Kurt Larson

                                                               The work I performed for the

                                                            National Head Injury Foundation

In December of 1984 I found myself on the top floor of the Danforth Museum in downtown Framingham writing up address change slips that were being forwarded to a data processing company 'cps' where their data entry operators would enter the change into the membership/mailing list.  This was the membership/mailing list of the National Head Injury Foundation.  There were about 16,000 individual records on this list.  Many members were individuals who had contacted the NHIF and received support and direction at some point.  Other members were professional caregivers of every kind that may have come in contact with the NHIF at a conference or symposium.  Some members would donate more than just their annual membership.  Some folks were just one time donors.  Some were memorial donations and some were large donors.  There were lifetime members that you would never disgrace by sending them an annual billing.  Legislators, agencies and their representatives, families and friends were all a part of their membership/mailing list.  Each record had a FAmily, PRofessional, AGency two digit code and a corresponding numeric between 01-99 to indicate the type of agency/professional/family member it was.  Some were not members that would receive appeals to become a donor or member.  In addition to membership codes 01-06,LM (02 was the only nonmember code) the joining month/year was important as it would be on that annual cycle for the next years membership dues.  The list I was using from 'cps' had about 4-6 records per 8x11 page that were in binders.  There was also a national/state code that indicated if the member was involved with a state association.

But there was another member/list 'nhif' that had been generated on a line printer at Honeywell Inc. Billerica/Waltham.  The 'nhif' list had all member/donors of about 3,300.  Some of the address corrections I was making slips for needed to be done at Honeywell.  I learned that Honeywell was very committed to helping the NHIF get a system in order.  There was also at Honeywell a 14,000 non/member 02 'infoml' database of records that needed to be accessed.  Honeywell had donated these dual floppy disk drive cathode ray tube infowriters that had allowed the NHIF to input records that had been transferred to Honeywell.  Most of the member/mailing list that was new for 1984 had been input on infowriters.  The 'cps' list had records from 1981-1983. 

I interviewed with Jim Bueche, Honeywell Director of PC Operations, who welcomed me to come to Billerica/Waltham to meet his current 6-month intern Robert Collins, who was working on the project.  He showed me access to the Rex database software where the 'nhif' 'infoml' records could be accessed.  He was learning the Rex command language that I soon became familiar with.  Bob had designed some update screens, had run some error reports, and was working on the page printing commands troubleshooting report formats.  At Honeywell Waltham I worked from a dedicated NHIF office that was amidst their MIS section.  The 'cps' list was in the process of being transferred to Honeywell as well. 

I contacted my friend Tom Glencross who lived downtown Framingham and whom I had worked with previously at Cushing Hospital 1979-1982.  He had been a secretary to a general and was a total theatre buff.  The annual membership billing was being hand typed from index cards by the comptroller's husband at home.  So with Tom in the NHIF Framingham Office and myself at Honeywell Waltham, we were able to coordinate a system that greatly benefited the NHIF.

It took me three months to get familiar with the database commands.  While I was updating and errorlisting the 'nhif' 'infoml' and 'cps' databases I kept testing out write/read commands until I had matched up all the elements correctly from one base to another and one time in late March 1985 on a Saturday morning I went in with my latest idea and test merged all the files together.  I alerted my co-worker Nancie Longo who had been working on the membership/mailing list before me and was training and assisting employees using the Honeywell infowriters at NHIF Framingham. It was immediately the next Monday April 1985 Jim Bueche came into my office with a full scale elemental outline that I used to make up the Master database.  Jim also had written a couple of programs in basic that took the database output files and converted it into a format so I could print 4-across sticky or cheshire  labels on feeding forms as well as 1-across labels that printed billing renew information. Jim was there to match up the output programs and determine which printers/printing rooms were best to use.  We verified together and saw that the routing commands were correct and the output was printed as expected.  Bob his intern had gone on to apply the Rex software towards tracking some Honeywell inventory problem.  He was transferring to Phoenix for the next phase of his training. 

The Honeywell infowriters the NHIF were using for records processing were available also to the State Associations in remaining quantity.  Documentation was needed to instruct the procedures as Nancie Longo was getting more frequent calls about it.  The documentation I wrote was approved by Honeywell and sent out.

