Fifty-one years ago today, May 15 1974, First National Bank of Atlanta introduced “Tillie the All-Time Teller” ATM system. The architecture involved the integration of the bank’s mainframes, a minicomputer, and the network of ATMs. Why am I noting the 51st anniversary of the public launch of the first Docutel Total-Teller ATM system in the US? I was the lead real-time assembly language programmer for the minicomputer that sat between the ATMs and the banks mainframes. This story covers my part in the implementation software for the minicomputer as part of the launch of the bank’s ATM network.
I got my first industry job working at TRW Data Systems in El Segundo (Los Angeles) California after graduating Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA with a BS in Computer Science in June 1973. At Cal Poly, I learned Data General Nova assembly language programming in Professor Emile Attala‘s real time computer lab. The software running on minicomputers connected transactions between department store cash registers, check cashing and credit card readers and a company’s mainframe computers.
Our TRW division worked on the first US cash dispenser implementation for Chemical Bank in New York with a Data General Nova minicomputer sitting between the ATM and the bank’s mainframe computers. Later, in late 1973, I was the lead programmer for the minicomputer that sat between a Docutel Total Teller network and First National Bank’s mainframes. This ATM could handle cash dispensing, deposits and transfers. I worked on the software for months of 80+ hour work weeks in order to be ready for the hard launch date of the system.
My development environment in the TRW Data Systems lab was a Data General Nova 1200 with 8k or 16k of core memory with magnetic tape drive, a Teletype Model 33, a text editor, linker and rudimentary debugger. For additional debugging I would also put halt instructions (063077) in my code for “things that should never happen during execution”. We did not use the teletype’s paper tape punch for backing up (too long) and instead dumped the programs to magnetic tape. We would print listings on line printers and put the listings and memory dumps into large binders.
I flew to Atlanta to install the DG Nova software arriving at the bank’s headquarters in downtown Atlanta. Back in those days my work “uniform” was usually jeans or overalls and t-shirts. When I arrived at the bank’s office the security was worried about why I wanted to go to the mainframe computer room where the minicomputer was installed.
A TRW hardware engineer arrived and explained that I was a young Los Angeles software developer and was escorted to the raised floor air conditioned computer room. All of the computer room operators were wearing slacks, white shirts and ties. I spent several days sitting on the computer room floor or at a table and small chair next to the minicomputer installing the software, testing and applying patches to fix bugs. After about a week, we were ready for the launch on May 15, 1974.
So that customers would be comfortable with the ATM, the bank created a persona called “Tillie the All Time Teller Girl”. The bank created commercials with fun jingles and advertisements to introduce this new ATM banking solution. Tillie was a smiling, blue eyed character that appeared in the ads and commercials. There was even a jingle created for the marketing campaign.
The ATMs were red and gold to make them look more friendly and accessible to customers.
The ATMs the bank used were Docutel’s Total Teller, which was more than just a cash dispenser. Using the Total Teller you could get cash, make deposits and transfer between accounts. The software on the minicomputer would take the ATM transaction information, validate it, send the request to the bank’s mainframe, receive back the authorization (or denial) response and send the result back to the Total Teller.
While monitoring the minicomputer I started to get a sore throat that got progressively worse. I asked the TRW team to find me a doctor. I went to a downtown Atlanta doctor who checked me out and finally told me, in a wonderful southern accent, that I had the “kissing disease” (Mononucleosis). I finished the installation and flew back to LA for several months of recovery.
Fun fact about Tillie: the woman in the picture and the ads was the voice and sang a song about Tillie the All Time Teller. That woman later on became the voice of Siri, Susan Bennett.
Fun Fact about the Data General Nova minicomputer: all bit patterns could be instructions and data. This made debugging somewhat challenging. If a buggy piece of code ran into data with unpredictable side effects and crashes. We always hoped that somehow execution would hit a bit pattern that was also a halt instruction. We would then dump memory to tape, ask the customer’s computer operator to print out the memory dump and try to look back from the halt or stuck loop and find the transaction data.
