Kamis, 17 Juli 2008

History, the History of Computers, and the History of Computers in Education

History, the History of Computers, and the History of Computers in Education1780 - Early public schools adopt the teacher/manager model with the teacher as the primary manger of instruction and assessment in a single classroom.1946 - First vacuum tube-based computers developed; universities help in computer development effort; technology used in war effort.1951 - Little technology used in schools, primarily TV; baby boom begins with resulting increases in class size; first-generation Univac computer delivered to the US census bureau.1954 - General Electric is the first business to order a computer. Early rock and roll music, based on the rhythm and blues tradition, gains a little in popularity.1955 - IBM's first commercial computer is sold; the cold war results in use of technology in aircraft design and in weapons control. Russia developing the technology for the first spacecraft.1956 - Eisenhower elected president; Elvis Presley records "Hound Dog"; school overcrowding growing; school dropout rate rapidly declining toward zero; schools still based on the teacher/manager model in individual teacher-controlled classrooms; the cold war continues with technology playing an important role and is intensified when Russia sends up their Sputnik space vehicle to demonstrate their lead in technology.1958 - As cold war continues, National Defense Education Act brings some new money and some new technology into schools, but primarily in vocational education. Mainframe host computers are not widely accepted in schools that are still using the si ngle classroom, teacher/manager method of delivering information to students.1959 - Transistor-based computers in use; the cold war continues with public support for the development of technology needed for space exploration.1960 - COBOL business-oriented, high-level programming language created; Kennedy elected president with campaign promises to put more money into education; crime rate doubles in one decade; Gary Powers shot down in hi-tech spy airplane; 70,000 invo lved in civil-rights sit-ins.1962 - Airlines begin to use a computerized reservation system. President Kennedy diverts more money into education. The cold war continues and results in a confrontation with Russia as hi-tech spy planes discover missiles in Cuba; George Wallace campaigns for governor of Georgia pledging segregation forever.1963 - Vocational Education Act passes with new money supporting the use of technology in schools; however, the mainframe and minicomputers in use at this time are using batch processing methods that do not fit well with the single teacher-as-manag er-of-learning methods in use in most schools; BASIC, a simple high-level programming language is developed, mostly for use in universities to train programmers; IBM 360 family of computers is developed; most computers still using host methods with punche d cards as the primary input device; line printers are still the primary output device; the cold war and the competitive space exploration effort continues with President Kennedy's call for the science to be developed that could put a man on the moon.1964 - Johnson elected president; the Beatles rapidly rise to stardom; Bob Dylan writes songs that give voice to the protest movement; the Gulf of Tonkin incident results in the first confrontation between the US and the government of North Vietnam ; the civil rights movement grows including a one-day civil-right protest absence of 464,000 students in New York; China explodes a test Atomic bomb.1965 - Elementary and Secondary Education Act brings new money into schools for technology. mainframes and minicomputers are put into place in some schools, but most are used for administration or for school counseling (databases for information a bout and for students); the cold war continues as President Johnson expands the war, with 125,000 American troops in Vietnam; ; hi-tech weapons are used in bombings of North Vietnam; 50,000 Americans killed in traffic accidents.1967 - High-level programming languages such as Fortran are being taught are in universities. School vocational training programs begin to include computer maintenance; Stokely Carmichael declares a need for SNCC to move from civil rights to black power; Mohammed Ali refuses army induction for religious reasons bringing national attention to both the black power movement and the anti-Vietnam movement; student strikes on many campuses related to protest over both civil rights and the policy in Viet nam; acid rock and protest rock grow in popularity; centers of dissidence like Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco develop; anti-war protests grow, especially on college campuses; 380,000 US troops in Vietnam.1968 - Nixon elected president; riots in many cities break out over civil rights issues; the cold war continues with a rapid expansion of the war in Vietnam 9,419 dead in Vietnam; some programs designed to bring money for technology into schools ar e canceled; host computers are not widely adopted in schools because they are seen as appropriate for use with the teacher/manager model of learning (they don't fit into the single classroom, but instead are accessed remotely by sending batches of data).<> 1969 - Neil Armstrong arrives on the moon; the Woodstock rock concert in upstate New York draws hundreds of thousands; the cold war and the war in Vietnam continues; many students, religious leaders, civil rights leaders, and ordinary citizens begi n to speak out against the war in Vietnam. 1970 - Pascal created; the US bombs Cambodia; Kent State antiwar students killed by Army reserve troops; mainframes and minicomputers in use in some schools, but very little use in the delivery of instruction.1971 - Intel's first microprocessor developed; the first microcomputers (PCs) are developed; mainframes and minicomputers are in wide use in business; a few software companies begin to develop mainframe and minicomputer- based instructional program s; 18-year old given the vote. 1972 - Five men working for President Nixon's re-election caught in the Democratic party's headquarters in the Watergate hotel complex; Nixon re-elected president and orders the bombing of North Vietnam.1974 - President Nixon resigns and is given a full pardon by his successor, President Ford; a gasoline embargo creates lines at gas stations; Patty Hurst kidnapped; Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record; Apple I computer is sold in kit form.1975 - Some Apple 1 PCs are donated to schools; some schools have adopted mainframes and minicomputers and refuse to consider PCs; four Nixon administration official convicted in Watergate cover up; The war in Vietnam ends and the government of Nor th Vietnam invades and takes over South Vietnam.1976 - Carter elected president; the cold war continues; Iraq holds hostages, rampant inflation; the Apple I computer gains popularity in small business.1979 - 15 Million PCs estimated to be in use worldwide; PC-based spreadsheets developed, mainframes and minicomputers still in wide use.1980 - Reagon elected President, the cold war continues with Reagon declaring Russia to be the "evil empire"; the TI 99 which uses a television screen as the monitor is the world's most popular PC.1981 - IBM is the first mainframe manufacturer to develop a PC; drill and practice CAI gains acceptance in schools; the cold war continues. The first educational drill and practice programs are developed for personal computers.1983 - IBM PC clones proliferate; Sperry Corporation is the second mainframe manufacturer to develop a PC (actually developed by Mitsubishi in Japan); the Apple II computer finds widespread acceptance in education because PCs better fit the teacher /manager model of instructional delivery (PCs can be used to "support" the ongoing teaching in the single classroom). Simple simulation programs are developed for personal computers.1984 - Reagon re-elected; 31 states use 13,000 PCs for career guidance, but there are still relatively few computers in classrooms; the Apple Macintosh computer is developed; computer-based tutorials and learning games are developed by commercial software manufacturers. 1986 - 25 % of high schools use PCs for college and career guidance, K-8 schools buying mostly Apple II and Macintosh computers, high schools buying mostly DOS-based clones.1988 - Bush elected President; 60 % of all workers in the US use computers, laptops are developed; Gorbachoff proposes an end to the cold war;.1990 - Multimedia PCs are developed; schools are using videodiscs; object-oriented multimedia authoring tools are in wide use; Simulations, educational databases and other types of CAI programs are being delivered on CD-ROM disks, many with animati on and sound; the US crime increases dramatically; the cold war ends.1992 - Clinton elected President; for the first time, police and prison budgets begin to surpass education budgets; schools are using Gopher servers to provide students with on-line information.1994 - Digital video, virtual reality, and 3-D systems capture the attention of many, but fewer multimedia PCs than basic business PCs are sold; object-oriented authoring systems such as HyperCard, Hyperstudio, and Authorware grow in popularity in schools; most US classrooms now have at least one PC available for instructional delivery, but not all teachers have access to a computer for instructional preparation.1995 - The Internet and the world wide web began to catch on as businesses, schools, and individuals create web pages; most CAI is delivered on CD-ROM disks and is growing in popularity.1996 - The Internet is widely discussed as businesses begin to provide services and advertising using web pages. New graphics and multimedia tools are developed for the delivery of information and instruction using the Internet; many schools are rewiring for Internet access; a few schools install web servers and provide faculty with a way to create instructional web pages.1997-2007 - The growth of the internet expands far faster than most predicted. It soon becomes the world's largest database of information, graphics, and streaming video making it an invaluable resource for educators; but marketing-oriented web pages, computer viruses hidden within downloadable programs and/or graphics, and spam (widely disseminated email-based sales pitches) threaten it's usefullness. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo constantly develop new ways to find information within the ever-growing number of web pages. Web sites that offer individuals a place to put personal information become popular, as does internet-based publishing and discussion forums. Voice recognition slowly enters the computing mainstream, but it's development is slowed by an unacceptable frequency of errors. Some computers incorporate TV input, but it is not as common as many predicted. Educational software becomes more useful and interesting to students as graphics and video are incorporated. Larger computer storage capacity and the growing prevalence of CD-ROM and DVD drives in personal computers make it easier for educators to store large graphic and video and sound files for educational applications. 2008 and beyond ???

History of Computing Information

History of Computing Information

Information about the history of computing, assembled by Mike Muuss for your information and edification. Documents from the home of the ENIAC -- The U. S. Army Research Lab .