From Honeywell Billerica, there was Tom Cusson, who converted the new infowriter membership/donor/maillist files and transferred them to Waltham for me to access.  

April 1, 1985    NHIF Honeywell catalog and sample commands   ------     April 1, 1985

I did not just append files to the Master Database.  There were some considerations with the elemental outline Jim Bueche (boo'shay) presented.

Any group of records that were destined for the master base were first read into a preparation base where i could execute rex count commands that would quickly let me know if there was any extraneous data.  I could clean up the name type 3 prefixes so there would be no error on read in.  Also the same for states and codes would be verified.  I would then write out and read it into a null mirror image of the main base where i would add a record source code and date added as well as replacing/transferring some other codes to more appropriate elements.   When i knew it was clean and set to go there was always a flawless append into the mainbase. 

The software allowed only for a single user to be updating a base at a time so i was making all of the address changes, membership updates etc.  The update3 abbrev. was the command for the most used update screen.  It queried on first and last name which was fine for the most part.  Other records were accessed by street or organization elements.  Sometimes you would need to get the actual item# to locate a particular record.  When records were brought up on the update screen every effort was made to make each record as complete and up-to-date as possible.  If there was more than 1 record with the same query info it would show up on the bottom of the screen that there were 2 or more items found.  Duplicates were removed, codes updated, suffix's attached to the last name element were moved to the suffix element, extended address lines were uniformly shortened etc. 

It took me a couple days to adapt to the new elemental listing, create the master add bases, and put them together.  I had prepared the most recent files from Tom Cusson for the 7 master add bases needed for proper conversion.

My friend Tom Glencross in the Framingham NHIF office had procured the national and state membership information from Ann Gordon.  The state members were on yellow index cards sorted alphabetically by state.  The national members were on blue index cards sorted alphabetically by month.  Since the mainbase was now a reality i printed off a membership list for national members (e45=NA and e46=01;03;07;1f) and were first-month may (e55=5) for Tom to check.  We found that the cards and the mainbase listing were very correct.  The only instances that i ever made single record additions to the mainbase were when there was an older membership that somehow was not there like it should have been.

The member-status element (e47) was now in use as it would be a 'c' if the current years dues were paid.  After Tom's checking and my updating i printed off the May billing labels on April 24 along with a June printout.  I met with Jim Bueche on April 30th to run the newsletter and annual report mailing labels. 

  mainbase output list                              April 1985                       May 1985                      June 1985

Honeywell had provided me with all the necessary components for this membership billing mailing label list system to operate.  The rex base software was a powerful inter-relational database structure where you could cross query values for all needed elements for all records in a matter of a few seconds.  The result of a query would be run through the appropriate command for the intended application.  If it was destined for label output it needed to be edited so that it could be run through the correct Basic program for either four-across or 1-across with billing renewal month.  That output list was the file that needed to be J-printed to the correct printer or bin you were going to use.  So you would take some pressure sensitive labels with you if that was what you were printing and head down to the printer room.  I had some markings on the bar lever that held the paper mounts, on my favorite printer to use, that allowed me to correctly set up the forms to feed correctly.  The output lead banner would print first and use up about 10 pages of the print paper.  If you paused the output at just the precise moment, you would be correctly lined up to insert the sticky labels just as they were about to print.  This worked very well.  The newsletter of about 13,000 cheshire (4-across on regular continuous form paper) took about 45 minutes to print. 

               more detail on the larger mainbase output

I would schedule most printing jobs for early evening after Honeywell's normal business hours when most of the place went dark and there were maybe some computer operators doing tape backups in the computer room that was on the other side of the glass from the printer i was using.  There were many Honeywell employees I could contact if any problem or need should arise.  Many had volunteered time for the NHIF in the past.  Perry Bent was only a few offices away and always had a few moments to check something out for me.  Bill Bream of systems control seemed to always be present whenever there was a connection issue.  Occasionally the terminals would need an individual boot to get them going. 

On Thursday May 23rd i attended a small computer presentation at the IBM showroom at Copley Place.  They were showing a membership/maillist type program/system that could handle up to 2000 records and started at about 150K to purchase.  There were no features that would allow you to query and retrieve records the way I could at Honeywell.  These pre-packaged systems to me had very limited capabilities but they do try to cover all the bases in one way or another and may be totally perfect for someone with a small list.  Unless you have command control access like with Rex, or know and have access to reprogramming the fundraising software, you are totally at the mercy of some software vendor and how they may be able customize their product for you.

