportunity to spend 2 years studying and learning as many entry level CAD/CAM systems as I could find. It was my job to evaluate which company was the best and most reliable and help negotiate an agreement to represent them. This was the same time IBM and Microsoft partnered, and we built IBM industrial hardened PC ATs and XTs loaded with Microsoft DOS 1.8 and sold hundreds every month.
I took classes on, and evaluated extensively, over 20 systems in less than 2 years. We needed a true 3D wireframe CAD package and only CADKEY had that capability. As far as CAM went, my favorite was part of a well-respected machine tool manufacturer, it was Anilam’s Anicam package. I preferred this package because it had both the new Graphics User Interface (GUI) like all the best packages, but it also had a quick link to the language that drove the graphics.
In 1989 I started Enhanced Software Products (ESP) with one of my former customer/students who had an extremely successful machine and metal fabrication shop. My partner put up all the money and provided office assistance, and I ran a one-man company for 2 years before the recession closed all our customer’s wallets. During my time with ESP I got my first contract programming job. I was familiar with a few people in the programming department of Burn’s Aerospace in Winston-Salem, N.C. and when I called them looking for work, they were having a crisis. They had a part due in 4 days and no one to program it for their Mori Seiki mill. I sold them the G-Code, took my computer to their plant, hooked up RS232 communications, downloaded the program, and helped the operator trouble shoot the set up to ensure they met their deadline.
Also, since I had been writing language-based programs professionally and recreationally for over 12 years, I was able to create and sell a few dedicated programming packages during this period. ESP was most profitable, however, with the hardware sales and installations I did. We represented Greco Systems out of La Jolla, California. They manufactured Behind-The-Reader hardware interfaces that allowed customers to load programs through an RS232 port, a 5 ¼ “Floppy, or a 3 ½ “Floppy, instead of using reels of paper tape. I also hard-wired RS232 Communications, custom building every cable, to over 150 different machine tools in a 4-year period.
With the 1990s came the dawn of the 80386-computer chip that had a built-in math coprocessor. I bought an 80286-computer that ran at 20 MHz in 1988 for $8k and waited 4 years before replacing it. Then I bought a new 80386-computer that ran at a screaming 60 MHz for $3500.00 as soon as it came out, and it lasted the next 3 years. As an entrepreneur, I made sure that every piece of hardware and software I bought paid for itself in one way or another. I was blessed to be 15 years into my career when all the technology exploded. I started a Soul Proprietorship called Datum Point Programming Service in 1992 and kept it going through 2008. I had children along the way and took several full-time jobs for the benefits, but I always sold software and programs on the side. The first full-time job I took after my first child was born was in 1994 at Burn’s Aerospace, working for the same man I met 6 years earlier. I started relationships with several long-lasting customers through the Engineers I worked with.
While working at Burn’s (later B/E) Aerospace I was an Associate Distributor for SmartCAM and Cadkey and sold and supported many packages. In the spring of 2000, after SmartCAM went out of business, I started representing GibbsCAM and SolidWorks. I have been using these packages ever since.
During the “dark ages of manufacturing” in the U.S., my wife and I started Leather Apron Club, Incorporated. When it was announced that the U.S.A. dropped from the #1 manufacturing leader in the world to #3, I took it personal and got extremely angry. I studied what our forefathers did when faced with despotic oppression, and I wanted to do what Ben Franklin did in 1727. He started a mutual improvement group of local merchants and citizens to help the community grow. All the merchants that were part of this group wore leather aprons, so they became known as the Leather Apron Club. We started Leather Apron Club, Inc. in 2013 to try to help revive manufacturing in our community, and America. In 2014 I took a full-time job as Honda Aircraft Company’s Research and Development machine shop’s senior machinist and programmer. I was forced to take this job for the health benefits due to oppressive and illegal new law that penalized me for not using the correct heath care.
In 2017, as manufacturing started picking up, I started reaching out through Facebook groups to see if there was anything I could help with. I found a Cuban Immigrant, Lazaro, that wanted to work his way up through the CNC machine shop world by learning GibbsCAM to use at this current job. His entrepreneurial spirit was infectious. He paid $35 per hour, for two hours, almost every Sunday for close to two years. He worked his way up through his shop from CNC operator to head programmer and earned the job he wanted. Now, he has learned enough to join Leather Apron Club and help support our GibbsCAM customers that have 3 axis machining centers and CNC Lathes.
In the same time period, I had the great fortune of meeting a Silicon Valley shop owner named Jose. I started slowly with Jose, supplying a few programs every week to supplement my income. HondaJet paid well and had excellent benefits, so I wasn’t looking to expand LAC during the first year with Jose. In 2019 I decided I wanted to retire at 59 ½, so I started feeding programs to a few shops in San Jose, Ca. while working full-time at HondaJet. With the help of my friends, and the good fortune of manufacturing making a grand turn around, I started doing well enough to expand and let Leather Apron Club move forward.
I consider myself retired at just over 59-years-old, and life has been one blessing after another. In retirement, we are providing opportunities to help people around the world, thanks to modern technology. We hired a local CNC manufacturing entrepreneur with 15 years’ experience. He was looking for an opportunity to use his skill from the Philippines and I was looking for a person with his skill set that could cover my business efficiently from an opposite time zone so LAC can provide 24-hour service. We were introduced through a mutual friend, who has also joined our programming team, and have been working side-by-side to fulfil our mutual goals.
It has been a great journey watching the birth and continuous improvement of PCs and CNCs from 1974 until the present. I would not pick a different time in history to have been born even if I were given the chance. I have been able to enjoy the challenges of a great industry. I have taken the calculated risk time and again. I love to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I have never cowered before any master nor bent to any threat. My Italian grandparents came to America through Ellis Island in 1908 and 1911, my grandfather came first with his friend from Sicily. He started a business and prepared for his family to arrive and be given a chance at the American dream. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid, to think and act for myself. It has been a privilege to enjoy the benefits of my creations. At just over 59-years-old I can stand in front of the world and say “this, with God’s help, I have done.” I have lived as a true American and have been blessed to have a part of the American dream.
Now, in retirement, I want to step up the pace with connecting the best programmers in the world with any machine shop that has access to the internet. Technology has finally provided a cost-effective way for small shop owners to have the same advantage as the large corporations, without the cost. Instead of needing to go through the same process to hire a new programmer, we can now provide a team of world-class programmers that have no learning curve, no overhead cost, and no 40-hour commitment. I can finally fulfill the commitment I made to help the worldwide community of manufacturing, and I feel truly blessed.