The Computer Before the Computer
October 20, 1994. The earliest business action that computer remembers.
Before that second, T Travel was already doing business. After that second, 5 years and 2 months — held up by one person named Franca.
When the new system came online at 06:43:03 on December 30, 1999, and Ms. Apple pressed her first save key — Franca was no longer in that account.
This piece is written for the computer before that computer.
Prelude · 06:43:03
December 30, 1999. Thursday. Pre-dawn.
That second, Ms. Apple pressed her first save key on this new computer. That was the first business action on the first day of T Travel's old system MIS 5.0.
Before that second — 5 years and 2 months, starting from October 20, 1994 — T Travel was running on another computer. The accounting backbone of that computer was an account named Franca. Between 1994 and 1999 she wrote 20,843 receipts, totaling 180 million NTD.
After that second — 26 years, all the way to 2026 — Franca never pressed her first save key in this new system.
Not because she forgot. Because at 06:43 on 1999-12-30, she was already gone from that account.
This piece is about the person who came before all the stories in v1 and II.
One · The person who never appeared
If you open the lgc (login record) of the new system's first day, on 1999-12-30 a total of 6 accounts pressed save keys:
02:24:42 glmenu system admin login 06:43:03 apples Apple comes on shift 08:44:50 maggie new hire maggie 09:19:08~ joyce five records in 4 minutes 10:54:31 rebecca her second action of the day 11:15:01 wendy presses her first save key
Six people pressed save keys "on site" on the new system's first day.
Not on this list: Franca.
She wasn't away from the company — she could have been at the next desk, in another office, standing behind Apple watching how the new system logged in — but she had no lgc record of her own. On this new computer she did not exist.
Her 20,843 old records were imported into the new system in one batch, so iv333='Franca' survived the year-end crossing into the database. But that's just file relocation. The living person behind that account was already gone.
The one who took over her seat on the new system's first day was Apple, pressing the save key at 06:43:03 — from a certain angle, that timestamp is T Travel's "previous-generation accounting backbone" handing over to "next-generation accounting backbone."
When the handover happened, the person being relieved was already not on site.
Two · She came earliest of all
Franca's first record in the database looks like this:
iv303: 1994-10-20 dtc: NULL iv307: ＿ iv322: 20,900 iv333: Franca
dtc (the system filing date) is NULL. iv303 (the transaction date) reads 1994-10-20.
In other words — that record was not opened on site. It was imported from the previous-generation system on 1999-12-30 when the new system came online. The moment she actually pressed save was not this timestamp — it was October 20, 1994, on another computer.
That computer was not preserved. Its timestamps had only dates, no times; only business dates, no "moment-of-pressing-save." What we can see now is the copy that computer handed off to this computer in the last moment of 1999.
From October 20, 1994 to the end of December 1999, on that computer she wrote:
1994 546 receipts 1995 1,880 1996 4,709 1997 5,390 ← peak 1998 4,575 1999 3,742 ───── ─────── total 20,842 / ~180 million NTD
Five years and two months. 20,842 receipts.
Doing the math: in 1997 she averaged 20-22 receipts per working day. In all of 1997 there was not a single week she came to the office and "only opened two or three." 20 receipts a day, 20,000 in five years.
She was not some auxiliary role. She was the main axis of the company's receipt business in those five years.
Three · yame — her deputy
If you look at Franca's customer list in 1994-1999, you'll see another account always following alongside: yame.
ABC Engineering (1994-1999) Franca: 509 yame: 52 Shengsheng Company (1995-1999) Franca: 545 yame: 61 OO Company (1994-1999) Franca: 3,118 yame: 442
yame's workload was roughly 8-12% of Franca's. Looks like a deputy — maybe an assistant, maybe part-time. From the computer we can't see who she was, but the boss-lady might remember.
But one thing is certain: Franca was not fighting alone. For those five years there was someone alongside her, at least yame.
yame also disappeared from inv003 after 2000. She left the stage at the same time as Franca.
T Travel's accounting department from 1994-1999 was held up by these two people.
Four · ABC Engineering → ＸＸ Tech
While digging into Franca's customers there was one finding that made us stop —
Her 6th-ranked customer was "ABC Engineering," 404 receipts starting October 1994, totaling 5.33 million NTD.