By David Intersimone “David I” – Friday, February 14, 2025
Today we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the launch of Delphi version 1.0 on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1995, at the Software Development West Conference in San Francisco California. More that 12 years of continuous IDE, language, tools and library development led up to the launch of Delphi version 1.0.
The development of Delphi can trace some of its roots and technologies across Borland product releases including Turbo Pascal 1 (DOS and CP/M), Turbo Pascal 3 (overlays), Turbo Pascal 4 (units), Turbo Pascal 5 (integrated and standalone debugger), Turbo Pascal 5.5 (objects), Turbo Pascal for the Mac, Turbo Pascal for Windows, Borland Pascal 7 for DOS and Windows, Paradox, dBase and InterBase. While Borland Pascal 7 was available, the development team had been working for about 2 years to complete the first Delphi release (see links at the end of this article for a few of the important historical documents).
The Delphi “Sneak Peak” at the Borland Conference 1994
The first public showing of Delphi took place at the Borland International Conference (BIC) 1994 Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Hotels, Orlando Florida. The original language track was focused on Borland C++ 4 and also Borland Pascal. Paul Gross gave the “Product Address: Languages” in the Swan Ballroom on Monday morning from 8-9:15am. Prior to the conference a last minute decision was made to add two Delphi sessions: “Sneak Peak: Rapid Application Development in Pascal” session given by Zack Urlocker (Delphi95) and Bill Dunlap’s sneak session, “Sneak Peak: Exception Handling in Pascal”. “Even Spencer the Cat hasn’t seen this,” said senior product manager Zack Urlocker. Delphi95 will “compete with Visual Basic on the low end and PowerBuilder on the high end.”
It’s funny to look back and remember that the title of the Zack and Bill sessions were titled “Sneak Peak” – instead of “Sneak Peek” – a purposeful choice of the word “Peak” to denote the state-of-the-art technologies in Rapid Application Development (Visual Basic and PowerBuilder still did not integrate native code compilers).
There was also an NDA session for leading Paradox developer partners where Delphi95 was presented. One of the questions during the session was “is this the Paradox compiler that was rumored to be in development?” The answer was no, unless you wanted to use Delphi and the BDE to access your Paradox files.
The Delphi v1 Launch – Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1995
The Delphi launch took place at the Miller Freeman Software Development Conference West in San Francisco California, on Valentine’s Day, February 14th 1995 at 7PM just after Philippe Kahn’s keynote “The Importance of Object Computing – The Algorithmic Link”. Two editions of Delphi were announced: Delphi and Delphi Client/Server. Before the launch, we were demonstrating existing Borland language products in the Borland booth. The day after the launch we demoed Delphi to overflowing crowds of enthusiastic developers.
While we annually celebrate the launch of Delphi version 1.0 on February 14, the actual RTM (release to manufacturing) date, and the date that all of the Delphi v1 files are date stamped, was February 15, 1995. Gary Whizin, R&D manager for Delphi tells the story about the RTM date in a 10 year remembrance audio interview. Gary said that the team did sign off the Delphi 1 master on February 14, 1995 before driving to the conference for the product launch. A stop ship bug was found and the product was re-mastered and the team signed off the first version again on February 15, 1995 (the date stamp on the files).
What Made Delphi version 1 So Special
While Microsoft had Visual Basic and PowerSoft had PowerBuilder, what differentiated Delphi was the combination of the power of the Object Pascal language, a visual component-based development environment and desktop and SQL database access:
High speed, native code compiler
IDE providing visual two-way tools – form designer and source code editor
TObject, records, component, and owner memory management
Property Method Event (PME)
Visual Component Library (VCL)
Runtime Library (RTL)
Structured exception handling
Data-aware components live at design time
Database support via BDE and SQL Links
Running Delphi v1 on Windows 3.1 in a DOSBox on a Win10 (or 11) PC
To Get Started
If you’re unfamiliar with how to install and run Delphi v1 on Windows 3.1, watch the YouTube video, “Stu’s Game Reviews – How to Play Windows 3.1 Games in Windows 11!!! New for 2024!!!”. Sure, it’s about installing Windows 3.1 and running games, but the information and steps work for any Windows 3.1 software including Delphi v1. Hint: you don’t need to install the drivers mentioned in the video unless you also want to play games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4vtHkan5xw
The Software You Need to Run Delphi v1 on Windows 3.1
The following is a list of the required software to get Windows 3.1 and Delphi running on your Windows 10 (or 11) PC.
