Nick Turner's
software evaluation experience
Does it do what they say it does?
What could go wrong?
When I took on the challenge of editing Dr. Dobb's Journal in 1986, I became aware that there was a market for technically savvy writers who could painstakingly analyze (reverse-engineer) existing software products and create readable documents describing the investigations and explaining what has been discovered.
I make a careful distinction here between "ordinary" technical writing, which is oriented towards the creation of user's manuals and similar documents, and software evaluation, which is a much more involved and sensitive task, sometimes requiring delicate diplomacy.
Although I didn't follow up on the idea immediately, it settled in the back of the brain and cooked. It was not until 1994 that an opportunity arrived to actually practice this fascinating art. My friend Greg Sutherland invited me to join him and another person to form a new company, Software Evaluation Associates.
As a team of consultants, we worked together with a lawyer and her staff, evaluating and testing an obscure set of ROM routines that ran inside the alcohol breath detectors used by the Washington State Police department. This absorbing project involved difficult reverse-engineering of undocumented 6809 assembly code, plus many hours of testimony in court.
Is this product any good?
