Why am I nostalgic for the good old days in computing, and becoming a mISV is my way to go back to the future.

I started way back with a 8086 with 640KB of RAM and a 10MB HDD and later I upgraded to a 286 with 1MB (a whole megabyte). The operating system was PC DOS and MS DOS if I remember correctly; no windows yet and no fancy graphics.
The most sophisticated applications I had, were Harvard Graphics (something like Corel Draw) and Norton Commander (I still miss it).
No internet yet – at least public, just some BBS (bulletin board systems) emerging.

Why am I recalling all these???

• Because, I won’t forget how many times I disassembled my PC just to see how everything works and put it back together again (I’ve done that about 20 times).
• Because, I won’t forget the thrill and excitement I had when I found out that there was an “Undelete File” function in ‘PC Tools’.
• Because, I won’t forget how pioneering I found the idea of “hyperlinks” (remember no HTML yet). I could click on a word in a document and be transferred to another one. Wow!!!

Later, as years passed by, we moved from BBS to the first internet browser. DOS gave in to Windows, everybody started to click on a mouse and learn that having multiple applications running at the same time was soooo cool.

The excitement level was at its highest.

Playing with Windows 3.1 (mostly fixing settings) was so much fun and I replaced VisiCalc with Excel (what do you mean I don’t have to press F9 to re-calculate?). MS Word replaced WordPerfect and I learn Corel Draw. Somewhere there I started programming using Turbo Pascal 6; yes, back then we programmed in text mode on an 80×25 characters screen matrix. Delphi 1.0 and its visual designer was a milestone for me. I could drag and drop a button into a form, where before I needed 1000 lines of code to do the same.

There were so many new things to explore. I’ve been spending hours in front of the monitor. I remember my then girlfriend – now wife – had to get between me and the monitor for me to notice her. I’m lucky she’s still with me.

Now, after all these years in computing and programming and after working with so many new technologies, I can’t get the same feeling like those days.
I can’t get the sense of great achievement anymore, the feeling of discovering something so great like a treasure in a hidden chest.

Don’t rush to say: get an interesting job. I’ve created some great applications in the past years; I wasn’t totally bored.

I’ve designed and programmed a multilingual search engine with features even the big search engines didn’t have back then. One of them was using a spell checker to suggest keywords to the user (not just corrected keywords, but also related to the original search). My manager initially rejected my idea and when Google implemented it a few months later (still looking for the “rat” ), she realized the value of it. Because of my experience in search engine applications a recruiter from Microsoft called me once for a position at MSN search.

….

Now, down to my point of going back to the future by moving to mISV these are the reasons why I believe I’ll get back that old days feeling:

• Making my own decisions.
  This is not the usual “I want to be the boss”. No. It has to do with the belief that I have good ideas but it’s so hard to pass them up the corporate ladder for reasons everybody knows. This fact aggravates me. I hate when good ideas are wasted because of corporate politics.That of course, has its downsides too. If I make the wrong decision, I’ll found it a bit late after the idea is implemented. But, that’s what the community is for; help me in the way.
• Sense of achievement.
  It may sounds bad, but I love to hear compliments. I like to hear positive comments and get credit for a good work.I’m not looking to be the next Bill Gates (is it too late for that, right?), but I like when people recognize me.It makes me feel proud to know some companies out there, doing well using my applications. I believe, it’s moral after all.So if I try hard, I may get recognition for my work from the community one day.
• Financial freedom.
  I’ve been blessed of earning good money from my profession even at the worst times of the industry. So, it’s not totally about money. And no, I’m not looking to be a millionaire (I put this on the title because it sounded good).
  My philosophy of financial freedom is one:
  The more I work the better I’m compensated. My financial success or failure will not depend on someone else’s decisions. I like to take matters on my own hands.

…

So, here I am, thinking of starting my own software business and preparing for it the best I can. I still have a lot to learn and until I get that great idea, I have some time to do my research.

Please leave your comments and tell me what you think.

I’ll keep this blog updated with more articles about my progress and ideas.