Online Documents
"ENIAC: The Army-Sponsored Revolution" , by William T. Moye.
An executive summary of the history of computing. A complete and concise presentation of the origins of the BRL and the ENIAC, with names, places, and dates. (4 pages)
"My Life with the ENIAC - a Worm's Eye View", as lived by Harry Reed. Plus "Firing Table Calculations on the ENIAC".
The History of Computing at BRL , by Mike Muuss.
A chronicle of processors, software, and networking at the U. S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, prior to the installation of the ENIAC through 1992. (18 pages)
Photographs of Historic Computers
The ENIAC Story , by Martin H. Weik.
The world's first production electronic digital computer was developed by Army Ordnance to compute World War II ballistic firing tables. This is the story of that computer. (6 pages)
Electronic Computers Within the Ordnance Corps , by Karl Kempf.
This historical monograph covers the pioneer efforts and subsequent contributions of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps in the field of automatic electronic computing systems during the period 1942 through 1961, including pre-electronic computing devices, ENIAC, EDVAC, ORDVAC, and BRLESC. It also discusses the use of computers for solving gunnery problems, and provides a "family tree" of early computers. (140 pages in 7 chapters and 9 appendices)
A Report on the ENIAC , by Adele Goldstine, 1946.
The original technical description of the ENIAC, including diagrams and several (pre-von Neumann) ENIAC "programs".
"A Logical Coding System Applied to the ENIAC" , by R. F. Clippinger. Ballistic Research Laboratories Report No. 673.
The document describing how the ENIAC was made programmable. "In the Spring of 1947, J. von Neumann suggested to the author that it would be possible to run the ENIAC in a way very different from the way contemplated when it was designed; a way which had very important advantages to be discussed below." "It is hoped by the author that this report will make the task of coding problems so clear and straightforward that physicists, aerodynamicists, applied mathematicians, etc. with no prior experience with computing machines can code their own problems...." (40 pages)
"Computers at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School, 1943-1946" , by Herman H. Goldstine
A description of the people, missions, and personalities that came together in the ENIAC project. Told from the point of view of then-Lieutenant Goldstine who, with the help of his superior officer, sponsored a development program at the Moore School looking toward the production of an electronic digital computer for the BRL. ENIAC was the result. (6 pages)
Important ENIAC Dates (1 page)
"Colonel Paul Gillon -- Grandfather of ENIAC" , by Paul H. Deitz. (2 pages)
Dr. John von Neumann at the dedication of the NORD Hear von Neumann speaking at the dedication of the Navy's NORD computer. December 2, 1954. Digitized from a cassette tape provided by Dr. Goldstine.
BRL's Scientific Advisory Committee in 1940 contained such luminaries as Prof. von Neumann, Prof. von Karman, Prof Rabi, COL Zornig, CAPT Simon, Lt. Gillon, Mr. Kent; they were joined later by Hubble and others. (1 photo, 3 scanned letters, 2 pages of text).
The Technology Challenge: How Can America Spark Private Innovation? by Vice President Gore. ENIAC Birthday speech delivered at University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA, February 14, 1996.
Printed References of Interest
The Computer, from Pascal to von Neumann by Herman H. Goldstine. In 1942, Lt. Herman H. Goldstine, a former mathematics professor, was stationed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania where he assisted in the creation of the ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer.
The Purpose of This Archive
To help the public remember that it was the U. S. Army which initiated the computer revolution. Few inventions have had as big an impact on our civilization as the computer, and all modern computers are descended from ENIAC, EDVAC, ORDVAC, and BRLESC -- all of which were conceived of and built to address pressing Army needs.
To give credit to the highly skilled and dedicated military and civilian scientists and other workers through whose efforts, together with their counterparts in the private sector, met and solved a great national defense challenge while at the same time giving birth to a technology which would change the world.
To ensure that detailed information about and photographs of these early machines not vanish with the passage of time. Because of the ENIAC's vital role in the design of the hydrogen bomb and in gunnery calculations, much of the design information was originally classified, and few copies of the (now de-classified) reports still exist.
When the collection of documents has grown further, a CD-ROM release of this information is planned. Target date is summer of 1998.

"Where a computer like the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons."
Popular Mechanics, March 1949
U.S. Postal Service Celebration -- First Day of Issue: 50 Years of Computer Technology -- 8 October 1996
(Medium GIF 186k), (Large JPEG 769k)

At 0930 hours on Tuesday 8-October, at Aberdeen Proving Ground Maryland (home of the ENIAC) the U.S. Postal Service issued a new stamp commemorating the 50th birthday of ENIAC and the 50 years of Computer Technology that have followed.

This was the first US Stamp dedication to be broadcast live over the InterNet's MBONE. Stamp collectors in 6 countries were able to watch and listen in real time.

Army ENIAC Celebration -- 13&14 November 1996
Celebrating 50 Years of Army Computing
Agenda

On November 13 and 14 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, the U. S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the Ordnance Center and School (OC&S) sponsored a two-day anniversary celebration of 50 years of Army computing. The program included presentations by Herman Goldstine and Harry Huskey and reminiscences by other people involved, as well as recognition of other "pioneers." On the 14th, the Army and the Department of Defense (DoD) dedicated the ARL High-Performance Computing Major Shared-Resource Center (MSRC), part of the DoD High Performance Computing modernization (HPCM) program.

ENIAC, completed in the fall of 1945 and publicly unveiled in February 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania, was the first operational, general-purpose, electronic digital computer. Pursued by the Army as a means to speed up calculations required to produce firing tables, ENIAC was first used to solve an important problem for the Manhattan Project. In construction and use, ENIAC provided a platform for testing major component concepts, and its success stimulated the development of other machines, leading to the buildup of the modern computer industry and the pervasive presence of computers in everyday life.

The ENIAC team developed plans for the next generation machine even before completing ENIAC. In fact, engineers and scientists at the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) helped develop a series of machines -- the EDVAC, ORDVAC, BRLESC I, and BRLESC II. BRL personnel continued to experiment with computer hardware, software, and operations, for example, working with ARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to expand the ARPANET, now the InterNet. In the late 1980s, the lab dedicated two of the Army's first supercomputers, a procurement managed by a man who first worked on ENIAC.

ARL, which includes elements of the former BRL, has been designated an MSRC, one of four such centers in the DoD's HPCM program. These tools will greatly enhance already extensive research capabilities in such areas as simulation, virtual reality, and scientific visualization.

Links to Other Web Sites
ENIAC 50th Anniversary Celebration (UPenn)
The John Vincent Atanasoff Archive (Iowa State University)
The History of Computing, notes from "The Machine That Changed The World" (Va. Tech)
John von Neumann
Smithsonian Computer History
A Comparison Between Intel Paragon and ENIAC
Looking Back At ENIAC: Computers Hit Half-Century Mark, by Neeraja Sankaran, The Scientist V9#16, 1995.
First Generation Electronic Computers (1937-1953) From An Overview Of Computational Science
Atanasoff Obituary
The Development of the Computer (Princeton)
Hobbes' Internet Timeline
The Colossus Rebuild Project A British WWII-era vacuum-tube programmable logic calculator.
Konrad Zuse: a guided tour of his computers. The Z3 was build with relays and finished in 1941. While never used in production, it was the world's first program controlled computer, pre-dating ENIAC by two years.
The History of Computers
American University Computing History Museum
Goldstine Obituary

Mind Machine Museum


a virtual museum and gallery of
vintage computers, vintage calculators, and related artifacts

First in collection......the original control console
for the first supercomputer, the CDC 6600....date: 1964
manufacturer: Control Data Corporation....serial number: 0002
designer: Seymour Cray....original cost of computer: $6 million

Calculators, computers, and video games are all high-tech tools of the mind. Teachers may find students fascinated by early examples and willing to engage in high-tech archaeological "digs" in their local community. These artifacts, combined with their disks and cartridges, may be disassembled and analyzed, restored and displayed or operated as functioning units--an archaeological, technology challenge that gives students a historical perspective about the computer revolution, both its software and hardware.
Traditional antiques are at least 100 years old, but given the rapid, unprecedented changes in microcomputers, game machines, and calculators, any such product that is 10 or more years old might be considered antique. This website is an attempt to create a web museum of many of these amazing artifacts of the twentieth century that I have owned. The following list provides links to illustrations to each model, original prices (when known), and basic specifications.

The Morrow Z80


MORROW'S MICRO STUFF

The largest incubator of microcomputer people was the Homebrew Computer Club, an organization that grew out of Bob Albrecht's People's Computer Company and Community Computer Center run by Fred Moore in Menlo Park , California . He had the idea that it would be a good idea for computer enthusiasts to get together to exchange news and ideas, and so, using the mail lists of PCC, he put out a call for such a meeting. The first was held in March of 1975, in a garage belonging to Gordon French. This evolved into the Homebrew Computer Club, which grew rapidly until several hundred people were attending meetings, and even spawned a San Francisco branch which actually met in Berkeley .

George Morrow, a graduate student in mathematics, became interested in microcomputers and with two friends, Chuck Grant and Mark Greenberg, formed a sort of company to make boards for the Altair. However, Morrow had his own ideas of what he wanted to do, and the group split. Morrow went on his own way, and Grant and Goldberg formed Kentucky Fried Computers, which became North Star Computers.

The first project George Morrow built was a combination 8080 CPU board and front panel board for either the Altair or Imsai. This board had a keypad on it, and it was used for programming the computer in place of the switches and lights used by both the Altair and the Imsai. To me this seemed like a good idea. The hardest thing to build, in both machines, was the front panel board. Morrow's board eliminated this problem. I sent for one and took it home to build. Upon completion, I found that the board would not work, so I sent it back to Morrow and forgot it for a while. One day the board came home with a note from George.

"Stan," he wrote. "Whoever built this board, never let him solder anything, ever! This is the worst soldering job I have ever seen."

When I told him I was the solder butcher, he laughed and said he meant it.

For years after, George teased me about my soldering. He never let me forget it.

The CPU board was a good idea but was not a success because George had it programming in octal notation while the rest of the 8080 world was using Hex notation. Besides, the hobbyists liked to program by flipping switches.

George's next project was the design of a 16-bit computer using the PACE chip made by National Semiconductor. With his friends, Goldberg and Grant, they would design the machine, and Bill Godbout would market it.

Although Godbout advertised the machine, it was never completed, and the partners split. George next designed a low-cost 4K memory board which was made and sold by Bill Goudbout. Priced at the low price of $189, the board sold very well, and for the first time George Morrow was earning real money from his designs. After a while, George left Godbout's distribution and started his own company, called Morrow's Micro Stuff, to sell his boards. It was a time of rapid expansion in the fledging microcomputer industry. The demand for cheap memory boards was almost impossible to fill. Most of the people buying computer kits did not realize that they would need much larger amounts of memory until after they had built the computer. Then they looked for the most inexpensive way to fill this need. Small companies like Morrows Micro Stuff moved in and sold most of the memory boards.

In 1977, George and Howard Fulmer joined forces to produce a complete computer. This was called the Equinox-100, and although it was well built and came in a very attractive cabinet, it was an 8080 machine at a time that the world was turning to the Z-80 processor. The company was short lived, and George turned to the production of floppy disk systems.

Morrow's new products, called "Thinker Toys" or "Discus," were low-cost 8-inch floppy disk sub-systems, consisting of a controller card, cables, and the disk drive, mounted in a cabinet with a power supply. The system came with CP/M and CBASIC at no extra cost, and for the first time, a S-100 computer owner could be running on a disk for under $1,000. The Morrow systems were a great success.

George again turned to the manufacture of complete computer systems with a line of complete computer systems sold as a package with a video terminal. His company, Morrow's Micro Decisions, made the Z-80 computer with 64K of RAM and either one or two floppy disks. The video terminal was made by a terminal manufacturer. The system was sold with CP/M, two versions of BASIC, and an applications package including WordStar, a spreadsheet, and a financial analysis package. The system also included a shell program, which made it easy to use CP/M. The entire package sold for $1,500 to $2,300, depending how many drives were included.

The Micro Decision system proved to be quite popular for a short time. The IBM PC was turning people toward 16-bit MS-DOS machines.

