Accounting System Port

Porting an Accounting System

In 1985, whilst I was working at La Maison de l'ordinateur, there was a programmer working for them, Réal Désilets, and he gave a contract to port a complete accounting system, written in Microsoft Basic, from a CP/M computer (that was about to break down) to an IBM PC/AT machine under MS-DOS.

The IBM Personal Computer AT, more commonly known as the IBM AT and also sometimes called

Picture: The IBM PC/AT.

the PC AT or PC/AT, was IBM's second-generation PC, designed around the 6 MHz Intel 80286 microprocessor and released in 1984 as System Unit 5170. The name AT stood for "Advanced Technology", and was chosen because the AT offered various technologies that were then new in personal computers; one such advancement was that the 80286 processor supported protected mode. IBM later released an 8 MHz version of the AT (c.f. picture).

Anyway, it was an easy job for me to do and I was well paid to do it.

Something worth noting: The user interface of the program was in German, because the mother company was based in Germany. So, I have learned a few accounting terms in German schnell (i.e. rapidly).