Posts Tagged “Xetec”

In 1987 I attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago as an exhibitor. I was 20 years old, working at Xetec and we were showing off SCAD, a drafting program I wrote for the Atari ST. Attending was an awesome experience for such a youngster. I remember seeing HD video for the first time at that show, but that is unlikely. Probably what I really saw was the first ever 100″ LCD projection system which Sharp showed that year. It was still impressive for the time. I was also offered a job writing games in LA, which I considered for a while but eventually turned down.

But one ridiculously influential thing that happened during the week was that I overheard someone use the term “19-2″ as slang to describe the speed of something – and for some nerdy reason – I thought it was very cool. Who ever it was said something like “It was fast. It was like 19-2.” Now this is going to take some explanation – and even after I do my best you’ll probably still scratch your head. But let’s try.  Travel with me back in time to Michael Smith Nerd World 1987… Read… »

Employment Objective: To obtain a full time job as a computer programmer…

Read… »

ANTIC VOL. 6, NO. 8 / DECEMBER 1987 / PAGE 54:

SCADS OF CAD

The GEM-based SCAD lets you work on 16 drawings at once and is accurate to .001 inch. SCAD works on either monochrome or color and lets you save DEGAS-compatible pictures of drawings at any location or magnification. Images are exactly the same size on paper as onscreen, and you can define your page size up to 32 inches square. View controls include Zoom In, Zoom Out, Absolute Move, Ieft, Right, Up and Down. SCAD has loadable font styles, 128 user-defined line styles and 256 user-defined fill patterns. You can rotate items in .1-degree increments and enlarge or reduce them in .1% increments.

$99.95. Xetec, Inc., 2804 Arnold Road, Salina, KS 67401. (913) 827-0485, PRESS. CIRCLE 245 ON READER SERVICE CARD

This little girl has an Atari ST and a printer, but where's the monitor?

This is what I was doing 20-some years ago:  In 1985 I met John Flickenger (who owned Xetec) at an Atari users group meeting.  I set up a meeting with him and at 18 years old pitched the idea of me writing a music sequencing program for Atari ST. He passed on that idea but was very interested in a CAD program Rich White and I had written for Atari 800 while in High School. So John hired me to write a CAD program for the Atari ST. Read… »