May 15, 1985   Full Report from Jim Bueche        --------   May 15, 1985

Nancie Longo had been with the NHIF for sometime before me.  She had been with them at the Jonathan Maynard school building i think in 1983 which is where i went to elementary school 1966-1971.  She had good computer skills as she had shown me how the infowriters worked and instructed me on how the membership/maillist system worked.  There was a lot to take care of on the Framingham side of the system.  There were the new memberships from the states and new nationals that would be tallied at the end of the month for a 60/40 payback in the states favor.  Not every state had an active organization.  The new membership records were entered on the infowriters and the records were verified via printed lists and the payback lists would be sorted out as thankyou labels and cards were printed.  The new donors and memorials were handled separately.  There were hundreds of mailing list entries coming from the Family Services department who daily printed out their own lists for the states and labels for callers to receive educational and/or informative materials based on their particular need.  Nancie was responsible for preparing the inforwriter diskettes that were transported to Tom Cusson in Billerica for conversion.  

The technical support that Nancie Longo provided to keep everyone's machine up and running was ongoing as the infowriters did breakdown and need parts replaced or interchanged.  Honeywell provided support at the Framingham office occasionally to help fix up and maintain what was functioning. 

In addition to these tasks Nancie also was to be my back-up at Honeywell.  On some days she would come to the Waltham office to learn what i had done and do some records updates.  After updating and hiding records for deletion for a period of time you would copy the database to remove items and reset the pointers to maximize it's efficiency.  I would show her as much as she could absorb at any given time.  We had the same goal to make everything as meticulously correct as we could. 

Tom Glencross and i had done a remarkable job keeping up with the membership billing task.  We got ahead of the current month and were able to do re-bills for jan thru april.  Word was out that our system was working and WPA (western pennsylvania) now to be distinguished from EPA (eastern pennsylvania) wanted us to do their membership billing.  We were successfully able to verify with their lists and cards and add them to our billing cycle which would include a second and third re-bill every couple months.  Georgia joined on soon as well.

    ....mainbase output list.......                    July 1985                    August 1985            September 1985

The rex base software on the MV6000 mainframe allowed me to do many jobs that could take up a lot of time if it were not for this system.  When working on the Billing membership it came up that we were not to bill national members in certain southern california zip codes.  So i found that that subset of members had null (e57) member-types.  Rather than type out the (not e19=90002 to whatever it was) in every billing abbrev. i put an 'X1' in the member-type element and would exclude it like 'LM'.  I would also remember to special add the 'X1' to any new-member adds that would be appended on to the mainbase.  But as i was the single user to expedite the process i was able to make these kinds of alterations and always make it work. Tom and Nancie were always informed and i often called them so that we made many decisions together on the way to handle special coding and such.  To maintain the mainbase integrity so that the current work flow would proceed as planned was my first concern.  There were going to be massive address changes from the maillist '02' appeal as the entire base was sent out the current newsletter.  This was the first big mailing using the full mainbase that was really going to help us clean up that large '02' portion of the list.

It was time now to address the issue of getting new PC systems for the Framingham Office that would replace the existing infowriters.  The next step of  the plan was to input new memberships onto a new PC and then I was going to be able to take PC diskettes with the output files and tran them myself at my convenience up to the level 66 in waltham.  This would end the MOD400 conversion process that Tom Cusson needed to go through every few weeks with the infowriter diskettes.  There was a meeting on Sept 12 with Tom Cusson, Jim Bueche, Marilyn Price Spivack, Nancie Longo, and myself that planned a strategy to be off the MOD400 conversion process by the end of the year.  On Sept 17 i was at Honeywell Billerica to run through some PC tutorial discs and the next day i learned that Nancie Longo was leaving and her last day was Friday Sept 20th.

