BT had just bought Tymnet and we were sent to find out the technical details of their network.
I remember the visit had to get approval from someone high up in BT. This eventually happened on the day I needed to travel so I had to rush home and then get to Heathrow. I only just got the flight with minutes to spare. They bumped me up to first class so I could walk on with my luggage. I think I spent the first week at the Tymnet office in Cupertino, California then flew down to the McDonnell Douglas factory in Orange County. |
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| Derek Watson arrived for the second week at the McDonnell Douglas factory. |  |
| Because it had been bought by BT the Tymnet people working at the McDonnell Douglas factory were being made redundant. It could have been really awkward working with them but they were really nice guys and accepted the situation |  |
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I seem to remember that the "engine nodes" were old inefficient hardware based on mini-computers. They did have a more modern "TURBO engine node" in development based on the Motorola 68000 family. However they did not have the software for it so the plan was to emulate the old hardware using the 68000 instruction set. I wonder how that worked out! |
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| On our day off Derek and me drove down the coast to Mexico. |  |
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