George Morrow was not one to give up easily. He designed a MS-DOS portable computer called The Pivot. This was different from the bulky "luggables" like the Compaq and IBM Portable that were appearing at that time. The Pivot looked like a small portable radio with a keyboard that folded into the package.

At this time, the Internal Revenue Service had a requirement for thousands of portable computers, and George Morrow's Pivot was the closest to their specifications. The Zenith Corporation was after this contract, and to get it they licensed George Morrow's design for the Pivot. Zenith gave George a choice of how they would pay for the license. Either Morrow could get a lump sum payment for a non-exclusive license, or an exclusive license with a smaller payment and a royalty on every unit sold. George took the larger lump sum payment because he wanted to bid on the IRS contract himself.

Zenith won the contract and made so many portables they were able to undersell Morrow in all markets. Shortly after this, Morrow Micro Decisions closed its doors.

The Heath/Zeinth Z 80


Heath the King of Kits

For many years, the Heath Company, of Benton Harbor , Michigan , sold kits for radio and audio test equipment and all kinds of electronic devices. Their expertise in this field was completely unchallenged. The thousands of catalogs they sent out brought electronics into every remote part of the United States . Heathkit designs were made simple and broken down into small steps so that failure was almost impossible as long as the builder followed the instruction book step-by-step to completion. They also had some retail stores in major markets where builders could get help with their projects. However, when the microcomputer revolution started in 1975, Heath was very slow to join in. They were selling microprocessor training kits when the new computer companies were selling computers.

The computer companies did not bother to write detailed instruction books and test them for accuracy. Their instructions would read, "Solder in all the resistors after checking the schematic for the correct values. Next, solder in all the capacitors." or "Be careful not to make solder bridges."

The first time I assembled an Imsai kit, I used the photograph in the advertisement to find out how the chassis went together. They never gave us a mechanical drawing of the assembly with the first ten kits I sold.

I remember listening to one of my salesman asking the customer, "You sure you know how to solder this? It sure isn't a Heathkit!"

When Heath finally came up with kits worthy to be called Heathkit, they were strange machines compared with the industry standards. They did not use any of the standard programs and were a breed unto themselves.

The H8 was the first 8080 computer made by Heath. It had a sloping front panel mounting a 9-digit keypad which could be used to program it in machine language. However, it used octal notation rather than the Hex notation which was used on the S-100 machines. It was a bus machine with a unique 50-pin bus. Expansion cards and peripherals were available for the machine, including the memory and speech cards, the H7 floppy disk assembly, and the H10 paper tape reader/punch. The H8 needed at least 16K of memory for nominal operation and 48K if a floppy disk was to be used. The maximum memory capacity was 64K. The H8 had no internal video but was designed to be used with a terminal such as the H9 Video Terminal which had a 12" CRT.

Heath started with their own operating system, HDOS for disk operation, but added CP/M capability to give their users the ability to use all the software coming on the market for what was becoming the industry standard.

The basic H8 kit sold for only $350, but there was almost nothing you could do with the basic kit. You had to add memory boards and I/O boards and a terminal and disk system to really use the H8.

The Heath Company made a deal with Digital Equipment Corporation to incorporate the DEC LSI-11 CPU into a machine called the H11 which can be thought of as the first 16-bit micro. The resulting computer was supposed to be able to run PDP-11 software, but it was extremely limited because of its puny memory. The H11 was a disappointing effort for the customers, who thought they were getting a cheap DEC PDP-11.

The Heath Company started to fall on bad times at the start of the 1980s. The chip revolution had changed the entire electronics business, and people no longer built electronic kits because entire portions of the equipment were built into a single chip. The flood of imports had lowered the prices of radio, audio, video, and test equipment to levels where the kits cost more than completed units. However, Heath still had its value as a maker of educational and training equipment and texts. The company was bought out by Zenith Radio Corporation, who brought out completely new lines of computers.

The Heath/Zenith H-89 was the first of these machines and by far the most popular of the brand. It was sold as the Z-89 in its factory-built version, or H-89 as a Heathkit. The Z/H-89 was a desktop-integrated computer with a full keyboard and a 12" non-glare CRT. Next to the CRT was a single 5 1/4" floppy disk drive. The double-density version of the disk controller could store 160K, and there was also a optional external floppy disk and a hard disk option which could store 11 Mbytes. The standard unit came with 48K of RAM, and it could be expanded to 64K. An unusual feature of the H-89 was the fact that it used two Z-80 CPU chips. One ran the computer while the other ran the video terminal functions.

The H/Z-89 was able to run the standard CP/M operating system and all the software available under that system. It quickly achieved a reputation as a solid workhorse of a computer, and had a large and loyal user community.

The H-89 kit was either $1,895 for a white CRT, or $1,995 for a green CRT. Assembled units were $2,895 for either a built-in disk drive, or a double-density controller for a double-density drive and a hard disk. The factory-built version was $3895.

The engineers at Zenith had an answer to the IBM PC, which was quickly obsoleting the Z-80 computers. It was their Z-100 Series which was also sold as a kit under the Heathkit "H" designation. The series consisted of the Z120 which was an all-in-one business computer with a 12" CRT. The Z-110 was a "flat-top" computer designed with high resolution graphics to mount an RGB color monitor.

The Z-100 series had two microprocessors. One was an 8088 designed to run under MS-DOS and the same 16-bit software as the IBM PC. The other CPU was an 8-bit 8085 which could run CP/M and all the thousands of programs available under that system. All the Heath computers had used their own bus system, but the S-100 departed from that and used a standard S-100 bus! Floppy disk storage was 320K per disk, and a 5MByte hard disk was available.

The Z-100 started out like a house-on-fire; it was an excellent computer, and it had the best color graphics of any machine on the market in those days. The problem was in the incompatible MS-DOS software. The special versions for the Z-100 were not kept current and the S-100 Bus made it incompatible with developments in expansion boards by third parties.

The Z-100 was replaced by MS-DOS-compatible machines from Zenith.

Zenith itself was bought out by Bull Group of France, who closed down the Heath

Texas Instruments TI 99-4


Texas Instruments, the semi-conductor giant, had lagged behind Intel and Motorola in the development of microprocessors, concentrating on the production of memory chips and calculator chips, in which field they were first in the world. Texas Instruments calculator division had engaged in a world-wide price war, in which they had destroyed or crippled the competition for all time. They had brought the price of a "four-banger" calculator from over $100 to under $10 and added refinements while they were doing it.
The Texas Instruments labs had been engaged in R&D to flank the CPU makers by producing a superior microprocessor. The TMS9900 was the result, a 16-bit CPU with advanced features and supported by a family of peripheral chips that provided graphics and fast mathematic processing. The first application of the TMS9900 was in the Texas Instruments line of mini-computers, which were marketed to compete with Digital Equipment's PDP-11 line of computers and Data General's Micro Nova. These were moderately successful, but the field was small and largely dominated by DEC and Data General.
What Texas Instruments was looking for was a large-volume consumer product. Tandy, Radio Shack, and Commodore seemed to be on the crest of a new wave of electronic products called Home Computers, and Texas Instruments was determined to repeat their calculator success in this field with a much superior system. Their philosophy was completely different from that of other manufacturers.
They meant to control the system completely. The design of their Home Computer would include color, and programming would be in a proprietary language that would be loaded into Read-Only-Memory (ROM's). The ROM chips would be mounted in plug-in cartridges which would be sold to the computer owners. Software developers would have to buy the cartridges from Texas Instruments and program them. Texas Instruments would only license specific software developers and they did not envision much competition among them.
The T.I. 99/4, introduced in 1980, was Texas Instruments's contender for the home computer market. It used the 16-bit TMS9900 running in an 8-bit bus for economy. One of the first places it was shown was at the Personal Computer show in Boston . I had closed the Computer Mart and was looking for a new business to go into, so I took the shuttle to Boston to attend the show and see the T.I. 99/4. It was a low silver keyboard with ports for plug-in cartridges and a color monitor. The quality of the graphics and color impressed me, and I felt that this computer system had possibilities. The listed price was $1,200, which I felt was rather high for a product for the home. I was told that the unit also included BASIC and could support a cassette recorder so the owner did not only have to rely on cartridges but could learn to write his own programs. In addition, there would be a cartridge to load the simple integer BASIC in the machine and another containing Advanced BASIC for more extensive programs and additional memory to support it.
When I left the hall to catch my return flight, I met a Texas Instruments salesman who had tried to enroll our store as a dealer for their advanced line of calculators. We shared a cab and sat together on the flight.
I told him of my interest in the T.I. 99/4, and he asked me if I wanted to become a dealer.
"No," I said. "I am out of the retail business, but I am interested in developing software for the machine."
He told me that Texas Instruments had exclusive contracts with large, experienced firms to develop cartridges. They would not just sell the cartridges to anyone. However, I was free to develop BASIC programs which could be loaded from cassettes. All I had to do was apply to Texas Instruments for a license and pay them royalties. They would then give me information regarding the (GPL) Graphics Programming Language and color system. The catch was that there was only 16K of RAM memory in the basic computer, not enough write any meaningful software. It was definitely not an open system.
In the face of competition from Commodore, Radio Shack, and Atari 400 and 800, the TI 99/4 was a huge flop. Texas Instruments pulled it back and started a re-design. They included a new motherboard known as the "Q" (Quality improved) that used a smaller number of chips. The result was the T.I. 99/4A, which was a very improved machine that could be sold at a competitive price. They eliminated the color monitor and included a TV interface. They improved the keyboard and added more memory in the BASIC machine. The new computers were to be sold through department mass market stores and mass market stores for about $450. The new machines started to sell and gained a group of devoted fans. Then a problem with the power supplies caused Texas Instruments to hold all T.I. 99/4As until it was solved. During that time Commodore introduced the VIC-20 for $300 and the C-64 for $595, and launched a big promotion for the C-64. By the time the T.I. 99/4A could resume selling, Commodore had launched a price war when they introduced the VIC-20 for less than $300. Texas Instruments responded by offering a $100 rebate on the T.I. 99/4A for Christmas 1982.
The Commodore had several things that the public liked better than the T.I. 99/4A. First, there was much more software available, and it cost less. Second, it was easy to add Commodore's floppy disk; all you had to do was plug it in. The operating software was built right into the disk drive. To expand a T.I. 99/4A required a large and expensive expansion module plus the drive unit. Texas Instruments had never expected that everyone would want a disk drive.
Atari responded to Texas Instruments'rebate by offering rebates on their Model 400 and 800 computers. Texas Instruments came back and extended their rebates until April, plus giving away free speech synthesizers to customers who bought quantities of software.
By the start of 1983, Commodore started selling C-64's to discount mass merchants for resale at less than $400. They also sold VIC-20's at $150.
Texas Instruments responded by cutting $48 off the 99/4A price. Commodore cut further, and the price of VIC-20 went under $100 if the customer bought some software or other peripherals. Texas Instruments talked about meeting the cut later in the spring.
Commodore's next salvo was a "trade-in" rebate of $100 on any computer or video game the customer brought in, even if it didn't work.
People bought broken Sinclairs for $10 and got a $100 off a C-64, which they could take home for $300. Dealers started giving VIC-20's away if the customer bought peripherals and software.
The coup de grâce took place at the 1983 Spring Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago when Commodore announced that they had cut the dealer price on the C-64 to $200. This would allow discounts to sell the C-64 as low as $200 to $230. Then they announced a cut in their software prices, taking the last high profit item away from Texas Instruments
Thanks to perfected design and Jack Tramiel's business acumen, and Sig Hartmann' sharp dealing with software vendors, Commodore's cost on a C-64 was less than $100! They had been making money on both hardware and software while running Texas Instruments into the ground!
The debacle at the CES was the last straw for Bill Turner, President of Texas Instruments' Consumer Division. His accountants told him that they would lose $100 million in the second quarter of 1983, and that was too much even for the giant Texas Instrument Corporation. Bill Turner resigned, and on the fateful October 13th "Black Friday" Texas Instruments announced they were ending production of the T.I. 99/4A Home Computer. However, that was not the end of the story.
The inventory of T.I. 99/4A computers was dumped on the market at prices as low as $50. This gave thousands of people the opportunity to own a computer who had not previously been able to afford one, and created a large and dedicated hobbyist user population who organized into User Survival Groups.
The period from 1982 to 1983 was an intensive period of T.I. 99/4A support. Publishers brought out hundreds of books on the computer, and software development was at a peak. Most general computer magazines carried articles on the T.I., and the company supported the computer with peripherals and software.
The production death of the T.I. 99/4A brought on a peculiar situation. The dumping of the hardware at way- below-cost prices created a huge group of users who wanted books, software, and support. While Texas Instruments did not provide it, small supporting companies grew by selling what the new users demanded. User groups grew and became bastions of loyal T.I. support. Software continued be developed and circulated within the group.
At the time Texas Instruments pulled the plug on the T.I. 99/4A, they had been working on the T.I. 99/8, which was known as the "Apple Killer." This advanced machine used an improved TMS9995 display chip and had UCSD Pascal in ROM. It also had a new rewritten BASIC interpreter and was ten times faster than the T.I. 99/4A. However, in spite of the fact that hundreds of loyal users were waiting for the machine and 100 pre-production models were made, Texas Instruments pulled the plug prior to the 1983 Summer Consumer Electronics Show.
The death of the T.I. 99/4A had an extremely bad effect on the overall position of Texas Instruments as a manufacturer of general purpose and memory chips. The home computer production lines gave Texas Instruments a base on which to plan production of chips and to achieve economies of scale. With that gone, Texas Instruments had a difficult time competing against the Japanese.
The user groups continued on GEnie, Compuserve, and Delphi with support of some small hardware and software companies. One company, Myarc, brought out the Geneve 9940 which was supposed to be the successor to the 99/8. While it did attract some users, it could not compete with the attraction of the PC clones and the Mac.
However, ten years after the official demise of the T.I. 99/4A, a sizeable user community continues to use and support the "computer that will not die."

