Finally I got a big break with a contract job with a major company, thanks to having a Camping Bare friend working there, and my real-time programming experience. The job was to program in Ada with VxWorks, a major real-time operating system, a Power PC processor in a Marine's backpack land-mine detector. Nobody there had real-time experience, and nobody had Ada qualifications. I had, it was one of my UCSD classes. I got the use of two different Sun computers, two PCs, a Macintosh, an emulator and a software analyzer. This I did and was rewarded by being hired when my contract term expired. Unfortunately the land-mine detector didn't detect mines very well, so no production contract ensued. I was suddenly switched to a large C++ program of the utmost sophistication for an unusual customer, so sensitive that it was forbidden to mention its name until the job was long finished. It was Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. It seemed to me that they were aware of my Jewish background from remarks made by the Israeli programmers who worked alongside us Americans. They were very talented, but they were also army officers in mufti, and keeping an eye on us, I'm sure. I worked very hard; I had sympathy for Israel.

After that I wished to return to a manufacturing department. They had a big production line for a big transportable test set for F-16 fighters, which are in service in many countries as well as the US. This work turned out to be too mature and strictly organized for my taste, so after a year I got transferred to an on-again off-again program which I really wanted to succeed. Resource-21 is a company in conjunction with Boeing and BAE SYSTEMS which plans to provide near real-time aerial, and eventually satellite, crop condition sensing for farmers. BAE SYSTEMS was well-qualified for this since they market the most advanced suite of graphics-manipulating functions. This was a C++ job as well, and I had a new Sun on my desk. Unfortunately the money dried up again before I had really got started.

The rest of my employment there was spent on their biggest contract, a strategic suite of programs which control and provide access to the nation's vast collection of graphical intelligence and maps. Since at the time Judy left I had nearly completed the minimum five years of regular employment to qualify for a pension, I put in my retirement notice as soon as Judy served me with divorce papers, to deny her alimony.