On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 22:18:43 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 9/11/2017 5:54 AM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 11 Sep 2017 08:34:20 +0200, Emanuel Berg
wrote:

John B. wrote:

Word Star, the first really good word
processor application was written in
assembler by a single programmer over
a period of about a month

Straight long ear!

Sometime in 1980 Epson wanted to license the software to run on their
PX-8 that used a built in LCD display. The application would have to
run from 48Kb of ROM.

They rehired the Programmer, John Barnaby, who had earlier left the
company, at a salary of $100 an hour (1980 dollars, today $297 ). The
project was completed in two weeks, whereupon Barnaby left the company
again.

Wow. If someone were paying me $300 per hour to do a job only I could
do, I'd probably take longer than two weeks to do it. ;-)

Well, in detail, the guy wrote the word processor application,
apparently working 7 days a week and 10 or more hours a day. When he
finished the project I guess he said something like "that's enough for
me" and quit. When the Epson project came along, as one article said,
they lured him back, and he finished the job in two weeks... if his
old work schedule applied that would have been, oh say $42,000 :-)

As an aside I worked a one year project where the client specified
that unless I was the Project Manager they wouldn't award the
contract.... makes it pretty pleasant when it comes to salary
negotiation time :-)
--
Cheers,

John B.