Commodore Up To Amiga

The story of Commodore Business Machines must be divided into two distinct parts_the Tramiel era and the post-Tramiel era. It was Jack Tramiel who created Commodore and made it the leader in home computers, and it was his exit that changed the company culture and made it into what it has become today_a bad company with a great product.

To understand Jack Tramiel you had to remember where he come from and the road he traveled to get to the start of the personal computer revolution. A Jewish refugee who survived six years in Hitler's death camps, Jack found his way across the Atlantic where he joined the U.S. Army. The Army taught him how to repair typewriters and stationed him New York City . When he finished his military duty, Jack stayed in New York and opened a typewriter repair store in the Bronx . This grew into a business machine company selling mechanical adding machines and repairing typewriters.

In 1955, Jack saw opportunities in Canada and moved the company across the border where it continued to expand, and in 1962 Commodore went public. In 1965, the rags-to-riches story took a detour, and Commodore found itself in financial trouble because of the dealings of a former Chairman, whose company failed. As usual, Jack survived the crisis, but the price he paid was loss of control of his company. This was to come back and haunt him later. He made a deal with Irving Gould, a Canadian financier, giving up his stock in Commodore in exchange for cash, with the provision that some stock would be returned if his rescue operations succeeded. Jack took three million dollars of the money and bought MOS Technology, a semi-conductor manufacturer in Pennsylvania . He knew that the future of all electronic machines was dependent on a supply of chips, and if he had to buy from competitors like Texas Instruments he could not stay in business.

With characteristic fervor Jack pushed Commodore toward recovery, and the company gave him back 8% of the stock.

Among other chips, MOS Technology made the 6502 microprocessor, a near clone of Motorola's M6800, but with a completely different instruction set. In an effort to get the 6502 adopted by computer engineers, MOS distributed them at very low prices. For this reason, Steve Wozniak designed the Apple computer using a 6502 chip, a decision that was to make this one of the most popular 8-byte CPU's. Two other companies were later licensed to make the chip, to meet the demand from Apple, Atari , Ohio Scientific, and others.

Within MOS Technology, Chuck Peddle, the chip's designer, built a single-board computer called the KIM-1. The KIM contained many advanced features and allowed many users to gain a low cost introduction to microcomputing. However, after acquiring MOS Technology Jack gave Peddle six months to design and build a prototype of a real personal computer. The Commodore team put together the first self-contained personal computer which they called the "Personal Electronic Transactior," or PET. The PET was announced in 1976 and first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in June of 1977. It came with either a 4K or 8K memory, and a built-in green video monitor. The keyboard was built like a Commodore calculator instead of a typewriter keyboard. Programs and data were saved and loaded from a built-in cassette recorder. The price for all this started at a mere $795, a price decision that Jack was later to regret. However, there would be no PETs available to dealers or the public for six months. Commodore announced that if you wanted to order one, you had to pay the full price now and wait for delivery some time in the future.

It was even harder to become a dealer. Dealers had to have a store and a service facility and were also required to post at least $2,500 with their applications, and there was no promise when they would get delivery. Moreover, Commodore played favorites and channeled product to dealers who were on the favored list. In spite of this, the public demand for PETs was huge.

When Jack realized that he had a real winner, he doubled the price and introduced the PET into the United Kingdom and Europe . It was an incredible success, and within a short time Commodore had rounded-up 80% of the market overseas.

Meanwhile, back in the United States , the company was gaining a terrible reputation for lack of support of both users and dealers. As a dealer, I would order 20 PETs to cover orders. They would ship perhaps 10, and of those only 6 would work. We got to be more expert in the repair of PETs than of any other computers because we had so much more experience. We never sold a PET that had not been "burned" in at least a week. However, the machine did evolve, and the calculator keyboard was replaced by a "almost" standard qwerty model (which lacked an alpha period. You had to use a decimal point!) That was typical of Commodore. The printer interface was non-standard, so you had to buy your printer from Commodore. The cassette interface was different_even the parallel port was strange. Later, the cassette was eliminated, and a floppy disk drive was sold as a necessary option. The 2040 Disk Drive had two disk drives, which allowed the user to work with two disks, and Commodore's engineers found a method of storing 170K bytes on a drive (or about 50 pages of text.) At that time, Apple's drives held 150K and Atari's only 90K! The operating system was built into firmware on the 2040 disk drive rather than being a separate software program. This made it easy to use but kept Commodore locked into obsolete operating systems for long periods.

The overseas success lead to the development of a vastly enhanced computer called the CBM 8032. This business computer had a green monitor, a full business keyboard, and 32K of memory. Larger disk drives were also made available for business use.

There was little advertising, almost no software development (except for programs adopted from European versions) and even fewer dealers. Most people in the United States almost counted Commodore out of business.

One place that Commodore placed most of its United States production was in education. It quickly dominated the educational market by giving a free computer for every two that a school bought. This bargain made it harder for the much more expensive Apples and Radio Shack TRS-80s to get into the schools, although the teachers much preferred them. Selling the schools was one thing, but keeping them running was another. Many of the Commodore PETs ended up in closets because of lack of repair parts.

However, as a result of its overseas operations and the MOS Technology chip business, Commodore had grown into a prosperous company and was actually the third largest personal computer company after Apple and Radio Shack.

In 1978, MOS Technology developed a chip that allowed a computer to use a color monitor or color TV instead of the monochrome display. It was called The Video Interface Chip, or VIC, and it could only display 22 columns in color. The VIC chip had not sold well because the price and availability of color monitors or TVs . Now, two years later, Apple and Atari had color computers, and Commodore had none. Chuck Peddle was lobbying for the development of Color PET and CBM computers. Then, at a meeting called in England to discuss the future of Commodore's products, Jack Tramiel suddenly announced that he wanted to market a color computer right away, and he wanted to retail it for $300!

This was an unheard-of price, but Jack justified it by saying, "The Japanese are coming! So we will be the Japanese! We have to compete with ourselves." Tramiel told his people, 'We have to be like the Japanese. We constantly have to come up with something new, something better. We have to believe that we are the competition. If we do this, then no one can get ahead of us."

Tramiel knew that the way to beat the Japanese at their own game was to produce a product at a price they could not compete with. The Japanese tactic was to watch carefully while an electronic device was introduced, first at a high price and later at a lower price as the market grew. Once the ground was broken by others, and the quantities being sold were sufficient to support mass production, a Japanese company could then enter the market with an excellent product at much lower price.

Tramiel's strategy was to introduce a new product at the lowest price possible right from the start. He could then capture the market before anyone else could get in and compete. Once the competition matched his low price, he could cut prices even lower since he would have already achieved large-scale mass production.

The little color computer evolved in secret at MOS Technology, Valley Forge , Pennsylvania . It was not a self-contained unit such as the PET. The entire machine was housed in the keyboard case, and its memory capacity was only 5K of RAM. There was a slot for a software cartridge which would contain a program recorded in Read-Only-Memory (ROM) so it did not use any of the 5K main memory. However, the computer could also be programmed with a small version of BASIC that was also in ROM, and the program could be saved on a Datasette recorder. The keyboard was much more standard than the PET model and the missing period was found. The number keys (0-9) served double functions. When pressed at the same time as the Control key, they changed the color of the display. There were eight colors available; white, black, red, cyan (light blue), purple, green, navy blue, and yellow.

