Chapter 7: A New Semester and a New Job, Part II

January, 1984, Chicago, Illinois

Thankfully, Wednesday wasn't a tough day, and I was home by 2:30pm. I had quite a bit of reading to do, so I made a pot of tea and went to the Indian room with my textbooks. About an hour later, Elyse joined me, and Julia came in shortly after her. My mind began to wander, and I realized just how much I missed having Stephie around. There wasn't much I could do about it now, except to adapt to the new reality.

As much as I liked and wanted a constant companion, there really wasn't one available, nor did I want to get into a steady relationship. I already had to deal with Sofia's impending arrival in six months, not to mention Karin's visit in less than a month. I remembered, though, that if things had gone as I'd once planned, Kara would have become my fiancée and would have been living with me.

The problem with that thought was it would have meant the end of things with Jennifer, and I was singularly glad Jennifer and I seemed to have found a way forward. I needed to discuss everything with someone and was glad that Anala would be with me on Friday. I missed talking to her, but that really couldn't be helped because of the holidays and my other visitors.

After dinner, I let the girls know that I was going to the sauna, and they were welcome to join me if they wanted to. Jackie, Cindi, and Elyse all took me up on the offer, but Julia and Katy said they had homework to do. I wondered if it might not be a good idea to sit in the sauna, or maybe just take a whirlpool bath after work, if it was going to be as intense as it was on Tuesday every day.

"Are we doing a Super Bowl party?" Cindi asked.

"I don't see why not," I said. "It's Oakland versus the Redskins, and I don't think any of us are fans of the teams, but we could certainly have a party."

"Cool!" Cindi exclaimed. "Mind if I arrange it?"

"Not at all," I agreed. "I'm going to be really busy this semester, so by all means!"

"Whose turn is it to do the shopping this week?" Cindi asked.

"Mine," Elyse said. "Just put stuff on the list. I assume it comes from the house budget, Steve?"

"Yes. When I worked out the rent, I figured in some extra for parties, the bar, that kind of stuff, so you could all get your parents to write one check and not worry about nickel-and-diming them."

"Cool. Too bad we can't use the grill," Elyse said.

"It's Winter in Chicago!" Jackie laughed. "And the forecast for next week is brutal. Below zero temps!"

"Eduardo is going to die, I think," Elyse laughed. "It doesn't get anywhere near that cold in Sevilla or Cádiz!"

"But at least it gets cold in Spain occasionally!" Cindi chimed in with a chuckle. "Jorge's the one who's going to be a walking icicle — if he can move at all! He was saying that a cold snap in Puerto Rico is when it drops down below 70°F!"

"He's back? How is he?" I asked.

"Depressed," Cindi answered with a sigh, leaning back, her breasts heaving. "I saw him today. He did not have a Merry Christmas at all."

"Really? What happened?"

Cindi shrugged sadly, "The girl he went with to his Prom, and who he was pining for, was 8-months pregnant when he saw her, and no one had warned him about it. And then the one he started going with over the Summer had broken up with him just before he came to Chicago, saying they should play the field, already has a new steady boyfriend."

"Well, that sucks!" Elyse said.

"Will he be around?" I asked.

"I did invite him to come around on Saturday to study. At least I can straighten out his mind," Cindi said.

"His mind? I think you want another part of him straightened out!"

"As always, your mind is in the gutter," Cindi laughed, then added, "Right where it belongs!"

"Sorry to change the subject away from Jorge," Jackie said, "but Eduardo's leaving after this semester, isn't he?"

"He is," Elyse said. "It's just one of those things nobody can do anything about. It's not as if he should turn down his chance to go to Wharton, and even if he did, he's going back to Spain and I do not see living in Spain in my future. I'm a simple girl with simple tastes. Ask Steve — that was always my concern with him — he's complicated; I'm simple. His life is lived on the edge; mine is lived in the comfort of a safe place. The strange thing is, I've discovered that Steve can provide my safe place while living his life like a crazy man!"

