I got a business license in 1984. Microsoft abused independent contractor arrangements but not everybody did.
I worked primarily on an operating system which supported key-value stores as native file objects (DEC VMS/RMS).
I worked on business apps in VAX BASIC. Actually, I spent a fair amount of time abusing compiler pragmas so that I could e.g. do memory management in VAX BASIC. One of my long-term client was the guy who invented the report wizard. Literally. The prototypical cockroach company, at one point he travelled around the country in his van helping people install his software so that they'd try it out. There wasn't much in the way of advertising for software, recommendations were largely word of mouth.
I helped write SCADA systems in VAX Pascal. I wrote a DECNet worm; no it didn't escape. I'm probably (at least one of) the reason(s) that DEC implemented high water marking in RMS.
I did LIMS in HyperCard. Very primitive by today's standards. Things like ELISA notebooks. Makes me wonder why with the CI/CD fetish these days there is no GUI for building web GUIs: why are people writing code the old way? (I have more than opinions about this, and I know of one high quality GUI for writing web GUIs.)
There wasn't "open source" as we know it. As a contractor I developed a doctrine of "tools of the trade" because there aren't many good ways to write e.g. string compare.
My first ever CGI was written in DCL, the VAX VMS command line language.
About a third of my work was firm bid. Contracts were generally reasonable, clear, and written to keep the parties out of court.
I worked primarily on an operating system which supported key-value stores as native file objects (DEC VMS/RMS).
I worked on business apps in VAX BASIC. Actually, I spent a fair amount of time abusing compiler pragmas so that I could e.g. do memory management in VAX BASIC. One of my long-term client was the guy who invented the report wizard. Literally. The prototypical cockroach company, at one point he travelled around the country in his van helping people install his software so that they'd try it out. There wasn't much in the way of advertising for software, recommendations were largely word of mouth.
I helped write SCADA systems in VAX Pascal. I wrote a DECNet worm; no it didn't escape. I'm probably (at least one of) the reason(s) that DEC implemented high water marking in RMS.
I did LIMS in HyperCard. Very primitive by today's standards. Things like ELISA notebooks. Makes me wonder why with the CI/CD fetish these days there is no GUI for building web GUIs: why are people writing code the old way? (I have more than opinions about this, and I know of one high quality GUI for writing web GUIs.)
There wasn't "open source" as we know it. As a contractor I developed a doctrine of "tools of the trade" because there aren't many good ways to write e.g. string compare.
My first ever CGI was written in DCL, the VAX VMS command line language.
About a third of my work was firm bid. Contracts were generally reasonable, clear, and written to keep the parties out of court.