The color computer also could display the PET graphics set and even a reverse set of graphics characters. The video screen was only 22 characters wide, but the characters were nice and large. Naturally, there was no CRT with the little computer, but by then most users had a color set at home, and a video switch was supplied to connect into the antenna terminals. The code name of the small computer was Vixen, but there was much discussion on a final name before settling on VIC-20.

Introduced in January 1981, at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas , the VIC-20 was a big success. The press very favorably compared it to the new TI-99/4 and the Atari 400 computers. However, it was not until the Spring CES in Chicago that the final version with FCC approval was available.

The VIC-20 introduced thousands of people to computers, because it was inexpensive and was sold in the mass market stores. It also had a full line of peripherals. Many of the on-line services such as GEnie and Compuserve owe their growth to the low-cost VIC-Modem. This unity allowed large numbers of people to get on line who might have never tried telecommunications. The price and capability of the VIC-20 was a factor that destroyed the market for video games such as the Atari 2600.

The other very important thing about the VIC-20 was that its expansion gave birth to the most popular computer ever built_the Commodore 64.

The Commodore 64 had 16 colors in place of the eight on the VIC-20. It had a 40-column screen rather than 22. It had a music synthesizer chip (SID chip) and easy-to-use graphics called Sprites, and it could use all the VIC-20 peripherals. Most of all, it had 64K of RAM at a time when Apple had a maximum of 48K. It went on sale to computer store dealers for $595, and a few months later was moved to K-mart for $400.

The home computer price war really started between Texas Instruments and Commodore in the summer of 1982, with Texas Instruments issuing a $100 rebate on the TI 99/4A, bringing the price down to $200. Commodore dropped the VIC-20 price to dealers by $40, and let them sell it for any price they wanted. In September 1982, the Commodore 64 hit the computer stores at $595, and then Atari joined the fray with a $55 rebate on the Atari 400 and dropped the price on the Atari 800 to under $500. Commodore moved the C-64 from the computer stores to mass merchants such as K-mart for $400.

The dealers roared with pain at seeing one of their most profitable incomes going out the door. To a computer store, the sale of a C-64 was only the start on a much more expensive computer system. They made more money on the peripherals and software than on the computer. The VIC-20 price was dropped to less than $130, and merchants started selling them below cost whenever a complete system was purchased.

In February 1983, Texas Instruments again cut the dealer's price of a TI 99/4A by $48 making the retail price $150. Commodore responded by cutting the prices on all peripherals and reducing the price of the VIC-20 to below $100!

Then Commodore came up with a massive "trade-in" offer. They would give a $100 trade-in on any video game, or computer, against the purchase of a C-64! Out came all the old Atari 2600s, Intellivisions, VIC-20s, Sinclairs, and Timexes. People bought Timex Computers on sale for $50 and turned them in on C-64's for $100! The retail price with a "trade-in" was $300.

Atari had just introduced its new 1200XL and found they had to rebate $100 right from the start. However, at the Spring CES Commodore really lowered the boom. They slashed the C-64 dealer's price to between $200 and $250 and cut the price of all their software, including new releases, by 50%.

The blood was flowing all over the home computer industry, but at Texas Instruments it was the worst. Commodore's costs were so low that even at the depressed prices they actually made money on their computers. However, Texas Instruments was losing $100 million in a quarter, and things were not getting better. Texas Instruments' president resigned, and the company quit the home computer business after taking enormous losses.

There were other fallouts of the price wars, and Atari represented one of the worst to its parent company, Warner Communications. This would have an unforeseen effect on Commodore.

During the summer of 1983, Commodore announced that it had become the first personal computer company to hit one billion dollars in sales. Then, upon this announcement came the totally unexpected resignation of Jack Tramiel. The industry was shocked; there had been little indication that Jack was that unhappy with conditions at Commodore.

The computer press was full of rumors about the cause. It was said that Jack wanted his sons to come into the business in top executive positions, and that Irving Gould objected. It was claimed that Gould wanted to make Marshal Smith President and that Smith declined as long as Jack was in the company. The actual reasons have never been revealed, but Jack and his wife left for a tour around the world, and upon his return he formed a company with his sons. Shortly thereafter, they bought Atari from Warner Communications.

Commodore has had a succession of CEOs and executives and is said to have a revolving door in its executive suite. The C-64, in various versions and the upgraded C-128, have lasted for more than ten years. Their numbers alone make them the most popular computer ever built. Commodore went on to feature the Amiga, a 16-bit machine developed by the Lorrane Amiga company.

ATARI 800

On January 5th 1985 , Jack Tramiel was having one of the most enjoyable days of his life. At Comdex in Las Vegas , he was standing in the Atari exhibit, which had been roped off and covered with cloths. The Atari exhibit was the only part of Comdex that was not yet open on the first day of the show. It was awaiting the arrival of the Governor of Nevada, who would formally open the exhibit by cutting a ribbon and allowing the show attendees to see the long awaited Atari 520ST, a new 68000-based computer with the GEM graphics user interface. It was reputed to do everything the Macintosh could do and then some, at half the price of the Mac. In fact it was referred to by the press as "The Jackintosh." The Atari 502ST included color, MIDI sound, and the GEM graphics user interface. The new computer was the rave of the show, and the Tramiel family and their loyal retainers, who had left Commodore when Jack resigned, basked in the glory.

The Atari company, founded by Nolan Bushnell, the inventor of Pong, had grown to become the largest manufacturer of video games and had been sold to Warner Communications. Sales hit 2 billion dollars in 1982, but they plunged to less than 1 billion in 1983 as the public turned to home computers instead of video games. This decline represented a 580 million dollar net loss to Warner. Steven J. Ross, Warner's Chairman and CEO, wanted to unload the business, which he now felt was a drag on Warner and not compatible with the rest of his company. However, it was not easy to find a buyer who could rescue Atari and was willing to take on the job.

Atari had gone into the home computer business producing a line of 8-bit machines based upon the 6502 CPU. The Atari Models 400 and 800, which were the company's first models, were excellent graphics computers, but had several problems in competing in the highly competitive home market. The Atari 400 had a plastic membrane keyboard and was overpriced at $600. The Model 800 was much better, but it was priced just below the Apple II, and it was perceived as more of a "home" computer while Apple was considered as a "serious" computer.

The later 1200XL systems were not much different except in physical appearance, and although they had 64K of memory instead of 48K maximum on the 800, there was not too much inducement for Atari 800 owners to upgrade their machines. Atari also produced peripherals for their computers, including the Model 1010 cassette program recorder, the Model 1025 printer, and a number of disk drives.

Part of the problem was that Atari, hoping to repeat its success in the video game business, had played its game too close to the chest. They kept important programming information "secret" and disclosed them only to programmers who agreed to market through Atari. Serious application programming companies who were producing 6502 software for Apple refused to comply with Atari's demands and turned their backs on the products. The game programmers, however, seized the opportunity to use the excellent color graphics capabilities of the Atari machines to develop intricate games. By the time Atari recognized their error, lowered the prices of the machines, and tried to woo back the business program developers, it was too late. The software companies felt the potential sales would not justify their conversion costs.

Another problem was Atari's identification with their video games. They had called their game machines "VCS" (Video Computer System,) and now potential buyers felt that their personal computers were merely advanced game machines.

Jack Tramiel had started Commodore Business Machines, presided over its growth, and now had resigned from the company. Within a short time, many of the Commodore team responsible for the success of the company followed their leader as the culture of the company changed under the direction of the new management.

When Jack Tramiel left Commodore, Steven Ross recognized the opportunity. What better person could purchase Atari than Jack Tramiel, whose success with low-cost home computers was partly responsible for the decline in simple video games?

After leaving Commodore, Jack and his sons formed a new company, Tramiel Technology Limited (TTL,) with the stated intention of developing new electronic products. At that time, Steven Ross approached Tramiel with the idea of taking over Atari, and they entered into negotiations. By the beginning of July 1984, Tramiel Technologies and Warner Communications became shareholders in each other's companies, and TTL bought Atari.

Tramiel got most of Atari's assets for only $240 million in notes, at a reported very low rate of interest. To give Jack time to re-organize Atari, payments on the interest were not due to start until 1985. Wall Street viewed the deal as Warner selling Atari to Tramiel and loaning him the money to buy it! In addition, Jack got 5-year warrants for one million shares of Warner stock executable at $22 per share‑the market price of Warner when the deal was made. With the Atari drain removed from Warner, its stock price would rise, and Jack's profits would further sweeten the deal.

In return, Warner got warrants for 14.3 million shares of TTL stock representing over 30% of TTL. Warner also agreed to assume obligations for past Atari debts. It was a sensational deal for Tramiel and the end of a costly adventure for Warner. All that Jack Tramiel had to do was to make Atari into a profitable business once again.

He wasted no time and flew to California to take over the bloated Atari organization and re-shape it. Tramiel installed his sons at the helm and set to work to cut away the fat and deadwood.

Sam became President, Gary was put in charge of collecting $300 million worth of outstanding receivables, and Leonard was put in charge of software. In one month they reduced the staff from over 5,000 to 1,500. Atari occupied 40 buildings. Tramiel canceled leases and cut that to seven buildings and turned a profit by selling the furniture that filled those buildings. The warehouses at Atari were packed with over one hundred thousand, 8-bit computers that Atari built but couldn't sell. It was 1985, and 8-bit computers were considered very obsolete. The 16-bit IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh were the desirable computers of the time.

Jack believed that everything would sell at the right price. Atari went on an ambitious project to find the best price at which the Atari 8-bit machines would move out of the warehouse. Since Jack had only paid $80 each for them, a fraction of their original cost, he could afford to sharply cut the price. Moving them out was not difficult. The new Atari team managed to clear the decks for the next generation of computers.

Commodore, which had suffered by the loss of key people who left with Jack and by the Atari price cutting, immediately started a lawsuit charging Tramiel and his associates with taking valuable designs and information when they left Commodore. Jack Tramiel immediately retaliated with a $100 million lawsuit against Commodore. The suit charged that Atari had a previous understanding to purchase the Lorrane Amiga Company because Atari had lent it money to develop the Amiga Computer. Jack charged that Commodore snatched Amiga from Atari by offering a better deal. This suit was without much merit because it happened before Tramiel took over Atari, and Warner had never pursued their claim. Jack's counter-suit did serve to discourage Commodore from their lawsuit against him and his people.

While all these legal maneuvers were going on, the new Atari crew was working on a design that would outdo both the Amiga and the Macintosh and undersell them by 50%. The Atari 520ST was the result. This computer, without the monitor, was priced under $1,000, an incredibly low price for a 1/2 megabyte computer. This gave rise to the motto that Atari used to identify the company, "Power Without The Price."