Jackie nodded, "That's probably the best way to describe why I like living here. Well, besides the obvious fringe benefits," she giggled. "Being around Steve is just safe. The house is fun, but it's like a refuge from the world. Even on Sundays, when everyone's here to relax and have a good time, it's quiet, safe, and fun."

"I agree," Cindi said. "I'm probably the craziest person here, and I feel safe around him. Heck, that's why Katy's here, even though she has her stupid internal struggle about having him fuck her brains out."

"Cindi," I warned gently.

"Sorry. She's not here. Don't worry."

"Even so. Let's leave Katy alone on the topic, please. Jackie, is Jeremiah going to be here this weekend?"

"Yes. I saw him on campus. That little jerk breezed through his finals like he was out for a Sunday stroll!"

We all laughed, and I asked, "Isn't first semester pretty easy? And he'd be the last person I'd call little! He's 6′2″!"

"True," she nodded. "He didn't even work up a sweat. I asked him if I could sit in on his presentation and he agreed. He was calm, cool, collected, and had an answer ready for every question. Oh, and his drawing was nothing short of brilliant. I'm jealous!"

"There's an easy answer for that one, Jackie," I said. "Start a firm and make him your partner!"

"Lend me the money when I graduate and I'll do it!" she declared. "But in all seriousness, I need to work for a firm, obtain my license, and have some experience under my belt before I do that. But whoever hires me, I'm going to make damn sure they hire Mr. Jeremiah Brown!"

"Steve, are you considering starting your own company when you graduate?" Cindi asked.

"It's possible, why?"

"I'd work for you in a heartbeat. So would Dave, Julia, and Katy. You really should think about it. You've done enough consulting and already have some good clients in those unions. You could parlay that into something pretty big."

"I'd need a ton of money to start something like that if I was going to pay you all decent salaries while we got started."

"Maybe. If we were living here, then maybe not. You know, room and board as part of our pay at first? And a percentage of the profits?"

"That could work, Steve," Elyse added. "If you issued shares of stock to yourself and the others, plus paid them a nominal salary, and let them live here. With the money you said you could borrow, that would work."

"You all are getting WAY ahead of the game! Let's worry about that when graduation gets closer!"

"Just think about it," Cindi suggested.

"I will," I agreed.

It actually wasn't a bad idea. My sister had encouraged it, as had several others. I could borrow money from both Don Joseph and my dad, and I already had a decent income just from the four union contracts, not to mention quite a bit of money in the bank, even after paying my tuition and spending money on the house. It certainly was something to consider. At some point, I'd talk to Doctor Bauer about it, and get his advice as well.

When we finished in the sauna, I went up to my bathroom to shower and chuckled when Elyse walked into the bathroom and dropped her robe. She stepped into the shower with me.

"Is it safe here?" she asked with a sly smile.

"That depends on what you mean by safe! Certain parts of your body are NOT safe from me when you're standing that close in the shower!"

Elyse laughed, "You know damn well you can have any or all of them anytime you want. You never ask, though, which confuses me sometimes."

"Why? This is on your terms, just as it is for Jackie, or anyone else for that matter. Hell, when Stephie was living with me, we had sex on her schedule, not mine. And that's fine. It's not as if I'm lacking for intimate company," I chuckled.

"True!" she said.

We finished rinsing off the sweat and after we dried off, we climbed into my bed. We made love and then I held Elyse in my arms while we fell asleep.

On Thursday morning at Nuvatec, I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at my desk. I spent the next two hours going through the code with a fine-tooth comb and finally hit on a way to save the required bytes in ROM. I got a fresh printout of the code and marked up the changes, and took that and my coding sheet for the 'battery backup' function in to Scott.

"I think I have it," I said.

"Let me have a look," he said, taking the 'green bar' printout of the code and the coding sheet.

About five minutes later, he looked up and said, "OK. Now you get to fix the code, then test it out on the prototype hardware in the lab. Rick Thiele will spend some time with you on the PDP-11 and show you how to burn the code to EEPROM once you cross-assemble it."

"I'll probably need the same cheat-sheet that Dave had for Unix and vi," I said. "I'm only passingly familiar with Unix."