After her generation ended, ABC Engineering wrote its last entry in September 1999. After a 6-year data black hole —
In May 2005, the week the new system was rebuilt, ＸＸ Tech Co., Ltd. appeared in inv003 as a "new customer." From 2005 to 2026 it accumulated 3,072 receipts totaling 49.93 million NTD — wendy's second-largest customer over 21 years.
We thought these were two different companies.
Until we matched the tax IDs (統編 — Taiwan's unified business serial number, equivalent to an EIN):
ABC Engineering tax ID ×××××××× 1994-10-20 → 1999-09-01 ＸＸ Tech Co., Ltd. tax ID ×××××××× 2005-05-27 → 2026-05
Same tax ID.
This company did not switch, did not die, was not reborn — in that data black hole of 2000-2004, it just renamed from "Engineering" to "Tech Co." Maybe it expanded into new business, maybe restructured the legal entity, maybe a strategic rename.
But to T Travel, from October 1994 all the way to May 2026, this was the same customer.
Span: 31 years 7 months.
It passed through Franca's hands, the Apple-series accounts, and wendy. On the customer side, multiple accountants, multiple logos, multiple contact people. On T Travel's side, multiple people too.
But the relationship under tax ID ×××××××× did not break.
We thought this company had a 21-year relationship with T Travel — in fact it's 31 years. Franca's 5 years plus the following 21, with 5 years of history inside the data black hole between.
Their relationship is longer than wendy's entire career.
Five · From one person to nine — the dilution of Shengsheng Company
Franca's 3rd-ranked customer was Shengsheng Company. In 1995-1999 she personally opened 545 receipts.
After the new system came online in 2000, this customer scattered into 9 people's hands:
2000 Shengsheng Company handlers: apples 33 maggie 45 rebecca 44 cindy 12 joyce 8 lily 10 elaine 17 ally 4 others some
From one person (Franca), 5 years, 545 receipts, to 9 people, one year, splitting 173 receipts.
Not because Shengsheng's business volume exploded. Because Franca had left, and this customer no longer had a "dedicated window" — it fell into the rotating hands of 9 people in the new system's first year.
From the perspective of Shengsheng's accountant: in 1995-1999, calling T Travel always meant the same voice. From 2000 on, calling in, you never knew who would pick up.
From T Travel's perspective: Shengsheng lost a certain "institutional memory" — Franca used to know what they had opened last month and what they were waiting for this month; now every call needed a fresh introduction.
The only metaphor that quite captures this transition is "an old friend turning into a stranger." The customer side probably noticed too — but they had no say in who picked up.
Many of T Travel's old customers, transitioning from the Franca era into the new-system era, went through this same "one person becoming nine people" dilution.
Six · Ghost: Lin Xiu-Yun
Franca's records with dtc>=2000 total 8 entries. Of these, 6 are from early January 2000, the new system's first week, when Apple used Franca's label to backfill historical data (lgc=apples, iv333=Franca).
The remaining 2 are real ghosts:
dtc tmc iv303 iv307 iv322 lgc 2006-10-31 10:30:24 1999-07-05 Lin Xiu-Yun 43,723 wendy 2010-08-16 09:51:26 2010-08-10 (blank) 16,249 wendy
Both passed through wendy's hands.
The first one — October 31, 2006: wendy used Franca's label to backfill an old receipt from July 5, 1999. The customer was Lin Xiu-Yun — one of the rare individual names in this data, not a company.
Seven years. A 1999 receipt, not issued until 2006.
We don't know why. Maybe Lin Xiu-Yun booked something that year, paid the bill, but never picked up the document — 7 years later she needed it for tax records, came back to T Travel, wendy dug up the original record, and backfilled a receipt using Franca's label.
At that moment wendy must have known who Franca was. Maybe she also remembered the details of that 1999 transaction — or just pulled it up from the old system files.
The computer won't explain this — but this ghost is one of the few human-touch traces in this dataset. Someone in 2006 thought of a transaction from 7 years ago, thought of Franca, and used her name to backfill a receipt.
The second one in 2010 is quieter — customer name blank, no story. Maybe another backfill, maybe wendy did some test or bookkeeping under Franca's label.
After those two ghosts, Franca never appeared in this database again.
