Tech Support Call From 1985

I received THIS request for tech support YESTERDAY …

Hi Dick,

Would you please tell me what a Code A is and how we fix it. When we try to add soy loads to one of the years we get an error message – “CODE A – Call Personal Logic”.

Thanks

The guy who wrote this email is the accountant at a Grain Dealer (they process Corn and Soybeans and Wheat).  He is the guy who replaced the guy who I sold a Lotus 1-2-3  program to a while back.

You see I sold it to my man Elgin when we were both in our early 30’s.  Elgin retired a couple of years ago so this is his replacement.  You see .. I sold them this program (which basically runs all the receiving, shipping and storage of all commodity for their Grain Elevator) IN 1985 …

Written in Lotus 1-2-3 it is a data-centric version that is actually a database program that brings data in and out of a code and forms shell.  It has all the capability to start a new year and a new commodity themselves. And they have not called me in about 2 years.  In fact no one called me for the last 10 years (there were still a couple of places using it in the last ten years) unless it was because they forgot how to do something … maybe 3 calls total.

I think I should win some kind of award for this but of course I won’t.  I never made much money on it either but frankly the stuff I learned building the app was my PHD in building reliable, maintainable, self-managing spreadsheet solutions.

Maybe my mistake has been that I build stuff to work and work and work so I don’t make enough money on support or revisions 😦

 Dick