Kurt's Story

Hi Henk,

From 1965 till 1970 I was an IBM CE on 7070 (IBM Canada) and S360 (IBM NZ). Then I switched to SE on S/3 and S/36 until 1974
when I moved to 3M New Zealand as an IT manager after they had just placed an order for S/3-10 card system with IBM in my office. 
I saw an opportunity to move to their office/factory because it was much closer to where I lived.

As the order takes about 6 months to deliver I started by leasing time on another company's S/3 and writing some applications.

The catch was that the order was for a card system and at this time 8" floppies were gradually coming in to use as a data entry/storage medium. 
So I contacted IBM locally and changed the order to remove the MFCU and get a 3741 with BSCA attachment to the S/3-10. A special RPQ.

This action didn't go down well with 3M International IS&DP (IT now) as they contacted Rochester and asked if it would work. IBM's response
was that it would not work and advised 3M to instruct me to revert to the original order.  However, I argued my case by telex and phone (it's 1974) but they were adamant. 
In the end, after a long clash with 'St Paul' (3M HQ) the local MD said he would support me and he contacted the area VP who told IT Intl to just leave me to it.

After 6 months our S/3-10 arrived and with some custom coding that I had written (used the dials to enter the boot date) and read directly from the 3741 they system would
run as I had designed it to do and it was very successful.

At the same time our S/3-10 arrived IBM launched the S/3-8 which was basically the same machine that I had.

In 1976 3M Intl IT offered me a job in St Paul as senior specialist with worldwide responsibility for all the S/3s in the company.

There are more interesting stories as I was assigned (with family) to a rescue project in Caracas and later an assigment in 3M Europe HQ, Brussels in 1981.

Have fun!
Kurt