Borland Delphi 1.00 (2-15-1995)(CD).7z contains the following folders:
Installing Windows 3.1 and Delphi v1
To install Windows 3.1 and Delphi v1 I used DOSBox-X because it has a feature to easily handle swapping the Windows 3.1 six floppy disk image files and because “Stu” told me to use it 🙂
Install DOSBox-X and choose a folder on your Windows 10 (or 11) PC hard drive. Select all of the default settings during the install.
To install Windows 3.1, start DOSBox-X and mount the floppy disk image files for Windows 3.1. (note: I put the Win31 floppy disk images on my hard disk in a folder named “c:\w31”. I installed Windows 3.1 in my c:\DOSBox folder). The commands I typed were:
When Windows setup asks you to put disk 2 in drive A:, use the DOSBox-X menu “Drive” menu item, select drive A and in the popup menu select “Swap disk” (note: Guy said you might be able to use CTRL-F4). This will “put floppy disk 2 into drive A”. To complete the Windows 3.1 install, repeat this procedure for each of the remaining floppy disks. Note that DOSBox-X is in control of your mouse. When the Windows install asks for input (for example when it asks you to type in your name and company), hit CTRL-F10 to switch mouse control to the program your installing and then to get mouse control back to DOSBox-X hit CTRL-F10 again (you will hear an audible beep each time you hit CTRL-F10 if your PC’s sound is turned on).
When you choose to exit the Windows 3.1 setup program click the “Reboot” button to restart the DOS virtual machine to take you back to DOSBox-X.
To install Delphi v1 I put the CDROM install image, Delphi.iso, in my c:\installs folder. Using DOSBox-X, I typed the following commands:
imgmount d: C:\Installs\Delphi.iso -t cdrom
c:
cd windows
win
After Windows 3.1 starts, use the “File Manager” app to install Delphi.
and click on the “d” drive that contains the Delphi 1 CDROM.
Open the “INSTALL” folder and you’ll see folders containing the contents for each of the 15 floppy disk images (DISK1-DISK15) and the SETUP.EXE program.
Click on the SETUP.EXE program to install Delphi 1. Note: if you have the separate floppy disk image files (not recommended), follow the Windows 3.1 DOSBox-X “imgmount” command and floppy swap disk steps above for selecting and using all 15 of the floppy disk image files.
After Windows 3.1 and Delphi v1 were installed, the following is the c:\DOSBox folder contents:
With Windows 3.1 and Delphi v1 installed you’re now ready to experience the intoxication of using Delphi version 1.0 on your Windows PC 🙂
Running Delphi version 1.0
To run the Windows and Delphi you just installed, you can use either DOSBox-X or DOSBox.
Type the following commands:
mount c: c:\DOSBox
cd windows
win
Then from within Windows open the Delphi folder and click on the Delphi icon. Note: use Ctrl-F10 to capture and release the mouse for use on your PC desktop and in the DOSBox running Windows.
Check Out the Delphi version 1.0 Easter Eggs
In the Delphi v1 IDE select the Help | About menu item.
Hold down the Alt-key and type (all caps) DEVELOPERS
Hold down the Alt-key and type (all caps) AND
You’ll see a picture of Anders Hejlsberg floating in one of the lakes on the Borland campus in Scotts Valley, California. I shot a video of Anders (in Denmark Donald Duck is called “ANDERS AND”), during an all day party to celebrate his engagement, and grabbed a video frame to put in the About Box for Delphi.
Hold down the Alt-key and type (all caps) TEAM
You’ll see multiple pages of the names of the extended Delphi team that were a part of the development, launch and support of Delphi 1.0 (in alphabetical order by first name).
Here is a group photo of the extended Delphi team taken in the outdoor amphitheater on the campus.
Three Delphi adds that appeared in developer magazines during the launch year
Happy 30th Anniversary Delphi Launch Day!!!