If price and computer capability were the only criteria for computer business success, Atari would have become one of the giants of the industry. Instead they managed make management decisions that in the long run proved to be unwise. It was said that they managed "to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

At the time of the Tramiel takeover of Atari, there were many computer dealers who specialized in the Atari computers. There was also a sizable user community, and both the dealers and owners must be counted among the most loyal of all families of computer users. They were almost fanatical in their loyalty to Atari computers.

The Atari Forums on Compuserve, led by Ron Luks, were among the largest groups of organized computer users. All of these computer users, plus a sizable contingent of Apple II and Commodore users who had been priced out of the ability to upgrade to 16-bit graphics machines, looked forward to buying the Atari 520ST and represented a huge potential market.

Some of the best graphic software was being written for the Atari 8-bit machines, and developers also were more than anxious to write for the new Atari 520 ST. The potential market seemed almost unlimited.

In retrospect, it is hard to understand some of the counter-productive management decisions made by Atari, even though they might have seemed correct at that time.

Today, it is axiomatic that new computers must be put into the hands of software developers as soon as possible, and companies like Apple employ evangelists to encourage this. Atari, on the other hand, made it as difficult as possible for software developers to get into the 520ST software game. They initially charged them up to $5,000 for a Software Development Kit consisting of a computer and some manuals. Since in the beginning there would not be too many computer users to buy the software, the developers would be unable to recover their large investment for a long time. This discouraged many software developers from writing for the Atari ST .

Wynn Rostek, writing in Computer Shopper for October 1985, described how Atari made another bad decision. They squeezed out the loyal, existing Atari dealers for the 8-bit machines. Atari decided to distribute the new computers through manufacturer's representatives who had to qualify the existing dealers. This policy eliminated many dealers who had supported Atari in hard times in the past. As the dealers dropped away to sell other lines, Atari turned to the mass merchandisers and discount mail order houses. This further antagonized the dealers who remained, and did not work either. The Atari ST was too complicated a computer to be sold without instruction and dealer support. Atari then went back and tried to recruit a new dealer organization. They kept bouncing back and forth between mass merchants and specialty dealers until neither wanted to do business with them.

There were also severe quality control problems with the early machines. Due to poor packaging and long shipping routes, the chips in the computer tended to become loose, and the computers would not work. The failure rate in the first few shipments was almost 50%. This was not serious in the case of experienced dealers, who burned-in their computers before selling them, but with mass merchandisers who sold sealed boxes, it was a disaster. It took strict application of quality control to cure the problem.

The second computer Atari made was the Atari 1040 ST with a full megabyte of RAM and with a built-in single floppy drive. The older 520ST did not have room for internal drives, but could support two external floppies. It also had a port for an external hard drive. Provisions to support two floppies and an external hard drive were built into the TOS operating system from the beginning of the first 520ST. One problem with adding hard drives to the Atari ST machines was the non-standard interface known as the Atari Computer Systems Interface (ACSI) which was a modified SCSI-type interface. Third-party vendors enabled users to get around this when they developed boards that converted ACSI to standard SCSI and allowed any SCSI hard drive to be used with an Atari ST .

The 520ST and the 1040 ST were the two computers that comprised the ST line until 1987, when Atari came out with the Mega ST computers. These new machines had a separate keyboard and built-in hard drives.

In 1989, when other companies were improving their computers, Atari produced the Atari 520STE, 1040 STE, and Mega STE models, which were somewhat improved versions of the ST computers.

In the United States in the years since 1985, when the Atari ST line was introduced, the Intel-powered MS-DOS computers and the Apple Macintosh have completely dominated the industry. Commodore's Amiga ran a poor third, and the presence of Atari's ST and Mega was hardly felt except among the loyal fans.

Apple, IBM, Compaq, and the countless clone manufacturers spent millions of dollars on advertising. Commodore advertised in spurts when a new president took over, but Atari spent hardly anything on advertising. Even when they did advertise, they used Atari magazines, where they only talked to the converted. And so with few dealers and no ads in general computer magazines, they gained few new customers. Atari's answer to declining sales was always to cut the price. However, with the huge growth of the AT-clone market, they could never match the features and prices offered by the clone manufacturers.

Since the population of Atari ST and STE and Mega ST & STE computers was small, and the operating system was unique, there was no incentive for standard software developers to offer Atari versions of popular software. Only the game software developers featured Atari versions. There were, however, some excellent Atari software systems which did offer a user some excellent programs but little choice.

The more Atari's business declined in the United States , the more Atari turned to overseas sales. In Europe , the situation was completely different from the United States . There were fewer distributors, and they tended to specialize in one type of computer and one country. The prices for machines and software were higher, and Jack Tramiel directed most of Atari's production and marketing efforts into European sales and development. The machines proved very popular and sold very well. Soon, all the Atari production and support were devoted to Europe , and the United States market declined further from lack of support in this country. To this day 85% of Atari's income is derived from outside North America . This foreign success was achieved at the expense of the North American market and caused a lot of resentment among domestic users and dealers.

Basically, Atari did very little development work on new computers and very few updates to the TOS operating system. Atari did come out with machines like the portable laptop Stacy and The 68030 TT line, but very few machines became available in this country.

In all the years from 1985 to 1989, Computer Shopper magazine, one of the few general computer magazines who even covered the Atari, had only one cover and feature story devoted to Atari and that featured the packaged Desk top Publishing System put out by the Atari Business Systems Group. This featured a Mega STE computer , a scanner, and the Atari Laser Printer. It had some fairly good DTP software, but the laser printer could only be used with an Atari Mega because the intelligence was in the computer rather than the printer. It was priced about $5,000 for the whole package, not a bad price for the time. The same package now sells for $3,000, but even at that price, it is no great bargain today.

Atari must be credited with marketing one of the first practical palmtop computers. Their Portfolio has an excellent keyboard and a good display. It comes with five built-in applications, a PC card drive for uploading and downloading files to a desk top PC and has 128K of RAM. Originally, the Portfolio sold for about $500, much less than competing palmtops, and was well received. Again, however, Atari failed to come out with new models with featuring provisions for expanded memory, or the new standard flash cards for application software. Instead of offering upgraded models with increased MS-DOS compatibility and new features, they lowered the price. As new palmtops come on to the market at any price, the sales of Portfolio will continue to decrease.

Although Atari is completely out of the large-screen video game business, the Atari Entertainment Division, with its Lynx color hand held video game, has done much better than the computer division. The Lynx sells well, and there is a fairly large assortment of software for it. The Lynx hand-held game business is only a small fraction of the multi-billion dollar video game business, which is now completely dominated by Nintendo.

Atari's most glaring failure recently took place in the courts rather than in the stores. In a 150-million-dollar lawsuit, Atari has sued Nintendo for domination of the industry, charging Nintendo with being a monopoly, operating in restraint of trade.

Here was a setting for the biggest Atari potential victory since they introduced the 520ST. There was little doubt that Nintendo almost had a monopoly of video game machines. Their software policies were very monopolistic, and at one time Atari had a large share of the business, which they lost when Nintendo came in. In addition, here was an American company suing a Japanese one in a United States court. To make matters worse for Nintendo, there was a strong feeling against Japanese business practices. It looked like Atari could not lose, and 150 million dollars would revive the faltering company.

The trial was a long one. Nintendo admitted they dominated the market and were a monopoly! However, their defense was that they had not acted in restraint of trade. They just provided a better product that people wanted to buy. In addition, they claimed that the many negative business decisions Atari had made cost them their position in the industry. Nintendo was not to blame for Atari's problems_Atari was.

To make matters worse, Nintendo was able to prove their claims, and Atari lost the case. Not only did Atari not get an award of 150 million dollars, but they have to pay Nintendo's costs to defend the case. This could amount to an additional million dollars, in addition to their own legal costs.

Things look very bleak for Atari. The loss of the Nintendo lawsuit and decrease of business in Europe has hurt them. The large PC manufacturers are building clones in Europe , and prices are falling. However, Atari has not given up yet. They may have just one more chance. Atari introduced the Falcon 030 at the Fall, 1992 Comdex in Las Vegas . This new machine features a 68030 CPU, more memory, and standard SCSI interfaces. This computer will compete with the lower-priced Macintosh computers and should attract a lot of attention. A second machine, now in development, will also be a fast 68040 machine with a large compliment of memory and standard SCSI interfaces. With these new computers selling at traditionally low Atari prices, the wounded company could get back into the business. It seems like the last hurrah for Atari.

TRS-80 "The Trash 80"

