The Amazing Computer Evolution - And I Was There!

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 

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