I send big hugs and love to all of the employees who ever worked on Delphi. I send my thanks to all of the technology partners and MVPs who support Delphi. And, I send my deepest thanks to all of the customers who have ever used Delphi (many still do), attend Delphi conferences and seminars, participate in Delphi user groups, participate in online webinars, and share knowledge, source code and suggestions to help everyone (including me) become better Delphi software engineers.
I can’t finish this Delphi anniversary story without including a special developer, author and educator in my life, my brother separated at birth, and my technology travelling companion. That very special someone is Charlie Calvert. Charlie started at Borland working in technical support. Charlie is the author of “Turbo Pascal Programming 101”. After getting to know Charlie, I knew he was a one-of-a-kind developer, author and human being. I asked Charlie to join me in Borland Developer Relations. During the development of Delphi we knew that we would need great documentation, example programs, and to rev up our global Turbo Pascal community to be ready for the launch of Delphi. Charlie used his unique talents as a developer and an author to create his “Delphi Unleashed” book and also helped the team with the documentation. Charlie and I traveled the world together to present Delphi to customers, at conferences and meet with partners. While we were both children of the 60’s wearing comfy clothes (I wear Tie-dye t-shirts almost every day), on a trip to Madrid Spain we met with the government technology team working to create Spain’s early eBanking infrastructure. Nestor Miranda, head of the Borland office in Madrid, asked us to wear suits for the meeting because we were going to meet the head of the Bank of Spain. Along with two of Charlie’s programming books here is, probably the only time, a picture of Charlie and me at our hotel before we left for the meeting.
While I don’t travel, write, present and program nearly as much as I did during my 30+ years at Borland International, Inprise, Borland Software, CodeGear and Embarcadero, I have the code, pictures, videos and great memories that keep me smiling. I still program using Delphi as a semi-retired software engineer. Programming keeps me young, happy and alive!
This week in technology news contains links to articles of interest to software developers, UI/UX designers, hardware developers, devops team members, product owners, project leaders, engineering managers, software architects, QA engineers, business managers, business analysts, company executives and anyone interested in technology and programming.
IDEs/Editors
Cesium brings geospatial data to Unity via free plugin Read the Article
This week in technology news contains links to articles of interest to software developers, UI/UX designers, hardware developers, devops team members, product owners, project leaders, engineering managers, software architects, QA engineers, business managers, business analysts, company executives and anyone interested in technology and programming.
Apple Watch Series 8 review: watchOS 9, crash detection, and temperature sensors are excellent, but needs daily charging and the update is fairly incremental (Victoria Song/The Verge) Read the Article
10 years later, deep learning revolution rages on, say AI pioneers Hinton, LeCun and Li Read the Article
Researchers develop an AI model for autonomous driving Read the Article
Does AI Write Better Copy Than Humans? Most Marketers Think So Read the Article
Users trust AI as much as humans for flagging problematic content Read the Article
Study highlights how AI models take potentially dangerous shortcuts in solving complex recognition tasks Read the Article
Nvidia, Arm, and Intel Collaborate on AI Standard Read the Article
Researchers develop a new way to see how people feel about artificial intelligence Read the Article
Artificial intelligence is here in our entertainment. What does that mean for the future of the arts? Read the Article
Building a Computer Vision Model Using TensorFlow Read the Article
Exploiting GPT-3 prompts that order the model to ignore previous directions Read the Article
Collaborative machine learning that preserves privacy Read the Article
Teaching Robots to Laugh at the Right Time Is No Joke – CNET Read the Article
Sharing a laugh: Scientists teach a robot when to have a sense of humor Read the Article
This robot crossed a line it shouldn’t have because humans told it to Read the Article
Hardware
Arm beefs up Arm Neoverse infrastructure platform Read the Article
First-of-its-kind 3D-printed home blends concrete, wood Read the Article
Intel says the company plans to replace its Pentium and Celeron brands, debuted in 1993 and 1998, with Intel Processor, starting with notebooks in 2023 (Abner Li/9to5Google) Read the Article
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC Tipped to Launch With 3.5GHz High-Frequency Variant Read the Article
Arm fills in some gaps and details in server chip roadmaps Read the Article
