This chapter contains very little useful information. It is just some random stuff that I thought might be fun to throw in.
Developing DiskTracker
DiskTracker has been in development since May of 1993. However, this does not mean that I have been working on the project for two and a half years straight - I basically did no work on it during the 1994-95 school year (my freshman year at college) and I took several months off during the rest of the time. Before that year, most of the back end of DiskTracker (e.g., the database system, disk scanner, and searching engines) was written. Most of the interface work was done afterwards.
Version 1.0 consists of about 95,000 lines of C code (originally, there was a bit of 68000 assember code, too, but that was removed when I decided to make DT a fat binary). Development has been done using Symantec's Think C 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, then Metrowerks' Codewarrior Gold 5, 6, and finally 7. A lot of the initial coding was done on a Macintosh SE, but the meat of the code was written on my trusty Mac IIvx. The final beta releases and finishing touches were done using my PowerMacintosh 7500/100. Various portions of the code were written on many other machines, varying from Mac Classics to a PowerMac 9500/120. The splash screen graphic was composed using Specular Infini-D 3.0.1, rendered on the PowerMac 7500, and then assembled into the final image using Adobe Photoshop 3.0.
DiskTracker was inspired by an article in MacWorld magazine in (I believe) January 1993. This article, written by David Pogue, reviewed the disk catalogers that were available at the time. In this article, he included the description of a hypothetical disk cataloger (called "FloppyDex"), which combined the best features of all of the catalogers available at that time. In essense, I designed DiskTracker to match those specifications (even down to the $20 shareware fee).
Interesting factoid - originally DiskTracker was going to be called "Disk Wizard". However, one day, for no particular reason, I decided to change the name to "DiskTracker". About a month or so later, Disk Wizard, a slick shareware disk cataloger by François Pottier, appeared on the market. Definately a strange coincidence.
About the author
Hmmmm..... What is there to say about myself? Okay, well, as of this writing, I'm 20 years old. I'm a sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'm majoring in (you guessed it) Computer Science (and Electrical Engineering, too). Presently, I work as a consultant at MIT's Microcomputing Help Line. I also enjoy cycling, tennis, and playing electric bass. I enjoy playing computer games (hmmm... why d'ya think it took 2 and a half years to finish DiskTracker?) and am into creating computer art and music. And, oh yeah, my favorite color is blue.
DiskTracker is the first programming project that I have ever released. I have been doing programming at some level since I was about 7 years old, starting with BASIC, "moving up" to HyperCard, then Pascal, then finally C, C++, and assembler. Before DiskTracker I had been working on a game called Parallax 2125, a fast side-scrolling space arcade game. Parallax was primarily an exercise in programming graphics routines in 680x0 assembler and taught me a whole bunch about large-project programming. Parallax took third place is the Boston Computer Society's Compufest '93 (in the 11th-12th grade age group), but I chose never to release it, becuase it had a lot of bugs, and, frankly, I thought the game play was a bit bland.
Special thanks
There are a whole bunch of people I would like to thank for helping me out with DiskTracker.
First and foremost, I'd like to thank my parents, for their support and excellant parenting (is "parenting" a real word?), and my sister for support and for not beating me up too much when we were young.
Thanks to the DiskTracker beta squad (in alphabetical order):
Bill Beaudine, Ted Byfield, Walt Campbell, Pierre-Emmanuel Chauvaud, Laurant Dassier, Malcolm Dunn, Bo Engelbrecht, Stephen Giles, Calvin Harmon, Jr., Nicholas Harvey, Jamie Klein, Joe Kurtz, Joanne Larrabee, Mike Milbourn, Brad Miller, Alex Moratorio, Nathan Raymond, Marty Sandler, Christopher Timrott, and Jonas Wallden
A great big nifty-o thanks goes to Mike Milbourn for some of the file icons, a whole bunch of great label templates, and for the layout of this manual; to Pierre-Emmanuel Chauvaud for label templates; and Malcolm Dunn for some great icon ideas.
I'd like to thank the following people for moral support:
Nathan Raymond, Jamie Klein, Dan Feldkhun, George Lee, Patrick Cousins, Stuart Rice, Jeff Alexander, Chris Carbone, Huong Nguyen, Chris Norris, and all those people who I've met over the years who have expressed interest in DiskTracker.
I guess I should thank Apple Computer, Inc., without whom weΓÇÖd all be using DOS.
Special thanks to the Phillips Andover Academy Computer Center for the use of their equipment and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the use of some equipment and for accidentally admitting me.
Finally, I'd like to thank God for His guidance throughout my 20 years of life.
