In the summer of 1989, I had completed all my work for my BS-CS degree, and was waiting for the University to give me a diploma. I took a summer internship at Imprimis (later bought by Seagate), and I was honored to work with the Manufacturing Engineers for the Wren IV through Wren VII hard drive lines.

The Wren VII was the first consumer-grade SCSI hard drive with a capacity of 1GB or more — at 5.25” full height. The company had done a commercial-grade SAS drive based on the same chassis the year before. You had to be super careful with those magnets — they could cut off a finger, if you weren’t looking. And they were virtually impossible to remove from a fridge, once applied.

My job was to write a software system that could be used to monitor quality control issues in the manufacturing line, towards a goal of continual process improvement. I didn’t manage to get the whole management system built before I left, but I did get the full toolkit built, and the management system was intended to be a relatively simple layer on top of the toolkit.

Fun times!