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20 years ago [1]
Dec. 25th, 2019 01:55 pmAll NDAs have expired, so I can start a diary with 20 years delay.
I started working as a full time software engineer in November 1999. The product I was working on was supposed to be a VOIP phone, to be shown at CeBIT 2000. The hardware platform was set and ready, with Motorola Dragonball CPU and a DSP (I dont recall the make). In the team there were three programmers working on VOIP software, two system software engineers including myself, and a contractor who developed DSP API and driver.
During 9 months I was working on that little thing, I hacked GCC backend to produce correct code for uCLinux/Dragonball (first C, then C++ with exceptions support), implemented a watchdog, created an app to configure the phone's IP settings with DTMFs, and fixed couple of bugs in DSP driver.
I have a lot of respect for the Mera management, who invested a lot of money to this product development, and although it was not commercial success, some bits from this project ended up in other more successful products. Alas these bits that survived were not platform related, so all my work had quickly perished.
It was a great experience: I could use unlimited internet at work, and some times I stayed there at night. The team was great and I am still in touch with two of my teammates (both moved to US).
My salary was $200 first, quickly raised to $300. (That was a lot of money for a student in Nizhny Novgorod, 1999/2000). E.g renting a good one bedroom apartment was ~$100.
I started working as a full time software engineer in November 1999. The product I was working on was supposed to be a VOIP phone, to be shown at CeBIT 2000. The hardware platform was set and ready, with Motorola Dragonball CPU and a DSP (I dont recall the make). In the team there were three programmers working on VOIP software, two system software engineers including myself, and a contractor who developed DSP API and driver.
During 9 months I was working on that little thing, I hacked GCC backend to produce correct code for uCLinux/Dragonball (first C, then C++ with exceptions support), implemented a watchdog, created an app to configure the phone's IP settings with DTMFs, and fixed couple of bugs in DSP driver.
I have a lot of respect for the Mera management, who invested a lot of money to this product development, and although it was not commercial success, some bits from this project ended up in other more successful products. Alas these bits that survived were not platform related, so all my work had quickly perished.
It was a great experience: I could use unlimited internet at work, and some times I stayed there at night. The team was great and I am still in touch with two of my teammates (both moved to US).
My salary was $200 first, quickly raised to $300. (That was a lot of money for a student in Nizhny Novgorod, 1999/2000). E.g renting a good one bedroom apartment was ~$100.
