THE AMAZING COMPUTER EVOLUTION - AND I WAS THERE! ~ And what a
wild ride it has been! In 1958 I began my technology journey with
Burroughs Corporation Electrodata Division in Pasadena,
California, on a million dollar vacuum tube mainframe computer
system.
A photo in a recent Pinterest (image sharing and social
media service) e-mail reminded me that
the ASR-33 Teletype has been along on most of that ride with me.
Wherever I go, there is the reliable old ASR-33 Teletype of one
configuration or another.
Like in any good story, we read "It All Began With" me working on
the Burroughs B220 mainframe computer system, first as a Test
Technician and then as a Field Engineer. Then in 1967 I left
Field Engineering and ventured into sales and finally, over a
number of years, tried my hand at marketing. In 1967, I joined
Digital Equipment Corporation in their Palo Alto, California,
sales office. That was the time of the PDP-10 Mainframe and the
PDP-11 Minicomputer.
You may be wondering how that Telephone
Acoustic Coupler snuck into the story. Glad you asked. That was
the time in the late 1960s when time-sharing computers hit the
market. And the only way to do a time-share demo in the client's
facility was to connect to the Time-Share Mainframe with an
Acoustic Coupler via Ma Bell's 300 baud (bits per second)
telephone line.
For purposes of sales demonstrations, the Acoustic Coupler was our
lifeline back to the mainframe computer. And for my young
Friends, that
black object with the circle of holes - is a telephone. Really!
You will notice that it has a curlicue line connecting to the
receiver/transmitter resting in the Acoustic Coupler - and another
wire from its backside, no not a tail, but to a 4-wire line
connection on the wall. That was its lifeline back to the mainframe
computer. Those holes in a circle were used to dial a telephone
number. Amazing technology, right?
But this is where we sales people hit a real snag. The Acoustic
Coupler had a sound unknown to switchboard operators (ladies who
helped up place long distant or special phone calls) at that
time. Believe it or not, we could dial "O" and speak with a real
live telephone operator, a live person.
Every time before I would start a demo of our time-sharing feature with a
prospective client, I would get the operator on the line and
explain that the funny beeping sounds she would hear - were
normal, for it was a computer talking to a friend.
Yet every time, without fail, after about 10 minutes - the phone
line would be disconnected. What happened? The operator, having
a short memory, would come on the line to see if all was okay -
hear the computer beeping in his own unique language, and assuming
the line had gone bad - she disconnected us. Literally it
happened every single time I attempted to do a remote demo. Such
was life in the computer world in the late 1960s.
In parallel with the PDP-10 mainframe computer system, Digital
Equipment also had the PDP-11 minicomputer. A minicomputer was a
smaller brother to the mainframe - and a big brother to the yet to
be born microcomputer. But you will notice in the middle left photo
- there is the PDP-11 with the reliable old ASR-33 Teletype. In
many PDP-11 systems, small like this photo and in much larger
PDP-11 configurations - there was usually the ASR-33 Teletype,
sometimes multiple units.
Then circa 1975, Ed Roberts, who many call the "Father of the
Microcomputer," and with good reason, happened on the computer
scene. In the early 1970s Intel introduced its first
microprocessor, the Intel 4004, a 4-bit computer on a chip. That
gave a gentle nudge to engineers that here was a device they could
use as an embedded control unit in the products they were developing.
Instead of building a controller out of individual discreet
components - the 4004 could be programmed to do the control
function. Interesting, but no great leap ahead for we folks
looking for a real computer, at a reasonable cost, that we could
use in our business environment - and eventually, at home.
And Along Came . . . WHO? At this point I will pause to share a
beloved song from the Coasters released in 1958, "Along Came
Jones." One of my favorite remakes of that old classic happened
on the Andy Williams Show in 1969: Ray Stevens, Andy Williams, and Danny
Thomas performing "Along Came Jones" with little Jimmy Osmond as
Jones!!
Ray Stevens - "Along Came Jones" (Live on Andy Williams Show, 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ippnMH2WwE
Now back
to my story of the Amazing Computer Evolution. As I was
starting to say before I was distracted by another memory -
Along Came Ed Roberts - who with a fellow Air Force technology
officer, Forrest Mims, started a company in Albuquerque named
MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), a company
formed in 1969 to sell electronic telemetry modules for model
rocket guidance and control.
They later developed the Opticom, which
was a device that transferred voice using light (I later worked
for a company, Computer Transmission, which sold a similar
transmission device designed to connect computers over a
distance via an LED light beam). MITS had its big break in 1971
when it started selling the MITS 816 four-function calculator,
which sold thousands of units per month, but eventually faded
due to competition from much larger companies like Texas
Instruments, etc.
In 1974, when Intel began producing its newer and faster 8-bit
microprocessor, the 8080, is when MITS made its leap into computer
history - by creating and producing the MITS Altair 8800, the
machine that brought Bill Gates and Paul Allen to Albuquerque,
New Mexico, where they, along with being the programming staff
for MITS, co-founded Microsoft.
The MITS Altair was available
first in kit form, much like the old Heathkit products.
Heathkit began in 1949 and sold many products - radios, stereos,
instruments, you name it, eventually microcomputers and provided
them in kit form sold to enterprising technology folks. In
1960 I had a good friend and fellow Computer Field Engineer, Teoman
Yatman, in Virginia, who wanted a stereo for his upcoming
birthday party. He ordered a full cabinet size stereo kit from
Heathkit and built it himself - in two weeks.