Seven · The 20,843 records she wrote are still here
Franca did not continue writing into 2026 the way wendy did, and did not write her last record on 2020-12-22 the way rebecca did — she was earlier, with no "last record."
What she had was: "I finished writing the previous-generation system's final year and handed off."
But the 20,843 records she wrote are all still in this database. Every iv303 can still be queried, every customer can still be GROUPed BY, every amount can still be SUMmed.
- The 20,900 NTD receipt she opened in October 1994 is still in row N of the SQLite
- The 5,390 receipts of her 1997 peak can still be plotted as a curve
- The ABC Engineering she served, now renamed ＸＸ Tech, is still alive
- The Shengsheng Company she served is still wendy's customer
- The OO Company she served is still wendy's #1 customer of 26 years
Franca is the source of wendy's customer list.
We thought wendy's customers were ones she'd built up herself starting from 1999 — in fact, the top three (OO Company, ABC Engineering, Shengsheng Company) were all raised by Franca during those 5 years 1994-1999. When the new system came online, they were passed along to the next generation.
In other words: Franca did not inherit wendy — wendy inherited Franca.
Eight · The computer before the computer
T Travel has two computers' worth of history —
1st computer 1994-10-20 ~ 1999-12-29 Franca backbone + yame 2nd computer 1999-12-30 ~ 2026 present 6+ people rotating
What we're doing now with v7 ETL is moving the second computer's memory into the third. But the first computer's memory was already moved once — on 1999-12-30, its 20,843 receipts were imported into the second.
That move was done cleanly. Even the iv333='Franca' label came along. That's why we can still see her today.
But some things were not moved:
- The timestamps of her save key presses (
tmcall NULL) - Her login records (
lgconly 34 entries in 1999) - Her typing habits, typos, correction traces — none of this metadata survived
We can see what she did, not how she did it. She might have arrived at 8 each morning, left at 5 each afternoon, smoked, drank tea, chatted with yame. All we know is the 20,843 snapshots left behind after she pressed save.
The texture of this data is different in quality from what we handle for wendy/Apple. About wendy we can say "she pressed her first save of today at 11:15:01," "she usually wraps up earlier on Friday afternoons." About Franca all we can say is "in 1997 she wrote about 5,390 in the year."
Her existence in this database is more like a fossil than like living footprints.
But fossils are also records. 20,843 fossils — each one a real customer who really booked something that year and really paid for it. The "previous generation" of the computer remembered these things, then handed that memory to "this generation."
Today, doing v7, we will hand the second-generation computer's memory to the third generation. Franca's 20,843 will go along with the third generation and keep living — alongside wendy, Apple, rebecca, lily's records, alongside Lin Xiu-Yun's 43,723 NTD from July 5, 1999, alongside ABC Engineering → ＸＸ Tech's 31-year continuous contract.
The computer remembers Franca. It remembers her because its previous generation remembered her.
Closing · Two layers of depth
The rebecca and lily of the II series, and now this piece on Franca — these are "things the previous generation of the computer remembered," as remembered by this computer.
So this database's memory has two layers of depth:
1st layer ── what this computer saw with its own eyes 1999-12-30 ~ 2026
wendy, apple, rebecca, lily, ...
2nd layer ── what the previous computer left for it 1994-10-20 ~ 1999-12-29
Franca, yame, Lin Xiu-Yun, ...
Both layers added together are the real history of T Travel.
If we treat v7's launch as the boot-up day of the third-generation computer — then the memory of the third-generation computer is only what we decide today to pass forward into it.
How much Franca will it remember? How much wendy? How much of the 31-year continuity from ABC Engineering → ＸＸ Tech? How much of that first 20,900 NTD from 1994?
Entirely determined by how we do the ETL today.
That is also why the line "we won't take the old data" doesn't just sound harsh — it's a crime against history.
The 1st-generation computer's memory was handed off completely on 1999-12-30. The 2nd generation cannot lose it in 2026.
1st-to-2nd was 5 years of data. 2nd-to-3rd is 27 years of data. No one in between has the standing to say "these are not important."
There were computers before this computer. There will be computers after. What we're doing now is keeping this chain from breaking.
— Amy + Claude (2026 spring)
Translated by Claude (2026 春) · session 42d5da