A note from Faith Middleton

Attached are history and memoirs of computer trials and errors over the years that might interest some of the older racers.

I had been intrigued by the early hand held Hewlett Packard calculator that could hold 100 lines of code. It was fascinating to watch the read out flash as it solved celestial and coastal navigation programs and that was the beginning of programming knowledge back in in 1978.

My programming for the Masters evolved at the time of the Nationals at McCall Idaho where a very limited race scoring program was in use. The programmer was unfamiliar with ski racing, and the secretaries who commissioned the programming were not fully aware of computing potential. Jane Hough complained about the program, so the challenge was on. It appeared that an experienced race chairman, actual racer, and also someone with lots of volunteer programming time might meet it.

The first personal computers on sale in any quantity were the TRS-80 and the Apple. My first purchase was the TRS-80 and two of those were hauled in a toboggan over snowbanks, icy parking lots to timing shacks. for many seasons. Fluctuating voltage causing screen antics , frost in printers that needed melting in front of fireplaces were some of the early problems. I attended races on my own initiative as computer program was tested and enhanced.

But my more than 20 years of keying or importing every Masters’ race became official due to Al Sise . Al Sise was determined to have the the Master’s racing events provide timely and accurate results, weekly and seasonally, which led to his sponsoring my computer work . I was asked to be in attendance with computer at every Masters’ race. For many seasons I was in parking lots at 6 AM and on to either base lodges or timing shacks dealing with the anxiety that something might not work. When I was last one out of the timing shack and results were in hand, it was as rewarding as a Good GS run.

Ski areas gradually acquired computers, and my Sise race program was installed on their computers so I no longer had the problem of hauling my own equipment. However, the long days of guaranteeing results continued until I requested that I be replaced. Gary Colwell was named NEMS director but I was behind the scenes for years, as Gary became familiar with computers. He started with an antipathy towards computers; but quickly said he loved program. (It still has colorful, large print windows that were supposed to allow anyone score a race on the first try) For a few seasons, I stayed by the phone from Friday evening until Sunday evening, and on occasions it proved necessary in order to get results out. Bob says I probably spent thousand of hours on not only adapting program ( new formats such as special seed, change of age classes, start order changes, etc) , but always having backup results for Gary , or in some cases having the actual results to E-mail to him. I can remember the days before E-mail, when I would frantically have to send out a disc via overnight mail. Gary was good to work with, diligent and had occasionally helpful input like “ Could you move that delete button somewhere else and make it bright RED ?” He also relayed the upgrade capabilities of Split second, so that the Sise programs could be reprogrammed to take advantage of them. Being unsure of what might be needed, the year after Gary’s tenure ended, I still scored all races, sise, race, seeding points. Once info on a racer, and the times of a race are in a computer, they can be accessed in thousands of seconds processing time. Complete scoring of race and points, using input of race file, such as Split sec , is done in fractions of a second – many, many, many times faster, even for a full seasons results, than the hand keying of one race results into a Spread Sheet for Sise Cup standings. I enjoyed designing a program to maximize the power of computing to provide results for a sport I loved and for people I admired. It also an award to have the Board acknowledge those years of demanding but cheerfully given contribution.



Faith Middleton Nov 2010