I felt the burden of Nancie's job coming over me as i knew it was not going to be fun to oversee and do her workflow until a replacement could be found.  Now I needed to spend many days in Framingham seeing to these tasks.  I had felt the burden of the mainbase come over me one day last spring while driving on trapelo road.  Thanks to Tom and others like Marilyn Rosenburg we were able to successfully get the input,lists,disks,labels,tally's,paybacks done in time.  I made swings to waltham and was able to keep up with the new C-add bases from the most recent files from Tom Cusson.  We were able to keep up with the billing/rebilling and label production but the update/changes would have to wait.  I made a trip to sears business center then on rt 9 east natick to check out the probable PC to get.  There was board meeting info that needed to be gathered.  Tom and I attended the Board Meeting on Oct 26 at the Park Plaza where I addressed the Board and attendees, mostly state association representatives, of our mainbase accomplishments to a good round of applause. 

I did not make the call to the newspaper to run the help ad for a data entry computer specialist.  The best person for the job was Jon Melamut. He started on Oct 31 and we spent a couple of days in Framingham going over membership/infowriter procedures.  Then we spent a day at Honeywell waltham getting his security badge and introducing him to that environment.  Later that week i picked up an IBM PC XT and an IBM proprinter from sears.  This was the same PC i had studied on in Billerica.  PCDOS, 8088 processor, 10 MB hard drive, and a 5-1/4" floppy drive.  We mail ordered Dbase, a PC database program, and Multimate, a PC wordprocessing program, and an AST memory extension card. 

Dbase was a database software for PC that was similar to Rex.  You could define some input field types and type edit and start entering records. Or you could write a program to create an input screen that was customized for you.  You could physically sort the file but usually you would define different index files that would be set on appropriately to accommodate the need.  Dbase databases needed to be opened (use databasename.dbf), sorted (index on zip + lname + co to ziplnamedx.ndx), run thru programs to print (membprint.prg), run thru programs for labels (newmembers.lbl), and exported to create output files (NovMemb.txt) that could be taken to Honeywell waltham for conversion into the mainbase. 

Jon was very helpful in setting up the new PC.  He knew how to set up the .init and registry files, make the directories and set up the system paths correctly.  You had to do all that stuff yourself in those days.  We spent some time together developing programs that adapted all the needs of the membership/donor/maillist input/output stream to the PC.  I was a good programmer and Jon was a good programmer.  We were one minded on what needed to be done.  When the november input was done we took the files to waltham to upload them ourselves and create the new format PC add bases. 

......mainbase output list........             October 1985                November 1985                 December 1985

...............more detail on larger mainbase output..........

At this point Jon alerted me that it was asking too much of him to be capable of backing up my position at Honeywell.  There was just too much to know and be familiar with that was way beyond the systems in Framingham.   To be responsible for the infowriters, PC's, coordinating the monthly membership input and lists, programming dbase, and then to add all the procedures and responsibilities of the mainbase application at Honeywell is a lot to absorb.  Jon was working for a $5 data entry hourly wage.  About a year earlier I was hired for a $6.50 data entry hourly wage by Marilyn Spivack who said she saw long term growth potential.  I worked for a temporary office agency for 3 months so that NHIF did not need to pay them a placement fee. 

The new PC add bases were a success.  It was much better now to have full control of the upload process.  I just needed to spend a few hours in the evenings to oversee the transfer of the membership/maillist/donor files when I could have uninterrupted access to a particular PC. 

There was a need to continue the PC upgrading process in framingham.  A couple more PCs with 286 chips and 20mg drives with good forms tractor type printers were purchased directly from NEC.  Carol Underwood, an executive at NEC, was the special contact person at NEC who was able to set us up with these computers.  I never worked directly with her but I saw her come into the office on several occasions to offer what ever help was needed.  Jon Melamut had taken on the responsibility for the set up of the new PCs.  When I came back from my duties at Honeywell Jon had the new PCs set up and running.  More Dbase software was purchased and installed.  The Multimate document processing software was being introduced and test merged with dbase files. 

We were asked to write up our Job Descriptions which were submitted to the newly hired Director of Operations.

When i came to the NHIF in december 1984 i was sitting at a desk in the mail room that had stacks of materials everywhere.  There was a postage meter next to the windows that faced union avenue.

 It was a very busy room that handled all the incoming and outgoing mail.  In the corner was a closed off section where Ann Gordon, the comptroller had her office. 

....to be continued......