"OK. Go see Rick and he'll get you set up. And thanks. I won my bet."

"Bet?"

"I bet Doctor Bauer that you'd solve this by the end of today. I think I'm right!"

"He bet against me?" I asked, incredulous.

"Oh no, not at all!" Scott laughed. "He bet you'd solve it before you went home on Tuesday!"

"He was close. If I could have done the 'battery backup' code with one less instruction, I would have had it. Who won if it was after today?"

"The money would go to charity," Scott said with a smile.

"Well, if I'd have known that, then I might have waited until next Tuesday!"

"I'm glad I didn't tell you. In any event, go find Rick and he'll get you set up with a login and show you what you need to know."

I walked to the office where Rick was and he pointed me to a terminal and gave me a login ID and password, then handed me a 'cheat sheet' for vi and another for Unix commands. He talked me through loading up the editor, then showed me how to invoke the cross-assembler, and finally, how to burn the resulting object file to the EEPROM.

I worked until lunch and managed to get the code rearranged. Dave and I went to the same sub shop for lunch as we had the previous week, and when we returned, I keyed in my new code. I saved everything, ran the cross-assembler, put the EEPROM into the burner, and ran the program that would send the object file to the burner. Five minutes later, a light on the burner came on and I removed the chip and walked back to the prototype lab.

One of the engineers, Paul Huber, came over to help. He showed me how to insert the chip into the socket and turn on the prototype, which was built into a briefcase.

"What's with the briefcase?" I asked.

"It makes it portable. We close it up, and then we can take it to Spartus for the demo."

"Cool," I said.

"OK," Paul said. "You need to run through the full set of tests. Do everything on the first page, then set up the battery test for overnight."

I flipped the power switch, and the LEDs came on, flashing '12:00'. I set the time, set the alarm and then waited for the two minutes until the alarm went off. I pressed the snooze button, silencing the alarm, and the LED indicating snooze came on. So far, so good. Ten minutes later, the alarm rang again.

"Damn. Off by one error!" I said, pressing the button again. "Let's see if it takes ten minutes again."

Nine minutes later, the alarm went off as it should have.

"Well, crap. I wonder what went wrong. Computers can't make errors like THAT! And I didn't change that code."

Paul laughed, and we looked at the code printout. I didn't see anything wrong, but after a minute or so, he nodded.

"Steve, what's the value of the RAM location when it starts counting the input line that measures electrical cycles?"

"Zero," I said.

"Really?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

I looked again. There was code that set the counter to zero AFTER the alarm rang, but it never initialized the RAM location. So it would work correctly every time except for the very first time the alarm was powered on. The first time would, effectively, be random, because RAM wasn't initialized at the start.

"Does this hardware have a way to initialize all the RAM to zero?" I asked.

"No. That would make it cost too much. You have room on this code page here to initialize the memory location in the startup routine. You only need two instructions. It looks like that bug was there before you even started."

"It was. Let me make the change and burn a new copy onto an EEPROM."

I went back to my desk and added the commands to clear the accumulator and store the accumulator to RAM, which was the only way to get a zero into the RAM location. Ten minutes later, I was back in the lab and ran the test again. This time, it worked properly.

"Looks good. Now that you have that bug out of the way, run through all the tests as we discussed, then unplug the unit so the battery will run overnight. We can check in the morning. You had to create a timing loop rather than detecting cycles from line power, so it's going to be off a bit. If the clock is within five minutes, we're good. If it's off by more than that, either increase or decrease the limit of your counter to get it in range."

"It doesn't need to be exact?" I asked.

"It can't be. The temperature of the chip can affect the timing loop, along with a bunch of other factors. We consider five minutes in a situation where the main power is out to be a reasonable compromise. We could go with a chip with better tolerances, but the cost would be too high for this $12.00 clock."

I ran through the rest of the tests and everything worked correctly. I had an hour before the end of the day, so I decided that I'd do a quick test of the battery backup routine and see how much time it gained or lost over the course of thirty minutes. That way I could tweak it before I went home if need be.