Introduction to TRS-80
In the spring of 1977, I received a phone call from Ben Rosen, who at that time was a market analyst for Morgan Stanley. He was just about the only stock market analyst specializing in the infant personal computer industry and one of the industry experts. Ben, who later became the Chairman of both Compaq and Lotus, had already organized the first of his famous industry seminars, and he had invited me on a panel as a retailer. This call, however, was to tell me that I was about to receive a visit from an important person, if I had time to see and talk with him today. Ben went on to tell me that my visitor would be Charles Tandy, who owned the Radio Shack chain of some 7,000 stores. He had only that day, and he wanted to visit a successful computer store.
Mr. Tandy arrived shortly after lunch and introduced himself.
"Call me Charles," he said as I conducted him through my operation.
We started in the basement where we repaired computers, built many of them into systems, and had our stock room. Then to the selling floor, where he seemed most interested in the Apple II and the SOL. Charles was a man who could put anyone at ease, even if they knew how important a person he was. He had the knack of asking the most direct and revealing questions in a way that aroused no resentment. I really enjoyed talking with him, flattered that this powerful businessman would seek me out for advice. At the end of the day, he told me that he had visited other computer stores and in general classified them into two categories: first, stores run by computer hobbyists where a neophyte would be ignored, or snowed. The second type of store was run by ex-used car salesmen who were masters of the hard sell. They tried to completely snow the average prospective buyer. He said my store did not fit into either category (for which I was grateful,) but seemed to meet the customer at whatever level they were at. I told Charles that most of my salespeople were recruited from the hobbyist ranks, but that I had trained them somewhat in the art of retail selling.
We talked all afternoon, and at the end of the day he asked what I was doing that weekend, and would I consider going back with him to his headquarters in Fort Worth . It was common gossip in the industry that Radio Shack was going to be selling computers very soon, but nobody knew what kind they would be selling. Now it seemed that I was being invited to get an advance look. Of course I told Charles I would love to go with him.
The next morning was Friday, and I met the Tandy party in their suite at the Hotel Carlisle on Park Avenue for breakfast. After breakfast, we piled into a limo for a trip to the airport, but first we made a stop at a nearby shop where they sold novelty telephones. Charles bought a few as gifts for his friends back in Texas . Later I was told that he bought the store because they carried the most unusual phones. Phones packed aboard, we drove out to Teterbro Airport in New Jersey and boarded the Tandy corporate jet for the flight to Fort Worth .
All this was new and exciting to me. I had never flown in a corporate jet, and I had never been to Texas , either. Landing in Fort Worth , we all drove to a local barbecue which was Charles favorite, and then straight to the Tandy plant. There, Charles introduced me to most of his executives and told me they were developing a new type of computer for sale in their stores. He said that they had investigated all of the machines being offered for sale and had come to the conclusion that they were all too complicated and too expensive for the average person. They had therefore designed a completely new concept in small computers.
With that, they showed me what seemed to be a keyboard and a 12-inch TV screen, with a wire connecting the two units. The plastic case was colored with a metallic silver gray finish, and the keyboard and front of the TV was a contrasting black. The oversized logo on the front read "RADIO SHACK TRS-80" and "MICRO COMPUTER SYSTEM."
My first comment was, "Where's the computer?"
"It's inside the keyboard case," I was told.
"Right under the keyboard!" I could hardly believe it.
I was used to the Altair and Imsai_even the SWTPC 6800 and the SOL with their brute force power supplies and expandable bus. Even the Apple II, which I considered a masterpiece of compact design, took much more space than the TRS-80 keyboard unit. Then I noticed the external power supply plugged into the wall. Well, there was one reason for the size.
"We decided to use an external power supply to conserve space and keep the heat out of the computer case.
"Okay," I thought. That made sense.
I really liked the idea that the TRS-80 came with its own TV monitor. In those days video monitors were very hard to get and they were expensive. I had bought a huge order of 9-inch, high quality, security type video monitors to sell with my computers, and I sold them at a very small mark-up if the customer bought a computer.
Radio Shack had provided a 12-inch TV quality video display that was really a television with the radio section removed. This was a smart way to get a larger, reasonably priced video monitor if you had the buying power of Tandy.
"Tell me some more about the computer?" I asked.
"Well," someone answered, "it's a Z-80 based machine with 4K of RAM, and a ROM with the boot-up software and BASIC. Programs and data are loaded through a cassette. The video display has 64 characters and 16 lines and there are graphics characters as well as uppercase letters."
"This is interesting," I thought. "Just like the first Apple I."
"Tell me about the BASIC?" I asked.
"Well, it's out. Level I contained in a ROM. This is an integer-only version with only two character variables. Our Level II will be out shortly and will have enough advanced features for anybody."
By now I was very impressed with the TRS-80, and I fully realized that it was going to be hard competition for anything I sold, except possibly the Apple II. The big question in my mind was, how much would they sell it for?
As if he was reading my mind, Charles asked me, "How much do you think should I sell it for?"
I really had no basis of comparison except possibly the SOL (I had not received an Apple II yet,) and it sold for $1,400 with a video monitor. Well, this machine is a lot simpler, so I should figure about $1,000. However this is Radio Shack so it must be cheaper. I'll say $900.
"Well," I said, "about $900 would be a fair price."
"What would you think about $600?" one of the Tandy people answered.
"If you are going to sell this system with a video display and built-in BASIC for $600, you better build a hell of a lot of them," I returned.
"Stan, just how many do you think would be enough?" one of the Tandy people asked.
"Enough," I said, "would be about 50,000."
"You are out of your mind," answered one of Tandy's staff. "No one has ever built more than 5,000 of the same type of computer, and we are thinking 12,000."
"You have 7,000 stores," I returned. "If you have only one to show and one to sell, that's no way for a big company to do business."
"We don't think all of our stores can sell computers; it's a specialized business."
"True," I answered, "but this computer may change all that."
After this exchange, I sensed a division in the company. Charles and all the people he had brought on board to develop the TRS-80 were convinced that the TRS-80 would be a tremendous success and would change their business. The older electronics people whose thinking was fixed in the audio, radio, and hobby electronics business did not understand the fascination of the computer for even the most conservative business person.
Charles then showed me folders containing cassettes and manuals for all kinds of home and business software. There were accounting programs, home management programs, and educational programs. They were all going to sell for less than $30.
At this I smiled and said, "Keeping business records on a tape cassette program has not proved very practical. (I was being very kind!) You would be well advised to keep your programs very simple until you get a disk-based system."
They ignored me and changed the subject. "How many of these computers could you sell in your store?"
"I would start with 10 per week and end up selling 40 or 50 a week," I replied.
They obviously did not believe me, but they didn't challenge my statements.
The meeting broke up at that point, and I was taken to a hotel to freshen up for some Texas hospitality later that evening. The next day was Saturday, and about 9:30 I received a phone call that Mr. Tandy was tied up, and that I should have my breakfast. He would pick me up later.
About 10:30 , Charles picked me up at the hotel and took me to the yet uncompleted Tandy Center . He showed me the building and parking lot with its subway into the center. He told me that it would become a center of life in Fort Worth , and he wanted it to be his contribution to the city he loved.
Then Charles told me how he had started in business making leather hobby kits and selling them in his craft stores. How he had bought the failing Radio Shack company, which was a retail electronics distributor that had evolved from ham radio equipment. He had built Radio Shack into the world's largest electronic retailer and one of the largest distributors in the United States . He believed that the personal computer industry was going to become very important in the near future. He also said that most of the companies then in business would fall within a year of two. The reason, he said, was because they were so disorganized and had no idea how to manufacture and market their products. I was very impressed with Charles' statements because I had staked my future on the industry, and I had the same feelings about some of the companies I did business with.
After we left the construction of Tandy Center , we went to the temporary offices of the corporation where we resumed our meeting. There I was told that Charles wanted to buy my store and hire me to train managers for his computer stores. The purchase price offered was not very liberal, but I was assured that my employment contract would be very good. I told them I would take it up with my partners.
When I returned to New York , I consulted my wife, who actually owned the store, and her parents, who had supplied some of the starting capital.
They said. "Do what you think best."
My partner, Mike Alpert, said that as long as he got back his investment and some return, he would go along with anything I wanted to do. So the decision was mine alone to make. One thing bothered me about this sale, and I called to talk it over with Charles Tandy. When I started the store in 1976, I did not draw any salary for a full year. We lived on my wife's salary as a New York City school teacher. It had always been my intention to pay myself that back salary when the store income allowed it. Now, if I sold out, that year would be down the drain. I explained this to Charles and told him that all I wanted was $25,000 for that hard year. He could not see it and told me that I was getting my foot on a high rung of the ladder at Radio Shack. He told me that all of the men who stuck with him when he took over Radio Shack were now millionaires. This attitude turned me off to the deal, and I decided to turn it down. The TRS-80 became the most popular computer ever built, but Charles Tandy passed away a year later. Most of the people he brought in to develop the Model I computer were gone shortly after his death. John Ratliff, Charles Tandy's assistant, told me that I would have never made it at Radio Shack.

APPLE II


The Early Days of Apple Computer

We were just beginning to realize that the computer store might be a success beyond our dreams and that the little space in Polk's Hobby Store might not be enough, when I received a phone call.

It was a very fast-talking young man who told me, "I'm Steve Jobs." He said that he had been sent by Paul Terrell and John French, who had both bought his great single board computer and become dealers. Paul had bought 50 of them! This was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and he had to send me one.

"Sure, send it," I said. After all, Paul and John were friends and I would go with their choice. Whamo! Next day Fedex delivered a package C.O.D. $500.

I was a little taken aback, but I paid the charge and gave the package to Dave, one of my techs.

"Here. Look at this, and let me know what you think," I told him.

"What is it?" he answered.

"A computer, the Apple 1."

"Whaddya mean a computer? All in that little box? Common!"

He took the box and disappeared. Later, he took some money from the cash register and went to Radio Shack. When he came back, he fiddled with some wires and a video monitor, and called me over to see what he had done. A Radio Shack transformer was wired to a plug that went into the wall. The other side had wires into the page-sized PC board. A black square appeared on the video screen.

"See! It works," Dave told me.

"What does it do?" I asked.

"Nothing, needs a keyboard. I'll get one," Dave told me.

Dave came back with one of our SWTPC keyboards and wired it in after studying the schematic.

"Don't work," he told me. "Better call 'em."

So I called the number listed in the paperwork and asked for Steve.

"Which one?" the young man at the other end asked.

"The fast talker," I told him.

"Oh, Steve Jobs. Wait a minute." Steve came on the line, and I told him the keyboard didn't work.

"What kind of keyboard did you use? South West? Nah, they won't work. I'll send a good one and some software tomorrow."

"Wait." I told him I didn't need it Fedex next day_I could wait. Too late, he was gone.

Next day, another C.O.D. for $60 arrived, and a little plug-in circuit board with two chips on it arrived, and a cassette. Fedex collect. Again I called California for Steve.

"Got the keyboard? Good one! I'm going to buy a lot and we will get them cheaper. The little board, oh yes, that's the cassette interface, only two chips, Woz invented it, runs at 1200 baud. Great, you'll love it. the software is the "Game of Life."

All of this in one breath! I hung up.

Dave figured everything out and hooked it all up. It worked just as Steve said it would. The cassette interface was terrific. All the other ones we had ran at 300 baud and had a full board of chips and parts. This interface ran four times as fast and always got a good load. That alone was unusual. The Game of Life was very complex software for that time. It put figures representing cells on the screen. They lived, died, or reproduced, depending on their proximity to other cells, generation after generation. I was impressed. I called Steve and told him.

"Wait, Woz is working on BASIC. We should have it shortly," he said.

I also found out that Woz was his partner, Steve Wozniak, and he was the inventor.

Now it just so happened the New York Chapter of the Association For Computer Machinery (ACM) was holding a dinner meeting, and our store, together with other metropolitan area computer dealers, had been invited to show our equipment. This was a first experience for these big computer people who had little contact with microcomputers. I knew other dealers were planning to bring large, complete computer systems. With the arrival of the Apple 1, I changed my ideas. I asked one of the hangers-on at my store to take the Apple, and mount it, the keyboard, and power transformer into a large attaché case. He did a great job, and I had a portable microcomputer. My wife and I went to the dinner, and all we took was the case, a 9-inch video monitor, and the cassette recorder. We seated ourselves next to the wall, where there were electrical plugs, and I quietly connected everything and loaded The Game of Life. The monitor faced the podium where the chairman was conducting the meeting.

He could not help but notice it. He stopped in his introductions and said, "What in the world is on that tube?"

I answered, "It's the Game of Life running on my computer."

"What computer? I don't see any computer. What are you talking about?" the chairman answered. Now he was really upset!

