1983
Leaving Harris Word Processing
In early summer my old boss Elias, who initially brought me to Melbourne, called me and asked if I was interested in a new contract with another division of Harris he had just got. Harris Corporation had six or seven divisions in the Melbourne area, while the Composition and Word Processing divisions were in Melbourne proper, the other divisions were in in Palm Bay which blends into the south side Melbourne. There was the Semiconductor, Computer, and several government divisions one of which had a contract with the US Air Force to develop a Satellite Data Handling System (SDHS) which used the latest computer display technology to display satellite weather images overlayed with maps and aircraft flight paths and it seemed they needed a software engineer to work on the display part of the system. When Elias told me about and seeing that the Harris Word Processing was spiraling down, I accepted Elias’s offer, resigned from Harris and went back to contracting for Elias.
I had talked the decision over with Julie and she was on board with it, not only that she also would resign from Harris and start going to college. Julie, having her daughter Anne at an early age, didn’t finish high school but focused on raising Anne but not to be deterred, she did complete the GED high school equivalency test. Julie was smart, one of the things that attracted me to her. Julie expressed a desire to get a college degree which I fully agreed with and supported. With Harris Word Processing division falling apart, it was a good time for her to do so, so she to resign and started taking classes at the community college then the University of Central Florida. So now we both were going to college, me part time, Julie full time.
With Harris buying Lanier, people begin to leave like rats on a sinking ship as they say. Alan and Susan both resigned, got married, sold their cars and condominiums and took off on an extend honeymoon on Alan’s sailboat, the same one we went to see the first shuttle launch, to sail around in the Caribbean Islands for a year. My friend Craig started a new company, Paul returned to his home in England, I don’t recall what happened to my other friends from Harris.
Updated: 07-15-2023