The clock speed wars are back as Intel brags about hitting 6 GHz with 13th-gen CPUs Read the Article
IBM builds huge super-fridge colder than space to chill quantum computers Read the Article
Researchers create device to streamline interactions between ultra-cold computers and room-temperature ones Read the Article
Many crypto miners are shutting off rigs and plan to sell their GPUs, as GPU-based mining for most cryptocurrencies becomes unprofitable after Ethereum’s Merge (Michael Kan/PCMag) Read the Article
Security
Trojanized versions of PuTTY utility being used to spread backdoor Read the Article
Twitter Refutes Elon Musk’s Claims of Breach of Agreement Over Whistleblower Payment: Report Read the Article
How data detection and response are becoming cloud security essentials Read the Article
Hands-on cyberattacks jump 50%, CrowdStrike reports Read the Article
Is confidential computing the future of cybersecurity? Edgeless Systems is counting on it Read the Article
Report: Only 10% of orgs had higher budget for cybersecurity, despite increased threat landscape Read the Article
Researchers develop method to protect privacy and safety in encrypted messaging Read the Article
One-third of enterprises don’t encrypt sensitive data in the cloud Read the Article
Kaspersky report: malware attacks targeting gamers increase Read the Article
This week in technology news contains links to articles of interest to software developers, UI/UX designers, hardware developers, devops team members, product owners, project leaders, engineering managers, software architects, QA engineers, business managers, business analysts, company executives and anyone interested in technology and programming.
IDEs/Editors
Java on Visual Studio Code Update – February 2022 Read the Article
Exploring the Salesforce Mobile SDK Using Android Studio Read the Article
Paul Buck: Coder on Why They Chose the Open VSX Registry Read the Article
A deep dive into Android 13’s new features and changes, including a photo picker, per-app language preferences, Quick Settings tiles, a Hub mode, and UI changes Read the Article
Android is finally gonna ask you about notifs before bugging you with them Read the Article
A Linux expert tells why she thinks the kernel is so important Read the Article
Web3 and Decentralization: What it Means for Data Storage Read the Article
Social Platforms
To rival TikTok and Instagram, YouTube plans to double down on more creator tools, including NFTs, live shopping, and more video effects Read the Article
Workers are actually far more obsessed with Slack than Microsoft Teams Read the Article
What is Social CRM, and why should it be on your radar? Read the Article
Twitter complaint-tracking bot reveals most griped about tech products Read the Article
Business
Microsoft vows app store fairness with Activision merger Read the Article
What does the new era of location intelligence hold for businesses? Read the Article
How a Diverse Culture Drives Employee Engagement and Business Growth Read the Article
How to build and maintain a high-performing team Read the Article
Eight years into his tenure, Satya Nadella looks to diversify Read the Article
Learn the marketing skills to back up your products Read the Article
Welcome to blog.davidi.com! This is a blog about everything related to Software Development (including the kitchen sink). Posts that appear here contain articles about Tools, Technologies, News, Tips, Answers, Tutorials, Conversations, Videos and Stories across all Programming Languages and Platforms.
About David I
David Intersimone, known to many as “David I”, is a passionate and innovative software industry veteran who extols and educates the world on developer tools, software development and software architectures. David I wrote his first computer program, a Prime Number Generator using Fortran on an IBM 360/40, in the Fall of 1969 as a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student. After graduation with a Computer Science degree in 1973 David spent his first 13 years in the computer industry as a software engineer and project manager.
David joined Borland Software in 1985 where he practically invented Developer Relations. During David I’s five decades as a software engineer, development manager, developer community executive, development cheerleader, and developer advocate, he has created and participated in thriving global developer communities while producing thousands of articles, videos and blog posts while travelled more than 4 million miles to visit with developers.
Before Embarcadero acquired the developer tools business from Borland Software, David spent more than 20 years with Borland in various evangelism, engineering, and development capacities, including creating the company’s developer relations program.
Today, David I shares his visions and insights as a software engineer and pioneer in developer relations with program managers, directors and developers where he gives workshops, webinars, guidance and advice on developer communities, developer advocacy and software development.