I got up and said, "My computer is in that case, and I am sorry, but I have it running just for practice. I did not think it would disrupt things here."

"You are telling me that there is a computer in that little case? What kind?" he sputtered.

"It's the Apple," I replied.

"Apple? Never heard of it. Well, turn it off now!"

After the formal part of the meeting, all the computer dealers set up their equipment to demonstrate their products.

I waited until last and got up and said, "I thank all my fellow dealers for showing off their systems because we at Computer Mart sell exactly the same products. However, I have here the future of personal computing. It is called the Apple Computer, and it requires no expensive terminal and no big box of electronics. It's all here in this little attaché case, and I invite you to see and use it."

It was the Apple that caused the greatest excitement of the evening. However, they all asked me to call them when BASIC was available and when the little computer could be expanded. I called Steve Jobs the next day and told him what had happened. He was even more excited than usual and told me Woz was working hard on BASIC, a typical Steve Jobs half-truth.

A week later, I went to a Processor Technology dealer's meeting at Emeryville , California . There were several telephone messages from Steve Jobs to me during the meeting. When I could break away, I called Steve at the number he left. He begged me to come down to Los Gatos to visit him that day. Not having any idea how far it was from Emeryville, I agreed and set off in my rented car. I arrived at the address, which turned out to be his sister's house, and Steve was there with Dan Kottke and another friend. He told me he had great plans, and Apple was going to be a big company. He asked me to invest $10,000, and said he would give me 10% of Apple Computer for my investment.

Looking at this long-haired hippie and his friends, I thought, "You would be the last person in the world I would trust with my ten grand!"

What I said was, "Steve, all my money is invested in my store, but I will help you. I have a double booth at the big computer show in Atlantic City , New Jersey this August. If you come to the show, I will give you free booth space and publicize the Apple computer."

He was somewhat disappointed at my turn-down but quick to take advantage of my offer. Booth space was expensive, and the show was a sell out. "I don't know if we can raise the fare to get to the show, but if we can I'll take you up on your offer. Woz has just finished the Apple II prototype, and he is bringing it over to show you."

When Wozniak came over I was a little more impressed with him than Jobs. He brought a computer board with jumper wires all over and parts hanging off all over the board. This was to be the Apple II! After Woz hooked his haywire rig up to the living room TV, he turned it on, and there on the screen I saw a crude Breakout game in full color! Now I was really amazed. This was much better than the crude color graphics from the Cromemco Dazzler.

After a few minutes Woz turned it off and said, "I am still working on it; everything heats up after a while!"

"How do you like that?" said Jobs, smiling. "We're going to dump the Apple I and only work on the Apple II."

"Steve," I said, "if you do that you will never sell another computer. You promised BASIC for the Apple I, and most dealers haven't sold the boards they bought from you. If you come out with an improved Model II they will be stuck. Put it on the back burner until you deliver on your promises."

I suppose I wasn't much encouragement for the young businessman because I told him things he didn't want to hear, but a week later he called me in New York .

"We have the tickets, and we are coming to the Atlantic City Show. Woz almost has BASIC finished_we will bring it with us. Get me a room at the Hotel."

I called the Shoreham and was told there were no more rooms. So I doubled up two of my people and gave the room to the Apple characters.

On August 26, 1976 , we all went to Atlantic City , New Jersey and the old Shoreham Hotel for what was to be the first national computer show, and the most important. We had our booth set up with our Apple I housed in a case with a monitor inside and the keyboard in front. It was a one-piece masterpiece made by a friend of mine, Mitch Bogdanowitz, who was a great model maker. We called the new desk top computer Eve, because she ate the Apple! Of course we also showed an Imsai, and we expected to receive our first SOL at the show. Half of the booth we saved for the two Steves and their Apple Computers. They showed up later in the day. Steve Jobs and Dan Kottke came into the booth and started to set up signs.

"Woz is in the room finishing BASIC. He's using the hotel T.V." said Jobs.

At this point my mother-in-law came over to Steve. She looked him up and down and said, "Young man, your backside is sticking out of holes in those jeans! You are NOT going to be in my booth like that. Take 'em off and I'll sew them up, now!"

Steve Jobs was more than a little surprised_I don't think anyone had ever spoken to him like that! However, you didn't fool around with Elizabeth Olivet, who was a very formidable Italian grandmother. Steve went behind a curtain, took off his pants, and handed them to her. She took out the sewing kit from her commodious bag and mended the worn jeans until they met her standards of modesty.

All Jobs said was, "Thanks, I think we better get back to the room to see how Woz is doing."

The next day, on August 28th, the show opened. Steve Jobs had several Apple I computers running_the new Apple Basic, and he had one encased in a wooden cabinet that he was really proud of. Their exhibit attracted a lot of attention, as well it should. In this show full of 8080 computers with large cabinets, flashing lights, and colorful switches, the Apple was the lone 6502-based machine. It was a single board, yet it had its own video display and ran full BASIC. In addition it could load from a cassette faster than any other machine there. Nobody who walked anywhere near the booth failed to be buttonholed by Steve Jobs, who told them in no uncertain terms what a great thing the Apple was. He even got press coverage_ no mean feat in a show where the new SOL computer was introduced, where the Altair B dominated the largest booth, and where TDL showed the very first Z-80 CPU for the S-100 bus.

We did not get the new SOL during the show, but one was given to us at the end. When the show closed, the partners went back to California somewhat disappointed because, in spite of all the attention , they had not sold one Apple 1. Neither had I, although I had taken orders for several SOLs and a couple of Imsai systems.

The return from Atlantic City was a great letdown for the partners. Wozniak felt that he should be only working on the color version and that Jobs was keeping him from it. In fact, Woz tried to sell the idea to Processor Technology, maker of the popular SOL computers. They relied on the advice of Lee Felsenstien, who didn't think much of Apple, and turned Woz down. Then Commodore came to Jobs as a result of the Atlantic City Show and wanted to buy the company as an easy entry into the microcomputer business. Jobs asked for $100,000 and fairly big salaries for the partners. Commodore thought the asking price was ridiculous from two young men working out of a garage, and luckily for Apple the deal fell through. They were just about at the end of their resources. The dealers had not re-ordered because the Apple 1 simply did not sell. I had to make mine down below cost to get rid of them.

At this point Jobs decided that they needed help with marketing, advertising, and public relations. Asking around Silicon Valley , he was give the name of Regis McKenna as a top practitioner of these arcane arts. Steve contacted Mc Kenna for an appointment but was shunted to an employee whose job was to screen out people who might waste the company's time. Job's appearance seemed to put him in that category, but when he started to talk he was able to convince the interviewer to pass him along to Regis McKenna himself. Again, in spite of a less than qualified endorsement from Paul Terrell, McKenna saw something in the two partners and their product. He decided to take on Apple as a client.

Because he realized that the first thing Apple needed was more money, he introduced Jobs to Don Valentine, a venture capitalist. Valentine liked the idea but did not invest in Apple himself because he felt it did not offer a big enough market for him. He introduced the partners to Mike Makulla, a man who had made a fortune by investing in the Intel company, and retired at 30. Makulla saw a future in microcomputers and decided to make Apple his venture into the business. He invested money, borrowed more from a bank, and with the two partners formed Apple Computer Company.

Wozniack was a hold out for the longest time because he wanted to keep his job with Hewlett Packard and moonlight with Apple as he had been doing up to that time, but Makulla wanted a 100% commitment from both partners as a condition for his investment. The company was incorporated in January 1977 and bought out the partnership completely. Markulla brought in Michael Scott as President because he felt that neither of the partners had the skills to run a corporation, and he himself did not want to become too deeply involved. Nevertheless, he was the engine that turned a garage workshop company into a major computer corporation.

I spent the year after the Atlantic City show selling SOL computers, SWTPC computers, and developing a dealership in Alpha Micro Time Sharing computers. However, when Apple II's started to arrive they slowly built into our major line, displacing the SOL and SWTPC 6800's. The Apple II changed the entire business. No longer did solder wielding techies hang out at our store_the Apples came completely built and ready to run. The Apple disk system was priced within everyone's price range, and soon there was a lot of very useful software for it, lead by Visicalc, the most important program. Businessmen would come into the store to buy "A Visicalc Machine" and that's all they used it for. In the Apple II users, we saw a different type of enthusiast. The Apple users did not mix very well with the S-100 users, just as there is a division between the Mac users and the MS-DOS users today. In New York City, The Big Apple Club was formed just for Apple owners and met at our store. The Apple users were much more oriented toward software and graphic applications. They were more interested in what a computer did then how it did it.

Being the major Apple dealer in New York brought us a lot of business and growth, but then trouble struck The Computer Mart of New York. I had signed a very large purchase order with Apple, and I distributed the extra computers to several other Computer Mart stores, with whom I was loosely allied. We all got a good volume price from Apple, who only had to deal with me instead of five other stores. I marked the machines up 5%, for my trouble and expenses in distributing them.

This worked well for all until Apple decided to open a distribution center in Boston under control of my old competitor and friend, Dick Brown. My contract was canceled, and I was told to buy through Dick Brown. This would work no hardship on me, but my fellow Computer Mart owners in Boston, Vermont, and New Hampshire were in direct competition with Dick Brown's Computer Store, and they did not trust him to deal fairly with them. This was particularly important because there was an acute shortage of Apple disk drives, and people would buy only if they could get a disk drive. Instead of signing with Brown immediately, I tried to reach Steve Jobs to make some other arrangement to get our computers. Not only did he refuse to talk to me, but all my computer shipments were stopped.

Finally I decided my friends would have to shift for themselves, and I signed with Brown. It took some time for me to get my orders back into the pipeline, and I lost a lot of sales to other dealers in the New York area. This loss of business, coupled with the closing of Processor Technology, finally did in my business in 1979, and I left the retail computer store.

People who have read my articles often ask me if I regret refusing Steve Jobs the $10,000 investment for 10% of Apple, which is now a multi-billion dollar business.

I always answer, "No, I did not lie to Steve Jobs. Every cent I had was invested in my own store. I tried to help him in every way I could, but when I needed him he turned his back on me."

I did not see Steve Jobs for a few years after the store closed, but I heard plenty about him. Then one day my wife Dede and I were crossing Central Park West after a walk in the park. As we emerged near the Tavern On The Green we saw a party of young men and women heading for the Tavern.

All of a sudden my wife stopped and exclaimed, "My God! Steve Jobs in a three-piece suit!"

He looked at her and smiled, the very picture of sartorial perfection. "Hello, Dede, you sure know how to humble a fellow."

There was never anything humble about Steve Jobs.