Like Heathkit, Ed Roberts and MITS sold Altair microcomputer kits. When I
first joined MITS in 1975, I was surprised to see large
companies such as Hughes Aircraft buying computer kits and
having their inhouse technicians build them. I suppose it was a
way to keep technicians busy and also let them become familiar
with the microprocessor, while waiting for the next big contract
to came in.
At MITS my job was to contract and manage
independent Manufacturer Representative companies who would sell
the Altair Microcomputer. And a way to help them sell the
product was for me to present Microcomputer Seminars in their local
areas. That was a time when companies large and small were
looking for ways to use microprocessors in their products.
And
the MITS Altair with the Basic compiler interpreter created by
Bill Gates and Paul Allen helped the engineers use the
microprocessors. So my seminars were always filled with company
engineers eager to learn about microprocessors.
Let me pause for a moment and share a real "egg on my face"
moment. After Intel brought out their 8080 microprocessor, a
couple of Intel engineers largely responsible for the 8080,
Federico Faggin and Ralph Ungermann, left intel, formed a
company named Zilog, and created the Z80 microprocessor to
compete with Intel's 8080. And the Z80 microprocessor grabbed a
major portion of the market rather quickly.
At that time I was
selling a microcomputer which used the Z80 microprocessor and I was at a local
small computer show at the Cabana Hotel in Palo Alto. Folks would
stop by my table to learn about our product and typically I
would tell them all the wonderful features of the Z80 over the
Intel 8080.
In mid-afternoon, two men stopped by and as we chatted, I went
into my pitch about
the Z80 - as they stood attentively listening to my pitch. Then
they introduced themselves - Federico Faggin and Ralph Ungermann
- the two men who were involved in the development of the 8080
and who had started Zilog and created the Z80. Once I realized
who they were, I felt rather foolish - kind of like explaining
to God how to create the heavens and the earth. But there was
no criticism nor corrections - so I must have given a pretty good
description and comparison.
In 1974 I had signed a manufacturer's representative company, REPCO, in
the Palo Alto area to sell my Control Logic modules and
systems. When I left Control Logic and joined MITS, I asked my
manufacturer's reps, Paul Terrell and his partner, Floyd Wilson, to
jump to MITS with me. But since they were just getting up to
speed selling Control Logic products, they chose not to jump.
A
months or so later, I gave two nights of Microcomputer Seminars at Dinah's
Hyatt House in Palo Alto - and after the first night when the
room was overflowing and I had to ask people standing ten deep outside
the room to come back the next evening - Paul Terrell told me, "Bill,
I am ready to make the switch to MITS." I was impressed
with the overflowing response of engineers and managers in the
Palo Alto area who came to the seminars - and so was Paul.
Paul and Floyd made the switch in really big way. A month or so
after joining the MITS team, they opened the Byte Shop in
Mountain View, California - the second computer store in
America, most likely the world. The first being a man and wife who had a store front in
Los Angeles and sold computer products on consignment. Paul
then opened another in Oregon with a brother, and then a third
in Oregon with another brother.
That was the beginning of the
Byte Shop Computer Store Chain, the very first computer store
chain in the world. And I believe it was when the Byte Shop Chain was at 58 stores and with other computer store chains entering the
market, they sold to another chain which had subsequently joined
the computer store evolution and retired.
Today Paul and his wife are driving around America in a large RV and
enjoying life. I stay in touch via Facebook - a technology we could not
even imagine in 1975.
And it all started with MITS! The Altair was the rocket which
truly began the microcomputer industry for industry and home use
- and is responsible, in a large way, for the laptop I am using
as a desktop computer with a large display to write this blog
today. And my HP laptop/desktop computer, gifted to me about
ten years ago by my Christian brother and Friend, Tom Ford, is like the
Energizer Bunny - it just keeps going and going. Amazing technology.
Ed Roberts eventually sold MITS to Pertec
Computer Corporation for $6 million in shares
in May of 1977. Meanwhile Bill Gates and Paul Allen had taken
Microsoft north to Seattle, and Ed Roberts then fulfilled his true dream
of being a
small town doctor. He went to medical school - and spent the
rest of his life as a small town doctor in Georgia. That is
called living your dream.
In 1972-74, when I was selling logic modules and simple
controllers for Control Logic, based in Boston, our products
were logic modules which customers would use to build
controllers into their products - and we had a type of small
mini/micro computer/controller. As usual, our demo input/output device
was the ASR-33 Teletype like you see in my center photo, but
without the stand. Wherever I went to demo our products or
train my manufacturer's reps, my trusty ASR-33 went along.
Hawaii, Texas, Washington, etc., there was the ASR-33.
To ship it I had to pack it in a large box about 2.5-foot cubed
- and somewhat heavy.
To get it on a flight with me I would pull up at the curb, hand
the porter a $10 tip (according to Google, equivalent to $50
today) and ask, "Can you ship this for me?"
That worked everywhere except Albuquerque, where the ticket
agent took one look and sent it back to me. That was the only
time I had to pay excess baggage shipping.
For the past 25 years, since I stopped actively working in the
computer industry - I have been using the products I used to fix
and sell to do my writing ministry and other blogs. So you
might say I am still in the computer industry - only now as a
client and user. And I am still enjoying the amazing technology called the computer.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
Click on the image to enlarge:
