Podd: Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast

Floppy Days 149 - The HP97 Programmable Calculator - Part 2 - With Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz

29 mars 2025 | 74 min

Floppy Days 148 - HP97 History and Memories with Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz and Everett Kaser

27 februari 2025 | 76 min

HP-97 Programmable Calculator History and Memories with Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz and Everett Kaser

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, and welcome to episode 148 of the Floppy Days Podcast for February, 2025, where computers of the late 70’s through the 80’s are the Apple of our eye! (If you got that pun, then you’re in the right place 🙂)

First off, I wanted to mention that this month is the 12th anniversary of the publication of the very first episode of Floppy Days way back in 2013. That’s right: 12 YEARS! A very small percentage of podcasts ever reach that sort of longevity. I can only think of one other podcast that’s in my sphere of listening that has been regularly produced for that long or longer (Retro MacCast). I should be so lucky to produce a podcast as long as the 18 years that James and John have done.

There are several reasons I keep doing this. I love talking about old computers, I love being able to interview incredible people that were actively part of the microcomputer revolution, I love feedback from listeners, and it keeps me out of trouble now that I’m retired from the daily grind of the workforce.

This podcast wouldn’t still be going if you weren’t listening. The listenership actually has been pretty stable for the past several years, and I’m humbled and honored that so many continue to listen and provide feedback. Thanks to you and your support, what do you say let’s keep this thing going till you and I both are tired of it?! 🙂

Okay, now onto details about this particular episode. I’ve been very focused recently on producing interviews with some amazing guests. Frankly, this will always remain an important part of this podcast, as the individuals who were the main drivers in microcomputers will unfortunately only be around for an increasingly shorter period of time. However, the main focus is, and always will be, covering the vast array of unique machines that existed in the late 70’s through the 80’s. I will admit that the amount of research and work to publish the microcomputer-specific shows is a lot; considerably more than the interview episodes. However, as I said, covering vintage computers and programmable calculators is the main impetus for this podcast. It has been a full year since we covered a vintage machine, so it’s time to remedy that.

To that end, in this episode we will be covering a vintage machine: the HP-97 and 67 programmable calculator. I speak of them as one, because, as we will cover in great detail, they are internally the same machine, with the main difference being the built-in printer for the HP-97.

I was very fortunate to get a fantastic co-host for this episode: HP calculator historian Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz (“Vwahdek Meer-Yeng SHAY of itch”) . Wlodek has a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience with the HP calculators and I think you’ll find his stories and background extremely interesting and helpful as we go through the history of the HP-97/67.

In this episode, we’ll be spending a few minutes to get to know Wlodek, then together we will cover the history of the 97/67.

As another bonus, I also was able to catch up with another gentleman who has a lot of history with HP: Everett Kaser. Long-time listeners will recall that Everett worked for HP for many years on several of their calculators and desktop computers and helped with co-hosting the Floppy Days series of episodes on the HP Series 80. It turns out that Everett had spent some time at HP repairing the HP97 and he shares his memories of those times.

Based on the amount of material that was generated about this calculator, it looks as though we’re going to have 3 episodes on the 97/67, with the first being this one on history and memories, the second covering tech specs and several other topics, and a third episode to finish off coverage.

I should mention that the HP97 episodes do veer from the timeline a bit. Whereas I’ve been covering the machines that were introduced in 1982 (with the last being the Grundy NewBrain), the HP-97/67 were introduced in 1976. By rights, the HP97 should have been covered in a very early episode, just after the MITS Altair 8800 and in the same general time frame as the Apple I. However, I felt it was important to go back and pick up this machine, so I hope you will forgive me for departing from the timeline order for this.

Intro

Retro MacCast
Floppy Days Episode on the HP Series 80 with Everett Kaser - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-62-the-hp85b-computer-with-everett-kaser-and-vassilis-prevelakis

New Acquisitions

ABBUC - Atari Bit Byters User Club
Atari ST SidecarTridge - https://store.sidecartridge.com/products/sidecartridge-multi-device

Upcoming Shows

Midwest Gaming Classic - April 4-6 - Baird Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
VCF East - April 4-6, 2025 - Wall, NJ - http://www.vcfed.org
Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - April 12-13 - Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/
The Commodore Los Angeles Super Show - April 26-27 - Burbank VFW Hall, Burbank, CA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=class:start
The 32nd Annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST! - May 2-3, 2025 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
VCF Europe - May 3-4 - Munich, Germany - https://vcfe.org/E/
Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo - June 14 - New Westminster, BC, Canada - https://www.vancouvergamingexpo.com/index.html
VCF Southwest - June 20-22, 2025 - Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas - https://www.vcfsw.org/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - June 20-22, 2025 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Pacific Commodore Expo NW v4 - June 21-22 - Old Rainier Brewery Intraspace, Seattle, WA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pacommex:start
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - July 31-Aug. 3 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2025-se
Fujiama - August 11-17 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2025/
VCF Midwest - September 13-14, 2025 - Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly - September 26-28 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 17-19 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 25 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - https://www.chicagotiug.org/home
Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub

Interview with Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz

Wlodek’s book - A Guide to HP Handheld Calculators and Computers - https://amzn.to/4hl1Yq1 (affiliate link)

References

Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-67/97#67
Museum of HP Calculators (David Hicks) - https://www.hpmuseum.org/hp6797.htm

Floppy Days 147 - Lorenzo Hagerty, Dynasty Computers

29 januari 2025 | 80 min

Floppy Days 146 - Interview with Dan Bricklin, VisiCalc

24 december 2024 | 87 min

Floppy Days 145 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 4

30 november 2024 | 89 min

Floppy Days 144 - Interview with Don French and Steve Leininger, Co-Designers of the TRS-80 Model I

27 oktober 2024 | 99 min

Floppy Days 143 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 3

25 september 2024 | 77 min

Floppy Days 142 - Interview with Steve Leininger, Designer of the TRS-80 Model I

30 augusti 2024 | 82 min

Interview with Steve Leininger, Designer of the TRS-80- Model I

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 13 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 42 sec Intro 9 min 03 sec bumper - Peter Bartlett 9 min 11 sec New Acquisitions 17 min 11 sec bumper - Ian Mavric 17 min 19 sec Upcoming Computer Shows 21 min 53 sec bumper - Myles Wakeham 21 min 58 sec Meet the Listeners 28 min 37 sec Interview with Steve Leininger 1 hr 20 min 29 sec Closing

This particular episode has a special meaning for me, personally. You see, as I’ve mentioned on earlier episodes, the TRS-80 Model I from Tandy/Radio Shack was my first home computer (even though my first programmable device was a TI58C calculator). I recall the joy and wonder of playing with the machine (it wasn’t called the Model I at that time; just the TRS-80; as it was the first of the line) in the local Radio Shack store in 1977 and 1978 and the incredible rush of owning one in 1979; after my wife purchased a Level I BASIC machine for me as a gift for college graduation. That machine only had 4K of RAM and 4K of ROM (Tiny BASIC), as it was the entry-level machine, but it was a thing of beauty. I felt like I could do anything with that machine, even though my justification to the wife was that we could track our checkbook and recipes on it. I think she knew better, but went along with it anyway. The computer came with everything you needed, including a tape drive and black-and-white monitor, which was good for a poor recent college graduate. I quickly, as finances allowed with my new engineering job, upgraded the computer to 16K of RAM and Level II BASIC (a powerful Microsoft 12K ROM BASIC) and enjoyed the machine immensely, even using it in my job supporting the build-out of a new nuclear power plant back in those days.

I eventually sold off the Model I, in favor of a computer that had color graphics and sound (the Atari 800), but have always continued to have a huge soft spot for that first computer.

When I started the Floppy Days Podcast, one of the people that has always been on my bucket list to interview has been Steve Leininger, who, along with Don French while at Radio Shack designed the TRS-80 Model I, among other things. A few years back, I had the opportunity to participate in an interview with Steve for the Trash Talk Podcast, when I was co-hosting that show, but an ill-timed trip to the hospital for my son meant that I was not able to participate. While my son’s health is of paramount importance, of course, I always wanted to get another chance to talk with Steve. Not only was Steve the designer of one of my favorite home computers of all time, but he also was a fellow Purdue University Boilermaker, who graduated just a year before I started there. The thought that I could have met Steve on campus if I’d been there just a year earlier was very intriguing to me, and fueled my desire to talk with Steve even more.

In the last episode (#141 with Paul Terrell) I talked about VCF Southeast in Atlanta in July of 2024. After I had made plans to attend that show, I was flabbergasted to find out that Earl Baugh, one of the show organizers, had somehow managed to contact Steve and get him to come to the show! I have to thank Earl for the work he did to make that happen. Here was my opportunity to certainly meet Steve, and perhaps even talk with him! I prepped some questions, just in case I was able to get an interview.

While at the show, I met Steve and asked him if he would be willing to do a short interview for Floppy Days while at the show. Amazingly, he was very kind and agreed to do that. We found a quiet room and I was able to talk with Steve for almost an hour. This show contains that interview.

Another note on this: as you’ll hear in the interview, the connection to Steve is even stronger than I realized! He not only went to my alma mater, but also grew up in some of the same towns that myself and my wife did. We personally peripherally know some of his relatives. Things like this really do make you think the world is small!

One other, final, note: This interview even ties into the recent and continuing interviews I’ve been publishing with Paul Terrell. As you’ll hear in upcoming episodes with Paul, and in this interview with Steve, Steve actually worked at the Byte Shop before getting the first job with Tandy, and in fact his work at the Byte Shop directly led to him getting hired by Tandy to design the Model I.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I enjoyed getting it. I am overjoyed I finally got the chance to talk to one of my vintage computer heroes, Steve Leininger!

New Acquisitions

C64 Sketch and Design by Tony Lavioe - sponsored link https://amzn.to/4dZGtt2
Compute’s Mapping the IBM PC and PC Junior by Russ Davies - sponsored link https://amzn.to/3yQmrlP
The Best of SoftSide - Atari Edition - https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-best-of-softside-atari-edition
ZX81+38 - https://github.com/mahjongg2/ZX81plus38
magnifying glasses - sponsored link https://amzn.to/4cBQYla
Japanese power adapter - sponsored link https://amzn.to/3XjeUW5

Upcoming Shows

VCF Midwest - September 7-8 - Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
VCF Europe - September 7-8 - Munich, Germany - https://vcfe.org/E/
World of Retrocomputing 2024 Expo - September 14-15 - Kitchener, ON, Canada - https://www.facebook.com/events/s/world-of-retro-computing-2024-/1493036588265072/
Teletext 50 - Sep 21-22 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, UK - https://www.teletext50.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Tandy Assembly - September 27-29 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
AmiWest - October 25-27 - Sacramento, CA - https://amiwest.net/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 26 - Evanston Public Library (Falcon Room, 303), Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
Retro Computer Festival 2024 - November 9-10 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England - https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/
Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we
Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub

Interview

Steve’s Workbench at radioshack.com (archived) - https://web.archive.org/web/19980528232503/http://www.radioshack.com/sw/swb/

Transcript of Interview-Only

Randy Kindig: All right. I really appreciate your time today, Steve.

Steve Leininger: Thank you for having me, Randy.

Randy Kindig: So let's start out maybe just by talking about where You live today, and what you do?

Steve Leininger: I live in Woodland Park, Colorado, which is 8, 500 feet, right out in front of we got Pike's Peak out our front window.

Randy Kindig: Oh. Oh, that's nice.

Steve Leininger: Yeah we get snow up through about June, and then it starts again about September. But it's not as much snow as you would imagine.

Randy Kindig: I've got property in Montana, and I lived out there for a couple of years,

Steve Leininger: so there you go.

Randy Kindig: We probably got more snow up there.

Steve Leininger: Hey, you asked what I did. I'm involved with Boy Scouts, a maker space with a church based ministry firewood ministry, actually. Some people call it a fire bank. So we provide firewood to people who can't afford that.

Randy Kindig: Oh.

Steve Leininger: So it's like a food bank, but with fire, firewood.

Randy Kindig: I've never heard of that.

Steve Leininger: We source the firewood. We cut it down and we split it. Lots of volunteers involved; pretty big project.

Randy Kindig: Yeah. Okay, cool. I also wanted to mention, I'm a fellow Boilermaker.

Steve Leininger: There you go.

Randy Kindig: I know you went to Purdue, right?

Steve Leininger: I did go to Purdue.

Randy Kindig: Did you ever get back there?

Steve Leininger: Yeah, and in fact they've got a couple learning spaces named after us.

Randy Kindig: Oh, okay.

Steve Leininger: We've been donating to our respective alma maters. My wife went to IU.

Randy Kindig: Oh, is that right? Oh my.

Steve Leininger: Yeah, oh my and me. Yeah, the fact that the family who's all IU, their family tolerated me was, quite a remarkable thing.

Randy Kindig: Okay.

I find it interesting because I think you graduated in 76, is that right?

Steve Leininger: 74.

Randy Kindig: Oh, 74.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. Yeah. I was there from …

Randy Kindig: Oh yeah, you actually were gone before I started.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. So I was there from 70 to 73. 70 to 70 four. When I graduated in four years, I got both my bachelor's and master's degree by going through the summer. I managed to pass out of the first year classes because of some of the high school stuff yeah.

Randy Kindig: Okay. I started in 75, so I guess we just missed each other.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. Yeah. You're the new kids coming in.

Randy Kindig: Yeah. . So I, I found that interesting and I wanted to say that. Do you keep up with their sports program or anything like that?

Steve Leininger: Yeah, they play a pretty good game of basketball in fact, I ribbed my wife about it because she was from the earlier days, the Bobby Knight days at IU that were phenomenal.

Randy Kindig: Yeah, exactly. For those of you listening, I'm talking with Steve Leininger, who was the primary developer, if not the developer, of the TRS 80 Model I..

Steve Leininger: I did all the hardware and software for it. I'll give Don French credit for sticking to it and getting a project started. And for refining, refining our product definition a little bit to where it was better than it would have been if I would have stopped early.

Randy Kindig: Okay. And I have talked with Don before.

I've interviewed him on the podcast, and I met him at Tandy Assembly. But I'm just curious, when you were hired into Tandy and you were told what you were going to do; exactly what were you told?

Steve Leininger: They had a 16 bit microprocessor board that another consultant had developed.

And they were trying to make a personal computer out of this. It was the Pace microprocessor, which was not a spectacular success for National, but it was one of the first 16 bit processors. But they had basically an initial prototype, might have been even the second level of the thing.

No real documentation, no software, ran on three different voltages and didn't have input or output. Other than that, it was fine. I was brought in because I was one of the product one of the engineers for the development boards, the development board series for the SCAMP, the S C M P, the National Semiconductor had a very low cost microprocessor that at one point in time, I benchmarked against the 8080 with positive benchmarks and ours was faster on the benchmarks I put together, but as I was later told there's lies, damn lies, and benchmarks.

But so they said take a look at using that, their low cost microprocessor that you were working with. And it really wasn't the right answer for the job. Let's see, the Altair was already out. Okay. That was the first real personal computer. The Apple, the Apple 1 was out.

Okay. But it was not a consumer computer. Okay. They, it was just, it was like a cookie sheet of parts, which was very similar to what was used in the Atari games at the commercial games. Okay. pong and that kind of stuff at that time. And I had been working, after Purdue, I went to National Semiconductor.

There's a long story behind all that. But in the process, some of us engineers would go up to the Homebrew Computer Club that met monthly up at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. We're talking Wilbur and Orville Wright kinds of things going on. Yeah. Everyone who was in the pioneering version of computing had at one time been to that meeting.

Randy Kindig: It's very famous. Yeah.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. And Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were basically a couple guys working out of their garage at the time. I was still working at National Semiconductor, but I also had a Moonlight job at Byte Shop number 2. The second computer store in all of California.

Randy Kindig: And So you worked with Paul Terrell.

Steve Leininger: I actually worked with one of, yeah, Paul, I actually worked for Paul's I don't know if it was a partner, Todd, I don't even remember the guy's name. But I just, it was.

Randy Kindig: I was curious because I'm talking to Paul right now and getting interviews.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. I, I'm sure we met, but it wasn't anything horribly formal. Since it was the number two shop, it still wasn't the number one shop, which Paul worked out of. And so we had an Apple 1 there. I actually got the job because I when I When I went in there, they were trying to troubleshoot something with what looked like an oscilloscope that they pulled out of a tank, and so it had, audio level kind of bandwidth, but could not do a digital circuit. And I said what you really need is a, I told him, a good tectonic scope or something like that. He said do you want a job here? I ended up moonlighting there, which was, as fortune would have it, was a good deal when the folks from Radio Shack came down to visit.

Because when they came down to visit the sales guy wasn't there. We'll let the engineer talk to them, they almost never let the engineers talk to them.

Randy Kindig: So you had to talk with them.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. It was John Roach, Don French, and it was probably Jack Sellers, okay and Don was probably the; he was the most on top of stuff electronically because he was a hobbyist of sorts. The other two guys: Mr. Sellers ran the engineering group. John Roach was the VP of manufacturing. And they were basically on a parts visit. They do it once a year, once, twice a year.

And they also did it with Motorola and a couple other places. But I told him about this microprocessor and that I was writing a tiny BASIC for it. Okay. Tiny BASIC was a interpreted basic that a guy named Li-Chen Wang actually had the first thing in Dr. Dobbs, Dr. Dobbs magazine. We're talking about, we're talking about things that you don't realize are the shoulders of giants that turned out to be the shoulders of giants. And in fact, we reached out to Mr. Wang as we were working on it. We thought we had the software already taken care of because I'm jumping ahead in the story, but we were going to have Bob Uterich, and you'd have to chase that back.

We had him signed up to write a BASIC interpreter for us, but because he'd already done one for the 6800, and it was included in Interface Age magazine. on a plastic record. You remember the old plastic records you could put in a magazine?

Randy Kindig: Yeah, I did see that.

Steve Leininger: Yeah, so this was called a floppy ROM when they did it.

Yeah. So if you had the right software and everything you could download the software off of the floppy ROM and run it on 6800. I think he used the Southwest Technical Products thing. And so we'd signed him up to do the BASIC. This was independent of the hardware design I was doing. And he went into radio silence on us; couldn't find him.

And so we get to, in parallel, I was using the Li-Chen Wang plan to do at least a demo version of BASIC that would run on the original computer. And when the demo went successfully on Groundhog Day in 1977. This is the time frame we're talking about.

I I started work on July 5th, the year before it. With Tandy? Yeah. Okay. We rolled into town on the 3rd, and of course they're closed for the 4th. And on the 5th I started, and there was the wandering around in the desert at the beginning of that, and Don's probably talked about how I was moved from there to their audio factory and then to the old saddle factory.

Tandy used to be primarily a leather company before they bought Radio Shack in 1966 or something like that. And anyway, when the software didn't come out, I ended up writing the software, too. So I designed all the hardware and all the software. I didn't do the power supply.

Chris Klein did the power supply. And, a little bit of the analog video circuitry, but it was very little part of that. Because we were just making a video signal. I did all the digital stuff on that. Yeah.

Randy Kindig: So the software ended up being what was the level one ROM, right?

Steve Leininger: Yeah, the level one ROM started out as the Li-Chen Wang BASIC.

But he had no I. O. in his software, so I was doing the keyboard scanning. I had to do the cassette record and playback. Had to implement data read and data write Peek and poke, which is pretty simple. Put in the graphic statements. Yeah, oh, and floating point. Now, floating point, luckily, Zilog had a library for that, but I had to basically, this was before APIs were a big deal, so I basically had to use their interface, To what I had written and had to allocate storage, correct?

We're talking about 4K bytes of ROM. I know, yeah. Very tiny, and to put all the I. O. in there, and to make it so that you could be updating the screen, when you're doing the cassette I put two asterisks up there and blinked the second one on and off, you remember that?

Randy Kindig: Oh yeah.

Steve Leininger: Sort of as a level set.

Randy Kindig: Yeah.

Steve Leininger: And someone said, oh, you should have patented that thing. And actually I have seven or eight patents, U. S. patents, on different parts of the computer architecture.

Randy Kindig: Oh, do you?

Steve Leininger: But not the blinking asterisk, which is probably a patentable feature.

Randy Kindig: Yeah, I wish I'd had that on other machines, that I ended up having.

So that would have been nice, yeah. I liken what you've done with what Steve Wozniak did, for the Apple II. You're somebody I've always wanted to talk to because I felt like you were one of the important pioneers in their early years. What do you have to say about that?

Do you feel like what you did was ...

Steve Leininger: in retrospect, yes. And I have a greater appreciation for people like the Wright Brothers. If you think about the Wright Brothers they took all their stuff from their Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop down to Kill Devil Hills. We now know it as Kitty Hawk.

But they would take the stuff down there by train, and then they would have to put it in horse driven wagons. Think about that. And people would ask them, what are you going to use the airplane for? It's what are you going to use a home computer for?

Yeah, to maintain recipes and to play games.

Randy Kindig: Do your checkbook.

Steve Leininger: Do your check, home security. There's a whole lot of stuff that we talked about. And other giants entered the field: Multiplan, which became Lotus 1 2 3, which became Excel. Not the same company, but the idea, could you live without a spreadsheet today? Very difficult for some things, right?

Randy Kindig: Yeah. Yeah, it's ubiquitous.

People use it for everything. Yeah. Yeah. So you've been, I talked with David and Teresa Walsh. Or Welsh, I'm sorry, Welsh. Where they did the book Priming the Pump.

Steve Leininger: That's very that's pretty close to the real thing.

Randy Kindig: Is it? Okay. They named their book after what you did and said; that you primed the pump for home computers. Can you expand on that and tell us exactly what you meant by that?

Steve Leininger: It again goes back to that shoulders of giants thing, and I forget who said that; it's actually a very old quote, I can see further because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. And I think the thing that we brought to the table and Independently, Commodore and Apple did the same thing in 1977. There were three computers that came out inexpensive enough that you could use them in the home.

They all came with ROM loaded BASIC. You didn't have to load anything else in. They all came with a video output. Some had displays. Some Commodore's was built in. One of ours was a Clip on and you had to go find one for the apple. For the Apple, yeah. Apple had a superior case. Apple and Radio Shack both had great keyboards.

Randy Kindig: apple was expandable, with its...

Steve Leininger: yeah, Apple Apple was internally expandable, yeah. And, but it cost $1,000. Without the cassette. Without the monitor. It wasn't the same type of device.

Randy Kindig: I was a college student. And, I looked at all three options. It was like the TRS-80; there are Radio Shacks everywhere. You could go in and play with one; which was nice. And they were inexpensive enough that I could actually afford one.

Steve Leininger: And, Radio Shack can't duck the, if you did something wrong, you had to fix it.

Randy Kindig: That's right. Let's see here. So initially the idea was to have a kit computer by Tandy?

Steve Leininger: Yeah. I'm not sure whose idea that was. It made some kind of sense. Because that's the way the Altair was, and Radio Shack did sell a number of kits, but in the process of still kicking that around, saying it could be a possibility. I was one of the ones that said it could be a possibility.

Within the same group that I did the design work from, they also would take kits in that people had built and troubleshoot the things if they didn't work. We had a couple engineers that would see if you connected something wrong or something. If you didn't, sometimes it was a matter that the instructions weren't clear.

If you tell someone to put an LED in, yeah. You specifically have to tell them which way to put it in. And \might be an opportunity to tweak your timing. Yeah. Anyway, we get this clock in, and it was a digital clock. Seven segment LEDs probably cost 50 bucks or more.

Which is crazy. But It says, put all the components in the board, turn the board over, and solder everything to the board. And, pretty simple instructions. This had a sheet of solder over the entire bottom of the board. Someone figured out how to put two pounds of solder on the back of this thing.

And, as we all got a great chuckle out of that, You realize, oh, you don't want to have to deal with a computer like this. You really don't. And Lou Kornfeld, who was the president at the time, didn't really want the computer. But he said, it's not going to be a kit. All right. That, that, that took care of that.

great idea. Great idea.

Randy Kindig: Were there any other times when you thought the computer might, or were there any times, when you thought the computer might not come to fruition? Any snags that you had that made you think that maybe this isn't going to work?

Steve Leininger: Not really. I was young and pretty well undaunted.

Randy Kindig: Pretty sure you could,

Steve Leininger: yeah I, it wasn't any, it wasn't any different than building one at home. I'd been building kits since, night kits, heath kits, that kind of stuff, since I was a kid. And home brewed a couple things, including a hot dog cooker made from two nails and a couple wires that plugged into the wall.

Don't try that at home.

Randy Kindig: No kidding.

Steve Leininger: But, it's funny if you If you look it up on, if you look that kind of project up on the internet, you can still find a project like that. It's like what's it called? Anvil tossing, where you put gunpowder under an anvil, shoot it up in the air.

What could possibly go wrong? Don't,

Randy Kindig: It's very well documented in books like Priming the Pump, Stan Veit's book, which I assume you're familiar with, and Fire in the Valley, what your involvement was with the Model 1. But there was some mention of your involvement with the Expansion Interface and other TRS 80 projects.

What else did you work on while you were there?

Steve Leininger: The Color Computer, the Expansion Interface. The model three to a little.

Randy Kindig: Okay.

Steve Leininger: Little bit. The model two was the big one. And point I just got tired of the management there.

Randy Kindig: Did you? Okay.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. I my mind was going faster than theirs, and they made the conscious decision to do whatever IBM has done, but do it cheaper. That, to me, that's not a. Didn't say less expensively either, so the whole thing just troubled me that, we're not going to be able to do anything new unless IBM has done it.

And at about the same time the Macintosh came out and a superb piece of work. Yeah.

Randy Kindig: Okay. So what education training and previous work experience did you have at the time you got hired by Tandy that made you uniquely qualified for that project that they were looking for?

Steve Leininger: I'd been playing around with electronics since I was in the third grade.

Actually, electricity.

Randy Kindig: The third grade, wow.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. My, my mom got me a kit that had light bulbs and bells and buzzers and wire from, I think it might have been the Metropolitan Museum. They had a kit. They, they've got a, they still today have an online presence. It, of course the materials have changed, but the kit had all these parts and it had no instructions.

And I don't know if that was by design or it didn't have instructions, so I had to learn how to hook up wires and light bulbs and bells and switches to make it do things. And, in the process, I found out that if you put a wire right across the battery terminals, it gets hot. And, interesting stuff to know.

Pretty soon, I was taking this stuff in to show and tell in the third grade. Look, and I was very early in electronics. It's electricity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then my mom would take me to the library. She was quite a voracious reader, and I'd go to the library. technical section specifically the Dewey Decimal 621, which was electronics and things like that.

Randy Kindig: you still remember that.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. And in the 590 series, there's some good stuff too. And I would usually take out a stack of books, even though I was a horrible reader because I'm dyslexic and ADD. So I have an attention span and reading problem. But the technical stuff I was reading about pipeline architecture processors while I was still in junior high.

And not that was important to where I ended up, but it was important because I understood the words and data flow, and stuff like that. And between that and building the kits and things like that, I When we moved to Indianapolis, my dad moved jobs down to Indianapolis.

Randy Kindig: Oh, you lived in Indianapolis?

Steve Leininger: Yeah. So I moved from South Bend down to Indianapolis. So I probably passed your house as . Actually we came down through Kokomo, but but yeah.

Randy Kindig: I actually grew up in that part of the state. Just south of South Bend.

Steve Leininger: Okay. So yeah La Paz, Plymouth,

Randy Kindig: yeah, Warsaw, Rochester.

Steve Leininger: Yeah, I was born in Rochester.

Randy Kindig: Oh, okay. So that's where I grew up in that area.

Steve Leininger: Okay, there you go. My dad's from Akron.

Randy Kindig: Are you serious?

Steve Leininger: I am serious.

Randy Kindig: Akron's where my wife grew up. And I was just 10 miles from there.

Steve Leininger: The general store there, Dan Leininger and Sons, that's my great grandfather.

Randy Kindig: Really?

Steve Leininger: Yeah.

Randy Kindig: I'll be darned. Okay. Okay.

Steve Leininger: So now it all makes sense.

Randy Kindig: That's amazing.

Steve Leininger: Anyway, we started a garage band. This is before Apple's garage band. And I made my own amplifier. It basically had the sun sun amplifiers back end on the thing and a Fender Showman front end on it.

Completely home brewed really loud amplifier. And I had a friend who had a guitar amplifier that was broken, and he had taken it down to the music store there. And after six weeks of not getting it back, they said we've had trouble with our technician and all that. I asked if I could go down and look at it, and in 15 minutes I had his amplifier fixed. And they said, do you want tom so you want a job? All right. Yeah, because I'd been doing, I'd had a paper route before and I don't think I was doing anything since we'd moved and ao I started working in a music store and they ended up with two music stores and then an organ store next door and I started repairing that kind of stuff.

And this was the end of my first year in college. Went to the extension in Indianapolis.

Randy Kindig: Oh, okay. And Was that I U P U I?

Steve Leininger: IUPUI, yeah. Yeah. I, yeah, I U P U I.

Randy Kindig: Huh. I went there as well.

Steve Leininger: Yeah and learned Fortran there, got all my first year classes out, and then moved on up to the campus.

And because we'd always go to the library, and because my mom would often take me to the library, the newsstand not too far from the library, and she'd get a couple magazines, but she let me get an electronic magazine. And, I didn't understand these things, pretty soon you start understanding the pic, you start understanding it.

This is a resistor, I built a little shocker box based on a design in probably elementary electronics. And It's like a handheld electric fence.

Randy Kindig: Oh, wow.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. Think hot dog cooker. Anyway, so I learned some electronics that way. A lot of that was self taught.

I learned quite a bit more by working in the music store, again, this was before I was taught any formal electronics. And actually when I moved up to campus on Purdue, I thought I was going to be a world class guitar amplifier designer. That's where I thought. And it turns out my analog gut feelings aren't, weren't as good as other people's.

Paul Schreiber does a much better job with electronics, with analog electronics than I do. But digital electronics, I understood this stuff. I would hang out in the library and I'd read the trade magazines. So I was up to date on, I was way more up to date than a typical professor would be on current electronics.

And in 1973, which was the end of my junior year, Electronics Magazine had an article on the Intel 8008. And I said, Oh, I understand this. See, I'd already been taking assembly language. Now they didn't teach assembly language programming in the electronics school. They had Fortran, but there was no way to get from Fortran to ..they weren't teaching programming languages. I had to go to the business school where I learned assembly language on the school's CDC 6600 mainframe.

Randy Kindig: Really?

Steve Leininger: Yeah.

Randy Kindig: Through the business school?

Steve Leininger: Yeah. And for those of you who have never tried assembly language programming, it looks like a foreign language until you just internalize it in your brain: there's ADD, A D and A D C for ADD with carry, and there's a whole bunch of different things.

There's different ways to move data around, but you're only doing a few really basic things, and if you do it fast enough, it looks like it's instantaneous. That's the way even your phone works today. It's because you're doing it fast enough. It fools you.

Randy Kindig: Yep.

Wow. Do you ever look back at these days, at those days, with amazement? As far as how far the industry has come?

Steve Leininger: Oh yeah. And, it's funny because you wouldn't, you couldn't probably, but you wouldn't start over again. I had to learn, I had to learn digital video. Actually the giant that I, whose shoulders I stood on there was the late Don Lancaster.

He had a book called TV Typewriter Cookbook. And actually that came out a little bit later, but he had a TV typewriter series in Radio Electronics Magazine. And basically alphanumeric display. If you think about it, just the glass teletype, the keyboard display and a serial interface at the time that the RadioShack computer came out was selling for 999.

Another 400 on top of what we were selling the whole computer for. Because we had a microprocessor in there. We didn't have a whole lot of options. We didn't have a whole lot of fluff. In fact Motorola said, send this to your schematics and your parts list and let's see if we can minimize your circuit.

And after two weeks they sent it back. He said, you did a pretty good job here. . .

Randy Kindig: Okay. Huh. You still stay in touch with people at Tandy?

Steve Leininger: A few of them. It's actually been more lately. Because it's almost more interesting now. It's like the, I don't know whatever happened to Atwater and Kent, of the Atwater Kent radio.

But, that's an old school radio that now you've got people that rebuild them and got them all polished up and all this kind of stuff. But for a while they ended up in the dump. I'm sure, there are some trash 80s that ended up in the trash.

Randy Kindig: I'm sure.

Steve Leininger: Yeah but I've gotten rid of lots of PCs that don't meet my needs anymore, right?

Randy Kindig: Sure. Yeah, we all have, somewhere along the way. It seemed like you were really quiet there for a long time and that you were difficult to get in contact with.

Steve Leininger: I wasn't really that difficult. I didn't maintain a social media presence on the thing, but things that I had my own consulting company for quite a while.

I actually came back to Radio Shack two more times after I left. One was to come back as a technologist there. The politics still didn't work out well. Then I came back as a contractor to help them with some of their online things. I actually had a website called Steve's Workbench.

Steve Leininger: And you can find it on the Internet Archive. The Wayback Machine. And it had some basic stamp projects. And we were going to do all sorts of other things. But I managed to upset the people at RadioShack. com. They didn't have a big sense of humor about someone being critical about the products that they'd selected.

And I, I did a... I was going to start doing product reviews on the kits, how easy it was to solder, whether it was a good value for the money and all that kind of stuff. And I gave a pretty honest review on it. And Radio Shack didn't appreciate the power of an honest review.

It's what makes Amazon what it is, right? You go in there and if there's something that's got just two stars on the reviews, Yeah, you really got to know what you're doing if you're going to buy the thing, right? And if you see something that's got a bunch of one star and a bunch of five star reviews Yeah, someone's probably aalting the reference at the top end.

And so I mean they had such a fit that when they changed platforms For RadioShack. com, they didn't take Steve's Workbench with it And I basically lost that position. Radio Shack should own the makerspace business right now. They at one time, one time I suggested, you ought to take a look at buying Digikey or maybe Mouser.

Mouser was right down the street from us. They already had their hands into Allied, but these other two were doing stuff, more consumer oriented, but they didn't. They were making, they were flush with money from selling cell phone contracts. And they thought that was the way of the future until the cell phone companies started reeling that back in.

At a certain point, you don't want to be paying your 5 percent or 10 percent royalty to Radio Shack for just signing someone up.

Randy Kindig: Yeah. Okay. I didn't realize you had ever gone back and worked for them again.

Steve Leininger: Yeah, twice,

Randy Kindig: and so I'm curious, did you meet any other famous figures in the microcomputer revolution while you were working at Tandy?

Steve Leininger: At Tandy, let's see.

Randy Kindig: I'm just curious.

Steve Leininger: Yeah, Bill Gates, of course. I went out when we were working on level two BASIC. And Bill Gates I think was probably a hundred- thousand- aire at that time.

And, working in a, thhey had a floor in a bank building in Seattle. He took me to the basement of his dad's law firm, and we had drinks there, and I went out to his house on the lake. This was not the big house. I've never been there. It was a big house on the lake, but it wasn't the one That he built later on.

So I knew him early on run across Forest Mims a couple times. And of course, he's the shoulders upon which a lot of electronic talent was built and some of the stuff is lost. Jameco is actually bringing him back as a… Jameco is a kinda like a Radio Shack store online. It's yeah it is, it's not as robust as DigiKey or Bower, but they've held their roots. Someone I've not met Lady Ada from Adafruit would be fun.

Randy Kindig: Yeah. Would, yeah.

Steve Leininger: I, that, that's another thing that, if we had something along those lines, that would have been cool, but the buyers weren't up, up to the task and they when you don't want criticism at a certain point you've got to quit doing things if you don't want to be criticized.

Randy Kindig: Sure. When you finally got the Model 1 rolled out and you saw the tremendous interest, were you surprised in the interest that it garnered?

Steve Leininger: I wasn't. I wasn't. In fact, there's a quote of me. Me and John Roach had a discussion on how many of these do you think we could sell? And, this is actually quoted in his obituary on the, in the Wall Street Journal. I, Mr. Tandy said you could build 3, 500 of these because we've got 3, 500 stores and we can use them in the inventory.

And to take inventory. And John Roach thought maybe we could sell, up to 5, 000 of these things in the first year. And I said, oh no, I think we could sell 50, 000. To which he said, horseshit. Just like that. And that, now I quoted that to the Wall Street Journal, and they put that in his obituary.

Yeah I don't know how many times that word shows up in the Wall Street Journal, but if you search their files you'll find that it was me quoting John Roach. So …

Randy Kindig: I'll have to, I'll have to look for that, yeah, that's funny. So you were not surprised by the interest,

Steve Leininger: no, it, part of it was I knew the leverage of the stores I'd been working, when we introduced the thing I'd been working for the company for just over a year.

Think about that. And it wasn't until just before probably, it was probably September or October when Don and I agreed on the specs. I'd keep writing it up, and he'd look at it. Don actually suggested that, demanded, he doesn't, in a, but in a good natured way, he made a good case for it, that I have, in addition to the cassette interface on there, that I have a way to read and write data.

Because if you're going to do an accounting program, you got to be able to read and write data. I actually figured out a way to do that. There were a couple other things. John Roach really wanted blinking lights on the thing. And my mechanical, the mechanical designer, there said that's going to cost more money to put the LEDs in there.

What are you going to do with them? And, Mr. Roach was, you know, familiar with the IBM probably the 360 by then? Anyway. The mainframes. Yeah, mainframes always had blinking lights on them.

Randy Kindig: Exactly.

Steve Leininger: And since it's a computer, it should have blinking lights. And Larry said, Larry the mechanical guy said what are you going to do with them?

I said, I can't, I said I could put stuff up there, It's…

Randy Kindig: What are they going to indicate?

Steve Leininger: Yeah. And then, he said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to make the case without holes for the lights and just don't worry about it. That was the end of the discussion.

Mr. Roach was probably a little disappointed, but yeah, no one else had them,

Randy Kindig: it's funny to think that you'd have blinking lights on a microcomputer like that. Yeah. Yeah. Is there any aspect of the Model one development you would do differently if you were doing it today?

Steve Leininger: Yeah, I would, I would've put the eighth memory chip in with the, with the video display so you get upper and lower case.

Randy Kindig: Yeah, there you go. Okay.

Steve Leininger: Might've put buffers to the outside world. We had the, the microprocessor was buffered, but it was, it was very short distance off the connector there. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot I would have changed. Software could have been written a little better, but when one person's writing all the software the development system that I had was a Zilog development system.

And 30 character percent a second. Decorator, line printer. The fact that I got it done is actually miracle stuff.

Randy Kindig: Yeah, and you got it done in a year, right?

Steve Leininger: And it was all written in assembly language. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got it all done in a year.

Randy Kindig: That's a good year's work.

Steve Leininger: It is.

Randy Kindig: Building a computer from scratch, basically, and then getting it...

Steve Leininger: and back then we had to program EEPROMs. We didn't have flash memory. Okay. Didn't hardly have operating systems back then. Not that I was using one. There was something in the Zilog thing, but yeah we were so far ahead of things, we were developing a product rather than a computer.

And maybe that's the whole difference is that we had a product that you pull it up, plug it in, and it says these are TRS 80 and it wasn't the Model 1 until the Model 2 came out.

Randy Kindig: Yeah, exactly. It was just the TRS 80. Yeah. So I have to know, do you have any of the old hardware?

Steve Leininger: I've got a Model 1. I don't use it except for demonstrations now. I actually have two. I've got one that works and one that's probably got a broken keyboard connector from taking it out of the case and holding it up too many times.

Randy Kindig: Were these prototypes or anything?

Steve Leininger: They are non serial production units. I've got the, I've got a prototype ROM board that's got the original integer basic that I wrote. I don't have the video boards and all that kind of stuff that went with it when we did the original demonstration. Let's see we had four wire wrapped, completely wire wrapped industrial wire wrapped versions that we used for prototyping the software.

One went to David Lein, who wrote the book that came with the thing, the basic book. One I had at my desk and there were two others. Yeah. And they got rid of all of those. So a cautionary tale is if you do something in the future where you've got that prototype that was put together in Tupperware containers or held together with duct tape, you need to at least take pictures of it.

And you might want to keep one aside. If it turns out to be something like the Apple III, you can probably get rid of all that stuff. If it turns out to be something like the Apple II, The RadioShack computer, the Commodore PET, you really ought to, enshrine that. The original iPhone. Apple did stuff that was, what was it, can't remember what it was. They had a they had a thing not unlike the... 3Com ended up getting them. Anyway the hand of the PDAs, no one knows what a Personal Oh, digital assistant. Yeah. Yeah. We call that a, we call that a phone ...

Randy Kindig: Palm Pilot. Yeah.

Steve Leininger: Yeah. Palm Pilot. That's the one. Yeah. I've got a couple of those. I've got three model 100’s. I've got one of the early…

Randy Kindig: Did you work on the 100s?

Steve Leininger: I used it, but I didn't work on it. The design. No. Okay. That was an NEC product with Radio Shack skins on it.

Randy Kindig: Oh, that's right. That's right.

Steve Leininger: Kay Nishi was the big mover on that. Yeah. Let's see I've got an Altair and an ASR 33 Teletype. Yeah, we're talking about maybe the computer's grandfather, right?

I've had a whole bunch of other stuff. I've probably had 40 other computers that I don't have anymore. I am gravitating towards mechanical music devices, big music boxes, that kind of stuff.

Randy Kindig: Oh, okay. Cool. Interesting. Steve, that's all the questions I had prepared.

Steve Leininger: Okay.

Randy Kindig: Is there anything I should have asked about that?

Steve Leininger: Oh my,

Randy Kindig: anything you'd want to say?

Steve Leininger: Yeah, I, I've given talks before on how do you innovate? How do you become, this is pioneering kinds of stuff. So you really have to have that vision, man. The vision, I can't exactly say where the vision comes from, but being dyslexic for me has been a gift. Okay and this is something I tell grade school and middle school students that, some people are out there saying I, I can't do that because, it's just too much stuff or my brain is cluttered.

Cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what's an empty desk the sign of? Embrace the clutter. Learn a lot of different things. Do what you're passionate about. Be willing to. support your arguments, don't just get angry if someone doesn't think the way you do, explain why you're doing it that way.

And sometimes it's a matter of they just don't like it or they don't have the vision. The ones that don't have the vision, they never, they may never have the vision. I've quit companies because of people like that. But When you've got the vision and can take it off in your direction, it could just end up as being art.

And I shouldn't say just art, art can be an amazing thing. And that behind these walls here, we've got a pinball machine and gaming conference going on. And it is nutcase. But is there stuff out there you look at and say, Oh, wow. Yeah. And I do too. Keep it a while going.

Randy Kindig: Very cool. All right. That's a great stopping point, I think. All right. I really appreciate it, Steve taking the time to talk with us today.

Steve Leininger: Thanks, Randy.

Floppy Days 141 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 2

31 juli 2024 | 78 min

Episode 141 - Interview with Paul Terrell, The Byte Shop - Part 2

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, and welcome to episode 141 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for July, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your host, as always, for this historical perspective on obsolete-but-still fun technology.

This month I’m bringing you a follow-on interview episode from last month. As we discussed then, Paul Terrell is a name well-known in the annals of computer history; probably most famously for his kickstart of Apple Computer through the purchase of one of Steve Jobs’ and Steve Wozniak’s first batches of Apple I computers for his Byte Shop. The Byte Shop was a very early computer store that was one of the few that existed in the world, at the time.

In this interview, we continue to focus primarily on The Byte Shop, how it got started, what it was like, and much more. There will be even more content in future episodes, as Paul and I had a pretty lengthy discussion on just this topic. If you want to know what it was like to run a computer store in those early days, this is the interview for you! Along the way, you’ll learn even more about just what the home and hobby computer scene was like in those days.

New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To

VCF Southeast - https://gameatl.com/vintage-computing-festival-southeast/

Upcoming Shows

Show list I maintain for the remainder of the current year - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/current-year-vintage-computer-show-schedule)
Vintage Computer Festival West - August 2-3 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 15-18 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-se
VCF Midwest - September 7-8 - Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
VCF Europe - September 7-8 - Munich, Germany - https://vcfe.org/E/
World of Retrocomputing 2024 Expo - September 14-15 - Kitchener, ON, Canada - https://www.facebook.com/events/s/world-of-retro-computing-2024-/1493036588265072/
Teletext 50 - Sep 21-22 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, UK - https://www.teletext50.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Tandy Assembly - September 27-29 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
AmiWest - October 25-27 - Sacramento, CA - https://amiwest.net/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 26 - Evanston Public Library (Falcon Room, 303), Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
Retro Computer Festival 2024 - November 9-10 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England - https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/
Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we

Interview with Paul Terrell

(3) Apple-1 Prototype Polaroid Photographs Given to Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop in 1976 - https://www.rrauction.com/auctions/lot-detail/348985606984001-steve-jobs-3-apple-1-prototype-polaroid-photographs-given-to-paul-terrell-of-the-byte-shop-in-1976/?cat=3
Ray Borrill’s Data Domain blog - https://www.landsnail.com/thedatadomain/remember.htm

Transcription of Audio-only

Paul Terrell: Now eventually we did get to the point where we needed some legal assistance and we were once again, being in the heart of Silicon Valley, you would network with people. My salespeople knew a guy by the name of Larry Sonsini, who was a a lawyer in Palo Alto, and he happened to be the lawyer that had taken Intel public and Larry was very interested in what Byte Shop was doing because he was representing legally a lot of the electronics companies that were getting into personal computing. So Larry and I developed a friendship where we got together and I was able to convince him, since we were just a startup to be a little bit lenient with his legal fees and provide us with some legal assistance. And of course, Larry expanded his business right along with us. And he's actually the dominant legal firm in Silicon Valley. He's taken most of the companies public out there. He very much focused in the area of public markets and finance and that kind of thing. He grew his company and now he has a huge complex of buildings, a campus and in Palo Alto, which in the old days, it used to be called Wilson, Mosier and Sonsini and I think Mosier dropped out of the program, Rosati came in and so forth, but those were good, contacts to have you know in the marketplace because once again relationships. I met Bob Noyce from Intel who was the founder, one of the founders, of Intel and through Larry's relationship and friendship. Another person that was really dominant in the success that we had at Byte Shop was Regis McKenna. And Regis was one of the people that had come out of the semiconductor business.

Paul Terrell: He was over at National. Had watched their success and as those semiconductor companies were going public and Larry was taking them public they were they were also a source for a lot of technical people, good management, technical people being able to cash out of the success that they had with the startup company they were involved with to where they created a venture capital market in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Paul Terrell: And prior to that happening, there was very little funding available and actually the initial seed capital that came in for Apple was from Art Rock and Art Rock was a venture capitalist from New York City. So a lot of early startup money that was available to any kind of business was really New York is the center of finance; nobody's bigger than New York and Chicago does well in the mercantile business, but you know in commodities and so forth, but New York is where the big money was and there was really nothing in San Francisco other than some federal entities that the federal reserve was there and so forth, but and there was standard banking, going on.

Paul Terrell: Wells Fargo was headquartered there and so forth, but these people weren’t seed capital people these people weren't providing funding for new business and of course there was a ton of new business going on. As a result of all of these semiconductor outfits and so forth.

Paul Terrell: So we were seeing a lot of new growth and one of the one good example of a venture capital startup was Don Valentine. And he was the first seed money into Apple along with Art Rock because Art's problem was he was located in in San in New York but he needed to have somebody out here that was looking after his money.

Paul Terrell: So a lot of these venture capital people, and actually the big financial institutes from New York would team up with these new technical venture capital people. Coming out of the semiconductor companies and Tom Perkins is a good example. Perkins Kleiner. These were semiconductor guys that got involved with venture capital and Tom was one of the guys that I talked to about when Byte Shop got to the point where we needed additional capital to grow. When I ended up selling the Byte operation I was opening eight stores a month and spending a lot of time on airplanes and our growth factor was just limited by how much time I had available to get out there and get contracts signed and so forth.

Paul Terrell: Then, as I pointed out earlier there were new industries that were being created as a result of the personal computer and and venture capital was one of them that really flourished to the point today where, when you hear about these company startups like Facebook and Google and all of the internet companies that have come out of it.

Paul Terrell: A lot of those people were initially funded by all of the people that made their money in personal computing and before we got into Internet and what that was all about. That, and as you pointed out, there’s all these other computer stores across the country were coming into existence.

Paul Terrell: The consumer was becoming very aware of computer products. Video games was the big application that really kicked everything off because the electronic companies could make video game machines, which the kids loved. And they can make them very inexpensive versus the cost of putting a computer into a home or an office environment.

Paul Terrell: We started to see the marketplace expand with the advent of the. video games and of course that was coming from the coin operated video games and arcades that were out there accessible to the public and so forth. So there were more opportunities to to be 1-on-1 with technology.

Paul Terrell: Other than going to Paul Terrell's Byte Shops and and participating in the greatest show on earth.

Randy Kindig: A couple questions for you. Did you actually end up with dealerships in other countries besides the U. S. as well?

Paul Terrell: Yeah, the first country that we did business with and was Japan, and I actually opened up the Byte Shop SoGo in Japan what, once again, what would happen is people that were traveling to the San Francisco area maybe to a convention or business got exposed to the computer stores and they didn't have them in their countries.

Paul Terrell: They would take the time to to look around and see what was going on there. And I had a a gentleman from Japan who would come in, and of course our computers weren't very attractive as products for him to sell other than to people that understood English when he went back to his country, but of course, there were a lot of people in Japan professionals that were multilingual and, once again, we were very fortunate in the computer industry that almost the leaders in the business, IBM and the such they were English speaking and so the languages and all of the materials were when they took computers to their country that were from here, they had to do translations and things.

Paul Terrell: So that would have an effect on the amount of growth you could do there, but I was interested in doing a Byte Shop internationally from the legal trademark viewpoint and so we, within the first year, the first when I was involved in selling and expanding the Byte Shop operation I put the Byte Shop SoGo in play and got the trademarks that we needed in Japan.

Paul Terrell: Once again, these things were additional expenses for us. So it wasn't something that I was actively pursuing with Byte Shop. But once again, after Byte Shop, I did a number of other businesses in Silicon Valley and once again, expanded a lot of those businesses internationally, but the stage was set, for the early pioneers, in the personal computer market, and then the same thing was happening in their countries where magazines were getting involved in the business. It was more than just retail stores. You could find magazines and of course the Japanese manufacturers, they were the ones that were making all the televisions and radio and electronic products for consumer electronics.

Paul Terrell: So they were all interested in this category of either video game or personal computer. They had their own local suppliers that they could deal with. And I think they were just looking at our operations over here in terms of, getting a chance to see how it might evolve in their country and what the opportunities would be.

Paul Terrell: one of the things that I was talking about were the individuals, the Tom Perkins the Regis McKenna. And the reason that I keep coming back to Regis McKenna is because Regis being a advertising and public relations person, and his offices were right down the street from from my Byte Shop. His people would spend a lot of time in the Byte Shop in Mountain View and when anybody came to them that they were companies that they were talking to about products and and being the advertising company.

Paul Terrell: For that particular product or company, they would bring them into the Byte Shop and show them our operation and what we were doing and what potential market opportunities might be there. And through that association, I ended up hiring Regis to be the advertising and public relations for Byte Shop and, of course, they were.

Paul Terrell: The advertising and PR for Intel, and Intel, a lot of these companies that were substantial companies with a lot of funding they would do joint advertising programs. And so we were able through our relationships with Regis to be able to create a whole ad program based on an Intel engineer, son, Ricky coming and visiting the Byte Shop.

Paul Terrell: And then we could show off, we could talk about the Intel processor being the what's inside the computer and you see a lot of that co-op advertising is what they call it today and Intel pays a lot of the computer companies that buy their products and put them into the machine.

Paul Terrell: They provide a lot of money for these companies. And so if you see Intel inside, that's what that's all about. If the company puts an Intel sticker on their product, they're getting free money, from the supplier, from Intel. And so we were able to leverage a lot of the expense that we would have had with these relationships and probably the most important relationship that Regis ever did for Byte Shop was he introduced me to Jack Wilson, who was the Bureau Chief for Business Week Magazine out of San Francisco and Jack would travel to the Silicon Valley visiting the computer manufacturers like Tandem Corporation, Apple; he would spend a lot of time over there and by the way, Regis I recommended to Regis early on that he get behind Apple once we started carrying the Apple products in the Byte Shop and got Steve Jobs and him together and once again there was a lot of co-op going on between the individuals as we networked out there.

Paul Terrell: But Jack Wilson was writing an article for Business Week about the technology and the microprocessors and what was going on in Silicon Valley, and they had a technology section of business week, where people that were reading that magazine would go there and see what was going on new in the business. And so when Jack came down to see the Byte Shop he was also looking at the Homebrew Computer Club. He was looking at what was going on with Tandon Corporation, with Commodore, with Apple and so forth.

Paul Terrell: And Jack was really amazed at the depth of what was happening with technology and the companies that were getting involved and the extent of the products that these products, these microprocessors, we're going to be in everything in your house. They were going to be in your refrigerators.

Paul Terrell: They were going to be in your microwaves. They were going to be in your entertainment products and so forth. So he put together a a story about Silicon Valley and he interviewed me and our interview took about three hours when he came to the store, I took him over to Johnny Luigi and Johnny Frankie and Luigi's pizza parlor, which was two doors down from me, we spent lunchtime there and three hours talking about all of the things that were going on.

Paul Terrell: And. And when in July of 76 is when the article came out in BusinessWeek and Jack called me up and said, Paul, he said, I really have to apologize. He said, we spent all that time talking about what you were doing and the computer club and the hobbyists and the computer stores.

Paul Terrell: And all, but he said, when I sent the content of my article back to New York, he said, they cut out all of the personal computer stuff because it was just too lengthy. He said, I had 12 pages of an article and the technology section in business week is only about one or two pages, and they just wouldn't allow for it.

Paul Terrell: So he said, unfortunately, your stuff isn't going to be in that magazine and I apologize for it. And so anyway, when the magazine came out, I obviously bought a copy of it read about all of these companies. That I was mentioning before being highlighted in there. And and then I got a call from Jack that following week, and he said, hey, he said, good news.

Paul Terrell: He said New York has decided to go ahead and run the personal aspect of it. And so I'm going to have your stuff printed. And it'll be in the July 7th edition of business week, you might want to check it out. And when I got that magazine and it hit the street and the news racks, there was in the technology section, you opened it up and there was a picture of me standing behind the cash register in the Byte Shop and underneath the picture, it said Terrell plans franchising in California. That was the title of it. And then it went into all of the things that we were doing with the stores and the obvious, the computer enthusiasts that were out there and, what basically happened is Businessweek had whet the appetites of people with this huge article the previous week about microprocessors and what the future was going to hold, and then all of a sudden, the following week, they come up with a picture of me, and here's how you can make a buck at it.

Paul Terrell: “Terrell Plans Franchising”. Let me tell you, all of a sudden, the mailman was coming to the Byte Shop in Mountain View, and he was literally dumping mailbags full of letters on the floor in my store and he said, you're the only Byte Shop in Mountain View. There's no address 1063 West El Camino here. So I'm assuming that this is all your mail.

Paul Terrell:When I opened the letters was people like the chairman of the board of Telex Corporation wanted a three state territory. They were down in Texas. They wanted Texas, Oklahoma.

Randy Kindig: Were these people wanting dealerships?

Paul Terrell: Yeah, basically they were asking how do they become involved with Byte Shop and what the return on investment was for a Byte Shop store and quite honestly I'd never had any business like that and consequently I went to one of our directors and I mentioned earlier he also had contacts with the Tandy guy Nugent, who was their finance guy down there. When I went to, his name was Jim Bowles, and Jim was on my board of directors, and so I was telling them that I'm getting all kinds of questions in these letters that I'm not familiar with I didn't really have any college background had not been to business school and had joined the Air Force right out of high school so a lot of the terminology that was being thrown at me was new and ROI was the one return on investment and then, how do we come up with an ROI?

Paul Terrell: And what was interesting is that led into another inquiry that we got from a new magazine that had come out and it was called Entrepreneur magazine. And once again, who's an entrepreneur, I don't even know how to spell that one. And as it turned out it was a brand new magazine and for their first issue of the magazine, they wanted to do the Byte Shop dealership in the magazine. So they sent somebody out to me and we sat down and went through the the whole process of what it takes to actually become a Byte Shop dealership complete with inventory investments talking about how to set up a store that was really a very thorough job that they did and we once again, we're being able to benefit from this concept of of networking.

Paul Terrell: That was going on in the valley. And as I mentioned before with the sales and marketing and now the business side of things we were getting lots of exposure to a broad market of people out there.

Randy Kindig: So I saw some of the stuff that Ray Burrell wrote and he mentioned you. He mentioned your brothers that you had, I think, two brothers that also had dealerships as well. And he was friends with you guys.

Paul Terrell: Yeah. Once the program got started in the Bay Area there, one of my brothers had just left college and he came down to see what was going on in the Bay Area.

Paul Terrell: And I actually hired a friend of his that had come out of college with him. And they, the two of them came down and One of them went to work for Byte Incorporated and then my brother, once he saw the activity that was going on in the Bay Area and he was from Portland, Oregon, he decided that he wanted to go up to Portland and do a Byte Shop in Portland. And we got him set up as the the Byte Shop of Portland. And I actually had three brothers that got interested one of them was back in North Carolina and he was working for AT& T as an engineer with their computer group Western Electric and he was interested in doing a a Byte Shop back there.

Paul Terrell: And then the other brother that was up in Oregon he decided that he wanted to do a Byte Shop in the Seattle area. And once again these were in Repco territories at least the the Washington and Oregon ones were. They became I think Byte Shop number six was the Portland store.

Paul Terrell: And then Byte Shop 8 or 10 was was the one in Bellevue, Washington and then actually my brother that was back in North Carolina, his wife was a school teacher, and she was very interested in what was going on with computers and education. And particularly when Apple came out with the Apple II computer there was a lot of software and things that were being developed in that area of education.

Paul Terrell: They actively got involved, the two of them, and and did the Byte Shops back on the East coast. And then the brothers in the Northwest were so successful with their multiple stores that they decided that they wanted to get into distribution of computer products, and so they actually set up another company. Microware Distributors became a distribution company for computer products and networking, and about that time networking of these personal computers was really taking off, and there were companies like Cisco that were doing networking cards.

Paul Terrell: Novell was a major software and hardware supplier for networking computers. That whole part of the computer industry just exploded. You weren't just looking for desktop computers to either do entertainment or business type of computer processing, but now the communications part of it was growing and even to the point where you know, that part of the industry had their own networking shows that they were doing annually and we were seeing the show business part of computing really take off with Shelly Adelson came along and started the Comdex shows.

Paul Terrell: And when I first met Shelly, he was he was looking to do a show that would deal just to dealers. It was focused on retailers and not so much the education part of computing or other areas. Shelly's Comdex shows became shows that manufacturers who wanted to sell to dealers.

Paul Terrell: It was a show where the people coming through the door were going to be dealerships worldwide. And if you wanted to sell to retailers that's what you would you'd go to a Comdex show. If you wanted to sell and have products in the communications area, you went to the networking shows.

Paul Terrell: And about that time the the fall joint and the spring joint computer conferences had merged and become what was called the National Computer Conference. And so the NCC became a one, once a year major show. And that's the show that Apple when they came out with the Apple II, and they were going to the broad market and they had gotten funded, they actually went to. The show was being held in Anaheim, California, and for all of the people at the show, when you went by their booth, they were giving you free tickets to Disneyland.

Paul Terrell: They had bought out Disneyland for the night, and so to go to their hospitality for Apple you got free admission into the Disneyland Park, and just goes to show, the importance of the personal computing part of the business versus the professional part of the computing.

Paul Terrell: When we went to the Anaheim show the booth space that the show people offered to the companies that were involved in personal computing was out in the parking garage of the convention center. And so literally people were going from the convention center and walking around in, they had a couple of levels of the parking garage that was set up with booths.

Paul Terrell: And things, but it was becoming obvious to people in the show business that this was going to be something. When Apple is buying Disneyland Park for people to come to their booth we need to get serious about all of these people. And of course the other thing that was happening at these shows, there's, there was hardware as well as software, and the industry was really coming into its own at that time.

Paul Terrell: And so my brothers they ended up with retail stores as well as distribution. And after I had sold Byte Shop, they obviously continued on in both of those, and then IBM, when they introduced the IBM PC to the world my brothers became one of the first retailers of the IBM PC.

Paul Terrell: And IBM was being very controlled in terms of who they were allowing. They came up with something called a medallion and to be to get an IBM event medallion they would take a review of your operation and see whether you were worthy enough to carry their products. And and once again, they were going to retailers like Sears Sears and Roebuck was a IBM dealer.

Paul Terrell: IBM did their own computer stores and the the chain of stores that had actually superseded Byte Shops was ComputerLand. And Bill Millard and Ed Faber; Ed Faber was the president of ComputerLand, and Bill Millard was …, and Ed founded ComputerLand when they were a company in the San Francisco area called IMSAI, I-M-S-A-I, and IMSAI was at the time that I was doing Byte Shops.

Paul Terrell: They were a supplier once again of an S100 bus compatible computer, and they were very successful. In manufacturing the S100 IMSAI 8080 is what they called it and they were competing with the Altair people and actually were very good competitors and they had better manufacturing capabilities. There were hundreds, if not thousands of IMSAI computers that I sold through the Byte Shops. And the Apple computers and, all of the other type of computers.

Paul Terrell: But, if you have a good thing going, you want to invite your family into the business, they were very successful with their Byte Shops in the northwest. They ended up selling the stores out to a Pac Bell when the phone companies had done their split up. Federal government came in and went after Bell for the monopoly that they had. And so you had the what they called baby Bells regionally around the country that were the new phone companies. And they were looking for businesses, other businesses to get in besides telephones. The other interesting thing at this same timeframe, you have to remember that we couldn't buy phones or computers back in those days, you were renting the hardware products from these companies. IBM and from Western electric was the manufacturing arm for the AT& T is what it is today. And so we went through a period where all of the baby bells were thinking that they were, are going to be computer stores as well and so they were out buying up the existing computer store chains that were in the marketplace. BusinessLand came along, following in the direction computer land was going and. And trying to be more specific for business but a lot of the early pioneers in the retail business were able to take advantage of these buyout and exit opportunities that came along.

Randy Kindig: So you you sent me some pictures, quite a few pictures of the old Byte Shop, and I was wondering, I'm going to try to share my screen here. I was wondering if we could bring those up and maybe just have you comment on those photos, sounds, sound like fun?

Paul Terrell: Yeah, I could do that.

Randy Kindig: Let me see if I can if I can get it to come up here.

Randy Kindig: Do you see this photo?

Paul Terrell: Yeah, I do. I see that one. Yeah, that's the Byte Shop in Mountain View. And yeah, that's the… 1 of the pictures is of the Mountain View store. And you can see that's actually a pretty good picture of the front of that store because you're looking at those where the Byte Shop signs are.

Paul Terrell: Those are over the windows to the street, you can see a couple of cars parked in front of it. And actually the window on the left hand side there is where we have a big 25 inch color television set that running the Cromemco Dazzler card on a Altair computer so that people just driving along the road would see this.

Paul Terrell: We had a kaleidoscope a piece of software that. One of the people that would come in and visit in the store actually wrote the program on our computer there. And I think if you could do a close up, which I don't think you can do for this presentation, but I think you see the sort of the back of somebody sitting there in the window.

Paul Terrell: And that was probably the guy writing the Dazzler program that we were displaying there but that's how we would get people's attention to the store and get them to stop and come in and and then the other picture above it is a picture of me in the store I, and actually I've got my hand on a display case there that has the Byte magazines inside the display.

Paul Terrell: And when talking to the people at Byte magazine Virginia Peschke was the owner of Byte magazine, and Carl Helmers was her editor, and I contacted Virginia and I was interested in getting the magazine to do something about the Byte Shops. And if you recall, when we came up with the name Byte Shop, we were wanting to have people associate us with the magazine and in terms of who we might be and so what I did was I took a processor technologies display case that they provided to me with the circuit boards that they made. And I put past issues of Byte magazine. I think I had probably six or eight magazines in there. And what I told Virginia is that they should do a page on the jewels of the Byte shop were the Byte magazines.

Paul Terrell: And here they are in a display case, and one of the things that we did, which was interesting for the magazine or the publishing industry is, the policy that they had and the way they distribute magazines out to the public were with what were called rack jobbers, and these guys would get bundles of magazines sent to them, and they would go out to newsstands and places To deliver the magazines and everything that wasn't sold, what they would do is when they dropped off the latest issue of the magazine, they would tear the covers off of the old magazines, and then they would credit the retailer with the price of that issue that didn't sell through. There was so much interest in the personal computer industry at the time that I was actually contacting the publishers and buying all of the magazines that they had that were going out of circulation.

Paul Terrell: And what I would do, is because there was so much interest and demand in it, is with the Byte magazines you could buy a new issue of Byte magazine for a dollar. And so every month, that one of their magazines got older, I added another dollar to the price. So I was selling magazines for two, two dollars, three dollars, four dollars, and people were collecting these magazines and there were articles in the magazines that were printed that were useful to people that were trying to figure out things to do with the computer because that's what all of the articles that Carl Helmers was writing about in the Byte magazine.

Paul Terrell: So there was real value in the old magazines. And when I called the publisher of Popular Electronics Messick, Joe Messick was his name, Joe couldn't believe it. He's a, here he is, he's the guy that's running, I don't know what they called him in the magazine business whether they were actually a president or chief executive or whatever.

Paul Terrell: But he was the guy that was tops for popular electronics. And when I called him and told him that I wanted him to send me these back issues, he actually couldn't believe it. And I was willing to pay the same price for a back issue that I was for a current issue. And then once again, I was marking the price up.

Paul Terrell: But you can see that in the store. And I, you, I think you have some other pictures there that I was showing you, where the walls, we were trying to put a lot of information in the public's hands. When they came into the store, there's a real education process here.

Paul Terrell: Like I said, I was calling it the greatest show on earth coming into one of those stores and obviously having material in there that people could buy for a dollar or two and go home and learn about these things was important. We were trying to show off that particular display area, I don't know how clear you can see, but people would come in to get the paper tape to put in their teletype.

Randy Kindig: I see that.

Paul Terrell: So there's a supply business going on as well as the magazine business there and that area of the store was the area where you walked right in through the, those front doors you can see in the lower picture. You would come in and that was our main display area and then at the back wall, you had the cash register counter that I was talking about, where, BusinessWeek had taken a picture of me there and then there was a demo room that was in the back.

Paul Terrell: Part of the that floor space there where we had all of the, it was a darker room where all of these displays could be more prominent and people would go back there and actually have hands on experience with it and behind the counter that had the cash register; that area in the back was a was our supply room in our office for getting office things taken care of.

Randy Kindig: Okay, cool. Let's see here. What else do we got here? That's the same picture. And then these pictures are really grainy. I don't know. These were like scans. I don't know if you can even see that one.

Paul Terrell: Yeah, I see it. It's once again, it's that same area. Yeah. And I think in that picture, I had, I was more casually dressed.

Paul Terrell: The other thing that was happening I think we did t-shirts and we were saying “take a nibble out of your your Byte” and people didn't know, what is a nibble? What is a byte? One of the issues that I had with Regis McKenna and I used to debate this all the time.

Paul Terrell: People, when they heard the word byte, they thought that I was saying bike and they thought I had a bicycle shop. And so I was talking to Regis about it and I said, nobody knows what a byte is and do people even know what a nibble is, a nibble is just, and the bite was a bit.

Paul Terrell: And there were bits, bytes and nibbles and so the computer terminology was another thing that people were wrestling with in terms of understanding what was going on here. And once again, you can see… now that shows you an area of the store where would actually go through those computers so fast that when we got a delivery of 10 or 12 computers, I would just take them in the box that they were shipped in and just stack them up on the floor.

Paul Terrell: And then on top of the boxes, we would we would have one of the computers that was inside there. So people these things, we really didn't need a place for inventory because as soon as computers were coming in they were just bouncing off the floor and going out the door.

Paul Terrell: And then, as I said before, the other phenomena was weeks later, somebody would come back in. Ray Lynn, who was the Byte Shop of Campbell; he was a programmer over at Basic Timeshare and he was interested. He got his Altair computer and came back and said, look, I want to develop software for this and I'm going to leave Basic Timeshare and go over and start a Byte Shop. How do I get one of these dealerships? And Todd Anderson was the Byte Shop of Santa Clara. Todd was an engineer at Intel and once again, had bought a computer and and had put it together and came back and said, I want to be Byte Shop number two. And so I told Todd, I said, go five miles down the road.

Paul Terrell: I said, that's what Tandy Corporation is doing with Radio Shacks and find an area there and I want to have Byte Shops five miles from everywhere around the United States. So that was the geographic territory that I was allowing no competition within that area.

Paul Terrell: And once again, Ray Lynn, he was Byte Shop number three. And I told Ray to go to Campbell. That was five miles down the road from Santa Clara, which is where Todd's store was. So we were starting to set a precedent there. And then Byte Shop number four. Came along and that was an engineer. The interesting story there.

Paul Terrell: The guy was actually a vice president of Lockheed Missiles and Space, and he was concerned with his position there at Lockheed that he might be in violation of some kind of an employment situation. So he wanted to remain anonymous in terms of ownership of the store and was asking me if I had some an area, a territory available that was close by.

Paul Terrell: And I said there's nothing up in Palo Alto and Stanford university is there, you could be Byte Shops of Palo Alto. And he said how do I get somebody to run it? And I told him, I said, look the manager of the Byte Shop here in Mountain View is looking to get more involved in the business and I've just got I'm working behind the counter here.

Paul Terrell: I said, why don't why don't I introduce you to Bob Moody and Bob can become the manager of your store up there. So they put that together and now we had another Byte Shop 5 miles to the north and then we went to San Mateo after that and so forth. But we were trying to find out what is the density in a metropolitan area where these stores would survive each other and these are all questions that, being corporate Byte Shop, that were issues that were on my platter at Byte Incorporated to figure out these things, because nobody had done it before, and can you get a good return on your investment in your store if you've got these guys out there five miles apart? Can they be successful? Of course, we were in a computer saturated area in Silicon Valley, so it wasn't too hard to be successful there.

Randy Kindig: Yeah, exactly. I think it's going to depend a lot on how population dense is the area, like New York and the part of California you were in, maybe Chicago, but other places that are less population dense, you probably would need them further apart, I would think.

Randy Kindig: I'm amazed that you can remember all of the different…, you could remember which stores came in what order and all of that. That's pretty incredible.

Paul Terrell: Yeah, it was really my life at the time, as I said, towards a month I was spending a lot of time, on airplanes and flying around.

Paul Terrell: And of course, when I went down to the Los Angeles area, I think one of the pictures that I sent to you there was the computer fair in San Francisco at Brooks Hall, where Apple was introducing the Apple 2 computer and had a nice island booth there. And I had a 20 foot booth where I was selling the dealerships, the Byte Shop dealerships and showing a map on the wall where people could see, how we were expanding and in California, particularly and LA became the next area that I was focused on in terms of going in and developing stores. And I would actually fly down there on a commuter plane in the morning and catch the shuttle over to the Marriott hotel. And I actually ran my business out of the Marriott there. I would have a set up lunch and appointments with people and breakfast appointments and they'd walk into the hotel and there I am sitting there in the, in a seating area in the lobby and getting, get out my briefcase and my presentation and then I'd be on the 5 o'clock flight back that night, not even staying in the hotel, but just doing business right there.

Paul Terrell: And one of my friends that had the, going back to the rep business, he was the Southern California rep that I shared a lot of product lines with me. He laughed at it and said, Paul, he said, these people are thinking that you're down here and staying in this hotel and doing business and you're just moving off to the next deal, but that's the way it was.

Floppy Days 140 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 1

27 juni 2024 | 70 min

Episode 140 - Interview with Paul Terrell, The Byte Shop - Part 1

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

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Hello, and welcome to episode 140 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for June, 2024. I am Randy Kindig, your guide to this journey through vintage computer goodness.

This month I’m bringing you another interview episode. Paul Terrell is a name well-known in the annals of computer history; probably most famously for his kickstart of Apple Computer through the purchase of one of Steve Jobs’ and Steve Wozniak’s first batches of Apple I computers for his Byte Shop. The Byte Shop was a very early computer store that was one of the few that existed in the world, at the time. I’ve had an earlier introductory interview with Paul where numerous topics were covered in a more general manner. I also talked with Paul about his time at Exidy working on the sorcerer computer. In this interview, we focus primarily on The Byte Shop, how it got started, what it was like, and much more. Through several conversations with Paul, the interview ran quite long, so this is part I of The Byte Shop discussion. If you want to know what it was like to run a computer store in those early days, this is the interview for you! Along the way, you’ll learn even more about just what the home and hobby computer scene was like in those days.

New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To

American Computer and Robotics Museum - https://acrmuseum.org/
Vtech Pre-Computer Unlimited - https://vtech.fandom.com/wiki/PreComputer_Unlimited
USB-C Power Adapter for Atari 8-bit - https://mozzwald.com/product/atari-8-bit-usb-c-power-adapter/
USB-C Power Adapter for Apple IIc - https://mozzwald.com/product/apple-iic-usb-c-power-delivery-adapter/

Upcoming Shows

Show list I maintain for the remainder of the current year - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/current-year-vintage-computer-show-schedule)
KansasFest, the largest and longest running annual Apple II conference - July 16-21 (in-person), July 27-28 (virtual) - University of Illinois in Springfield, IL - https://www.kansasfest.org/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 19-21, 2024 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Nottingham Video Game Expo - July 20-21 - The Belgrave Rooms, Nottingham, U.K. - https://www.nottsvge.com/
Fujiama - July 23-28 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2024/
Vintage Computer Festival West - August 2-3 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 15-18 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-se
VCF Midwest - September 7-8 - Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
VCF Europe - September 7-8 - Munich, Germany - https://vcfe.org/E/
Teletext 50 - Sep 21-22 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, UK - https://www.teletext50.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Tandy Assembly - September 27-29 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
AmiWest - October 25-27 - Sacramento, CA - https://amiwest.net/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 26 - Evanston Public Library (Falcon Room, 303), Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
Retro Computer Festival 2024 - November 9-10 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England - https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/
Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we

Meet The Listeners

Brian Cox's site FVResearch.com - https://www.fvresearch.com/

Transcription of Interview-only

Randy Kindig: All right. Today I'm with Paul Terrell. Paul, today we wanted to talk about the Byte Shop and, exactly what happened with that, how it got started, a lot of things about it. So maybe we could just kick it off by how did the idea of the Byte Shop come about and, how did that kind of get started?

Paul Terrell: Okay, yeah basically I had a rep company called Repco in Mountain View, California. I started Repco in 1975, the beginning of the year and January sort of frame. Uh, with Repco it's a manufacturer's rep representative sales representative in a geographic territory. And Boyd and I had our partnership company for Northern California, Northern Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Paul Terrell: And then there was also another territory, the electronic rep association divides the country up into about 26 different geographical areas and then people, can join the ERA and become members of the ERA. Reps in those territories and with the association they have contractual information and they provide contact information with different manufacturers and such.

Paul Terrell: With Repco we're selling electronic products, but mainly, different kind of instruments, multimeters from companies that manufactured that, and companies would use reps when they were just getting started out and they couldn't afford to have direct sales people and offices all over the country.

Paul Terrell: So they would hire a rep and typically pay about, oh, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent commission on sales that happened in that territory. And Boyd and I we're carrying power supply companies and instrument companies. One day I got a phone call from one of my customers at Stanford research facility in Palo Alto, California, and he was saying that he had just read about an Altair computer that used a 8080 Intel processor chip, and he was wondering why the products he was buying from me were costing so much.

Paul Terrell: And basically the Altair computer was on the cover of Popular Electronics, and so he went ahead and ordered one of these. They were for sale, mail order, and so I told him that I personally didn't believe that it could be sold for $439, I believe was the mail order price for this and it was in kit form rather than an assembled and tested computer.

Paul Terrell: I told him that I thought that, basically that product was a paper tiger, and it would never really show up and that he should continue to buy the Intel processor cards from the company that we were representing, which was Prolog down in Monterey, California. And about a month later I got another phone call from this guy and he said “Hey, Paul”, he said, “if you're free for lunch, come on over because the paper tiger has arrived at Stanford Research and we're taking a look at it.”

Paul Terrell: I went over there and sure enough, there was a computer and it did have a true Intel 8080 microprocessor chip included in there. And quite honestly it had a very professional Optima rack mounted case up that was part of the kit product.And so they were going to have to assemble the unit themselves, but to the computer, it it looked very much like a Data General with panel controls and lights and things and once again, rack mountable. And I got the information out of the documentation that they had received there with the product. And as soon as I got back to the office, I called MITS down in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And talked to Ed Roberts, who was the founder and the CEO of the company.

Paul Terrell: And told Ed about my company Repco. He was changing his company from mail order four function calculators to these what he was calling a microcomputer and a personal computer. And I told them that, something as complicated as a computer, he’s going to have feet on the street for people to explain how this computer works and support the the product because it was a lot more sophisticated and capable than the four function calculator kits he was using, presently selling, and he agreed with me and invited me to come down to Albuquerque and talk to him about how he might be able to set up a sales rep organization nationwide because that was his intention.

Paul Terrell: And he was getting all kinds of checks in the mail from people all over the country that had read this article and. And literally we're just sending off checks and ordering these kits. And he had a pretty tremendous back order at the time. Boyd and I contacted some of the reps that sold products like the Prologue and Control Instruments that we were representing. And we were attempting to get other territories lined up for MITS so that he would have the kind of support that he wanted in the sales organization.

Paul Terrell: And that's basically how we got introduced to personal computing and The Altair computer, and of course when we went down to Albuquerque to meet with Ed, Bill Gates and Paul Allen were at the premises. They had a little office on Route 40 going through the center of Albuquerque, and it was just one of those little strip centers that you see with retail stores and offices and we sat down with Ed, signed the contracts, signed up our territory for ourselves. And then, gave contact information that we had to bring more reps across the country on board and gave them some, information that made feel that these people could do a good job for him and he saw the products we were carrying and how they fit with the personal computer and Altair.

Paul Terrell: We got the contract signed. We started to represent MITS and the Altair and what we did in the initial stages of it there was a group in Palo Alto that was meeting at Stanford's linear accelerator called Homebrew Computer Club. And this was a group of guys that, worked in the industry and that we were selling to. We were interested in joining the Homebrew Club and going to the meetings, and once again, basically representing MITS to the audience there and answering questions.

Randy Kindig: Paul, did the Byte Shop actually exist yet? Was that an entity yet?

Paul Terrell: No, no. The Byte Shop didn't exist at that time. It was just the rep company Repco. Uh, we had an office in mountain view, California. We were calling on all of the, aerospace companies and universities in the Northern California Bay Area as well as Oregon and Washington and Idaho. We would take trips up there to University of Oregon, University of Washington and then once again, anywhere where our manufacturing people had done some advertising, and people would fill out cards and information to get more product.

Paul Terrell: And Boyd and I would show up on their doorstep and show them a demonstration of the product and sell it to them and get our commission. So that's how all of that kind of stuff worked at the time. And the computer stores there was no such thing. At the time nobody had thought about doing computer retail because, of course, there, there was no retail consumer pricing available.

Paul Terrell: There were no computers. There were very few products that were even showing up in magazines or like the popular electronics. And so forth. And these the computers that were out there Intel was just introducing their 8080 microprocessor chip. The first eight bit computer chip that they manufactured was the 8008.

Paul Terrell: And the 4004 was a 4 bit computer chip, and then they went to the 4040 and the 8080, and that was a more advanced instruction set. And with one of our manufacturers, Prolog, we were actually teaching engineers and actually anybody that was interested in coming to our seminars.

Paul Terrell: Prolog would have seminars on designing with a programmed logic design versus the traditional electronic chip designs that were going on by people making products with the semiconductor devices that were out there from companies like Texas Instrument and National Semiconductor and so forth. So the microprocessor was the heart of this thing.

Paul Terrell: And it was really changing the way people were designing products so they had to learn about programmed logic design and how to do it and, of course, have the components available from the various manufacturers. And, once Intel had introduced everybody else started to get into the business Fairchild Instruments came out with the F8 microprocessor, Chip National Semiconductor came out with the SC/MP microprocessor.

Paul Terrell: And so forth. So the industry was transforming at the component level. And of course with the heart of the product becoming a computer. Everybody else had to adapt to this new philosophy of electronic design and all the way up through aerospace companies.

Paul Terrell: And then, of course, universities were always interested in and teaching new technologies to the students and so forth.

Randy Kindig: You mentioned Boyd Wilson, right? He was your partner in a lot of this stuff at the time, right?And I know you're just getting ready to get into exactly how the Byte shop came about.

Randy Kindig: So I'll just let you go there.

Paul Terrell: Okay. Yeah, Boyd and I, basically, it was the two of us with a secretary bookkeeper that would answer the phones and take messages and so forth. And we would just travel around our territories.I had the peninsula of San Francisco and Boyd had the East Bay and so we split up our areas and we'll call on customers that way and what happened with the advent of computer retailing was that MIT has had a convention that they were holding in Albuquerque and they were bringing the reps and they invited the public to to come to Albuquerque to a private convention that they were holding at their facilities, and they had just moved from that little strip center on Route 40 out to an industrial park by the airport, and so they were showing off their new facilities.

Paul Terrell: To everybody and anybody that was interested and of course, one of the things they were doing at this conference was to invite the people that had done some things with the Altair computer to bring the products and show off what it was capable of doing. Everybody, uh, showed up in Albuquerque at the I think they called it the WAC, the World Altair Computer Convention, WACC, and, once again the the people at MITS, when they were putting these kits together and they started to actually offer assembled computers as well.

Paul Terrell: So part of this facility was dedicated to manufacturing Altair computers. But the majority of their sales were in the kits because all they had to do is bag parts and provide documentation to the technicians that were buying these things and the hobbyists and putting them together, and which was a very inexpensive process for them and provided them a lot of profit margin in the kit product.

Paul Terrell: Whereas when they got into the assembly of the computers, that was much more complicated. They had to hire a technical staff that could fix these products. And as they came down the production lines, and of course, it took a lot longer to take that check from the customer and. And provide a product for him.

Paul Terrell: When we went to the world convention at MITS we were introduced to other startup companies that were making products that would plug into the Altair computer and provide other capabilities. A good example of this is a company called Cromemco, which had a color a video card that would plug into an Altair computer, and it was called the Dazzler, and you could actually program them.

Paul Terrell: Color graphics for an application. You might have with a Dazzler card and Heuristic Systems had a voice recognition card that they had provided. So you could see that these hobbyists and people out there were starting companies. To create other products to to go with this personal computer.

Paul Terrell: And uh, the marketplace was starting to mature with more than one manufacturer. The people at Cromemco actually focused in on the more professional side of computing and built a ruggedized version of the Altair computer that Boyd and I were selling to the state of California, and the engineers at in Sacramento were using those computers for the ramp controllers on the interstate highways and also on the canal system that they had built had controlled the water flow from all of the dams in California. So there were some serious applications that were happening and companies that were being formed to address those kinds of markets.

Paul Terrell: Processor Technology was another company that originally started making cards. They had a serial board that you could plug into if you wanted to attach your Altair to a modem and communicate over the phone lines with other computers and they eventually created the processor technology SOL computer; so I could see that the industry was growing to the point where you could have more than one manufacturer You could have a number of manufacturers and of course at Repco, we approach these companies to represent their products as well.

Paul Terrell: And but what happened at the Altair meeting that we had in Albuquerque was Ed Roberts had told us that one of the customers in the Los Angeles area was starting a computer store. It was Dick Heiser and his wife, who worked for RAND Corporation, down by the L. A. airport had opened up a Arrowhead computer store on Sepulveda Boulevard, and he was selling the kits to the public in this computer store, and so it told us that when we got back to our territories after the convention that we should try and identify customers of that sort, rather than the types of people that were presently buying the products. And so I asked that at the meeting what could we offer a retailer for for getting into that business? And he said he was giving Dick a 25% discount on his computers. And that was his purchase price. And the Sales reps, we were all getting 5 percent for all of the MITS products that shipped into our territory. And so on the way to the airport, I asked Boyd what was going to be the name of the computer store, because 5% plus 25% was 30%, and I much prefer the 30% margin from 5%. When we got on the plane, I had picked up a magazine at the airport, it was called Byte Magazine, and it was from a company in New Hampshire, that was one of the new startup companies in this personal computer industry.

Paul Terrell: They were in the magazine business and they were following the hobbyist market. And there, there were a number of new magazines that were coming out at the time uh, to join people like Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics. Which had been around in the CB radio market and addressing hobby people and electronics engineers and technicians and so forth.

Paul Terrell: And so Byte magazine was on the racks on and we should call the store that we were going to start in Northern California, the Byte Shop. And people would think that maybe we were associated with the magazine and it would give us some factor for Byte Shop. so That was our plan. And when we landed it took me about 3 months to go from our Repco office complex to the Mountain View area that had good visibility in retail. They say that the three rules are location, location and location. The highway, the road, that goes from San Jose all the way up to San Francisco is called El Camino Real, the King's Highway, and parallels the Highway 101, which was the, connector for everybody that and of course, it also parallels the the railroad tracks for all the commuters and so forth.

Paul Terrell: So I decided that El Camino real was where the Byte Shop should be located and we should have a, we should find a place. So it was about a thousand square feet and had good visibility to the road that we could shoot our products and that's what we found at 1063 West El Camino in Mountain View, California.

Paul Terrell: That's where the original Byte Shop was, number one, was. I opened that on my birthday in 1975, December 8th, 1975. We introduced the Byte Shop to the world.

Randy Kindig: Boyd was your partner in this when you started that or was he not?

Paul Terrell: Yeah. Yeah. This was a this was a spinoff of Repco the rep company agreement that we had.

Paul Terrell: And eventually we would incorporate, uh, Byte Incorporated, ran the dealership program that we put together when we expanded the stores. It also encompassed Byte manufacturing, because we actually created our own computer. Compatible to the Altair computer, compatible to the Cromemco, compatible to processor technology.

Paul Terrell: It's becoming the standard in the personal computer industry. Everybody was designing their products to be plug compatible to the what they call the S100 Bus that Ed Roberts had originally designed in his first Altair computer. We, corporation-wise, we had different operations going and so we were expanding our facilities as well.

Paul Terrell: We went from… Boyd actually ran the rep company once the Byte shop got started it got my full time, so it was hiring other people to go on sales calls for my territory. plus we had 13 different manufacturers that we were selling products for. But my focus was totally on the personal computer business. I was going to all of the home brew computer meetings that were being held.

Paul Terrell: And so eventually my office moved from the office in Mountain view of Repco to the Byte Shop. The idea originally was that being in the electronics industry we would go to all of the events that were happening and there were a couple of major conventions that were that we would go to annually, the fall joint and spring joint computer conferences, and those conferences were focused on people that were in the computer industry.

Paul Terrell: These are companies that are in the computer business or needing computers, they would go to these conventions to see what was new and available to them. Obviously, the university people were invited to these shows and these were shows where you had to pay hundreds of dollars to get admission and you had to be qualified to even get into the show.

Paul Terrell: So there was no way that the general public had any kind of a show that they could go to , so hence here's another opportunity for the entrepreneurs out there. There was a company in San Francisco that did a show called the country fair and that was a a show that was created once again because personal computers became an industry.

Paul Terrell: And so just as there was an opportunity in the magazine business, there was an opportunity in retailing, there was also an opportunity in publishing with the magazines and now show business. For me once again, since the shows before computer fair started, the shows were you had to be qualified and working in the industry to even see the products. It occurred to me that I had an opportunity with the Byte shops like Barnum and Bailey created this expression called the “greatest show on earth” when it came to town. And so I saw an opportunity when the Byte shop came to town to create the greatest show in town which which was computers in your Byte shop. And you could come into the store. You could see the products. You could use the demonstration units.

Paul Terrell: You could have a hands on capability. And so there was a lot of showmanship involved in in putting these stores together because we were trying to educate the general public on what you could do with computers and and give them access to them. So that's what was happening. In the retail area and of course once we started selling the Altair computers to the public and and these other companies we were getting recognition.

Paul Terrell: And, the idea of retail, I would have customers come in one day and buy a computer from me and then come back a couple of weeks later and say they want to open a store what was the opportunity for them to be the Byte shop of Campbell, California or the Byte shop of Palo Alto and or the Byte shop of Santa Clara.

Paul Terrell: So it occurred to me that this computer retail thing could become very much like what Radio Shack was doing. Their electronics parts stores and the different products they were offering to the public and at the time the products that they were offering were pretty much the CB radio was the big thing for computer hobbyists and electronics people.

Paul Terrell: Tandy Corporation, the parent of Radio Shacks, they were franchising their stores, they had company owned stores, and they were manufacturing their own brand of radio products under the Realistic name, so you could buy a Radio Shack Realistic CB unit or a cassette player or radio, they had their own private label of products, which gave me the idea that my shops could do the same sort of thing, that we could create our own products there.

Paul Terrell: and obviously, if we're manufacturing the product, we are the manufacturer, so we get to have the profit margins that are associated with that as well, in terms of a business opportunity for us. As the the Byte shop expanded, we were also competing with other individuals that would open up their store and they didn't feel that there was a value and just like anything else, whether you're the food business or whatever there's branding out there.

Randy Kindig: So were you aware of other computer stores that were opening around the country? Like, Stan Veit I know was opening one on the East coast, I think shortly after you did and Ray Borrell, the data domain here in Indiana, which is where I'm located so that's why I have an interest there. Were you aware of these other ones were opening up and how did that impact what you were doing?

Paul Terrell: Yeah it's funny you say that because a lot of those stores were also being created by the the sales reps that were out there, the people that, that we got into the rep business, they obviously saw what Repco was doing with Byte Shops and in our territory. And there were a bunch of other people that from the rep community that opened up stores and there were computer marts, computer shops, computer all sorts of things, data domain, and, once again, some of these people actually came to us and wanted to be a Byte Shop at some point and there was, at some point they decided there wasn't value in it that we weren't offering them enough for them to come in under our label or what have you and some people are just independent. So anyway, but a lot of these people became friends. Stan Veit and I were close friends for a number of years because he got into the magazine business and when he got out of his store and so forth. And of course, the industry changed pretty significantly when IBM came in, it got a lot more serious and, and so forth.

Paul Terrell: But we basically, my idea was to create a a dealership that would add value and and give somebody a decent return on investment for the business that they were starting, and that's an interesting statement right there. Return on investment, because we got a lot of publicity at the Byte Shops being there and right in the heart of Silicon Valley and growing our operation there.

Paul Terrell: There were a lot of people that would come to the West Coast. Charlie Tandy was 1 of them that flew out in his corporate jet and hired the guy that was in charge of national semiconductors, a SC/MP microprocessor, to go to work for him and design the TRS 80. And of course, Charlie, when he was out there, walked all my Byte Shops and saw what was going on, and how we were conducting business, and so forth.

Paul Terrell: And of course, one of the members of my board of directors, happened to be good friends with Nugent, who was a guy that worked for Tandy and his accounting department back in Dallas, Fort Worth. So we actually got information on his whole franchise program for us to put together our dealership program and I keep referring to our program as a dealership program versus franchise and that's for a very specific reason. Boyd and I actually started Repco with $10,000 apiece, and so we capitalized the rep company at $20,000, and then we're trying to take that business and spin off this new Byte Shop business, or Byte Incorporated, and that was the only capital investment we had in the company, we were basically expanding the operation as we could through the profits that we were making in terms of our dealerships. And the dealership, yeah, franchising is very controlled by the the government, and so there's a lot of rules and laws that you have to follow to to actually get a franchise in the state that you're wanting to operate in so we basically couldn't afford the expense of the lawyers that would be involved in putting a franchise agreement together. And once again, not having any idea how successful computer retailing was going to be we were trying to be very cautious with our money and our investments. So we had created a program where we would… we were actually looking at the tire stores Goodyear, Firestone. Those are dealerships that sell products out there.

Paul Terrell: And we were looking and saying those guys are able to skirt the laws of a franchise here. They're they're just dealership. So let's model the Byte Shops after a dealership and we'll charge the 5 percent fee that we get as a rep in the territory. And our fee for a dealership was 5 percent of the gross of the store and that's what people would pay us to be able to use the trademark of Byte Shop, the affordable computer store, and there was also a couple of other things that we did that we wanted. We knew eventually, as we were more profitable and had the money available, we would actually implement a full franchise program, like McDonald's and all the other franchises do out there.

Paul Terrell: We created kind of a look and feel of the store. We had some graphics that we would put in our demo unit. And it said “one giant step for mankind, the personal computer”. And we were playing off of NASA's landing on the moon sort of thing. We felt that the personal computer was as significant as that sort of thing.

Paul Terrell: And so we would provide the the wall art for the Byte Shops so that we would have a consistent theme about it, but very careful not to do all of the requirements that would put us in the franchise business.

Floppy Days 139 - Vic Tolomei (Exidy) Interview

28 maj 2024 | 88 min

Episode 139 - Interview with Vic Tolomei, VP Software Development, Exidy

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, and welcome to episode 139 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for May, 2024.

This month I’m bringing you another interview episode; in the ongoing effort to document the story of Exidy and its Sorcerer computer. I’ve already talked, in previous episodes, with Howell Ivy and Paul Terrell, both principals at Exidy and in the creation of the Sorcerer computer. Those were quite popular episodes! In this episode, I also tracked down Vic Tolomei, VP of Software Development at Exidy during that same time, and got his story. If you want to know what it was like to lead a software development effort at that time, this is the interview for you!

Upcoming on the podcast, I have more interviews to share, as well as more hardware to cover. I’m actually a few months ahead with developing content, which I guess is an advantage of being retired!

I've created some tiers for paid members and have come up with some ways to reward those who are generous enough to monetarily support the Floppy Days Podcast on Patreon.

First of all, all tiers ($2/month and up) will receive early access to companion videos for any interviews that are published. The audio will be published to Floppy Days immediately, as usual, while any video will be made available exclusively to all paid members for a period of time (at least 30 days) before the general public. The videos will be published for you on Patreon.com, and then moved to the Floppy Days YouTube channel after the exclusivity period is over.

Other benefits have been added for the tiers above the minimum $2 tiers, such as Floppy Days merchandise, an audio introduction for supporters, and even the option to co-host an episode!

It is my intention to always make all content available to everyone at no cost, while at the same time providing some benefits for those generous enough to support the podcast. I hope this is a good compromise.

Please let me know your thoughts. Enjoy!!

New Acquisitions

VTech Advantech IQ Unlimited - https://vtech.fandom.com/wiki/I.Q._Unlimited_Computerv
A8PicoCart - https://github.com/robinhedwards/A8PicoCart
M100/T102/T200 Dial-A-ROM - https://www.soigeneris.com/dial-a-rom-for-vintage-computers

Upcoming Shows

Show list I maintain for the remainder of the current year - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/current-year-vintage-computer-show-schedule)
CorgsCon (Columbus Ohio Retro Gaming Society) - June 1 - Kasich Hall – Ohio Expo Center, Columbus, OH - https://www.corgscon.com/
Game Not Over 2024 - June 8-9 - Dunstall Park Racecourse in Wolverhampton, U.K. - https://retro.directory/browse/events/326-game-not-over-2024
VCF Southwest - June 14-16, 2024 - Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas - https://www.vcfsw.org/
Boatfest Retro Computer Expo - June 14-16 - Hurricane, WV - http://boatfest.info
Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo - June 22 - New Westminster, BC, Canada - https://www.vancouvergamingexpo.com/index.html
Pacific Commodore Expo NW v4 - June 22-23 - Old Rainier Brewery Intraspace, Seattle, WA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pacommex:start
Kickstart Amiga UK Expo - June 29-30 - Nottingham, UK - https://www.amigashow.com/
KansasFest, the largest and longest running annual Apple II conference - July 16-21 (in-person), July 27-28 (virtual) - University of Illinois in Springfield, IL - https://www.kansasfest.org/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 19-21, 2024 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Nottingham Video Game Expo - July 20-21 - The Belgrave Rooms, Nottingham, U.K. - https://www.nottsvge.com/
Fujiama - July 23-28 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2024/
Vintage Computer Festival West - August 2-3 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/
VCF Midwest - September 7-8 - Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
VCF Europe - September 7-8 - Munich, Germany - https://vcfe.org/E/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Tandy Assembly - September 27-29 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
AmiWest - October 25-27 - Sacramento, CA - https://amiwest.net/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 26 - Evanston Public Library (Falcon Room, 303), Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
Retro Computer Festival 2024 - November 9-10 - Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England - https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

Interview Links

Interview with Vic - https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/10/the-story-of-chiller-one-very-messed-up-video-game/
Vic has several software credits at Moby Games, including Arrows and Alley, and Magic Maze for the Sorcerer - https://www.mobygames.com/person/636004/vic-tolomei/
Exidy Sorcerer Book: Software Internal Manual for the Sorcerer (1979)(Quality Software) by Vic Tolomei - https://archive.org/details/Software_Internal_Manual_for_the_Sorcerer_1979_Quality_Software
VP of Software, Vic Tolomei at The Ultimate (So Far) History of Exidy blog - https://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-ultimate-so-far-history-of-exidy_21.html

Floppy Days 138 - Interview with Hans Franke, VCF Europe and Computeum

24 april 2024 | 93 min

Current Year Vintage Computer Show Schedule

6 april 2024 | min

Floppy Days 137 - Post-VCF SoCal 2024 with Paul Nurminen

11 mars 2024 | 81 min

Floppy Days 136 - Grundy New Brain Peripherals to Web Sites with Chris Espoinidis

28 februari 2024 | 74 min

Floppy Days 135 - Grundy New Brain Tech Specs with Chris Despoinidis

28 januari 2024 | 74 min

Grundy NewBrain Tech Specs with Chris Despoinidis

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

0 Floppy Days Tune 1 min 14 sec Vintage Computer Ads 1 min 43 sec Intro 5 min 38 sec bumper - Chris Espoinidis 5 min 51 sec New Acquisitions 16 min 32 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon 17 min 15 sec Upcoming Computer Shows 21 min 26 sec bumper - Steve O’Hara-Smith 21 min 45 sec Interview with Chris Espoinidis 36 min 23 sec Tech Specs 1 hr 12 min 07 sec Closing

Hello, and welcome to episode 135 of the Floppy Days Podcast. I’m Randy Kindig, the host of this show, and I’ll be your guide to a journey back to the year 1982, when a very interesting, low-cost machine entered the market in Great Britain. This machine, if you've been following the show, was the Grundy New Brain. This is not a well-known machine, most particularly here in the United States where very few have even heard of it; let alone ever owned one.

As you know, I’ve been hot on the trail of pioneers who were involved with development of this machine. I’ve recently published interviews with John Grant, Steve O’Hara-Smith, and Gerald McMullon concerning their involvement with the New Brain back in the day.

In this episode I move more into discussing details of the machine and its impact on the home and small business market in the 1980’s. To help me talk about the machine, I was able to track down Chris Espoinidis and convince him to co-host this episode. Chris manages the New Brain Emulator site from his home in Greece. Even though Chris created one of the premier New Brain emulators in existence, and that was the primary focus of his Web site initially, his site has become one of the best places (along with Gerald McMullon’s Website) to get any and all New Brain information (which quite honestly is quite sparse).

The focus of this episode, and the next, is to cover things like tech specs, Web sites, emulators and all of the topics that have become the standard for machine coverage on Floppy Days. This particular episode contains an interview with Chris, and then goes into great detail concerning the technical specifications of the New Brain. The next episode will cover all the other details, with the intent to impart every bit of information to you that I could find about this little-known machine.

Before we do that, I will talk about new acquisitions and upcoming shows.

Floppy Days 134 - VCF SoCal 2024 Preview with the Organizing Team

8 januari 2024 | 39 min

Floppy Days 133 - Grundy NewBrain History with Gerald McMullon

31 december 2023 | 59 min

Grundy NewBrain History with Gerald McMullon

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

0 Floppy Days Tune

1 min 14 sec Vintage Computer Ads

1 min 43 sec Intro

6 min 33 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon

7 min 15 sec New Acquisitions

13 min 55 sec bumper - Steve O'Hara-Smith

14 min 13 sec Upcoming Computer Shows

17 min 26 sec Interview with Gerald McMullon

57 min 51 sec Closing

Hello, and welcome to episode 133 of the Floppy Days Podcast for December, 2023. I’m Randy Kindig, your host on this vintage computer retrospective.

Hard to believe we’re coming up on the end of 2023. It was Feb. 2013 when I took the first halting steps in producing a podcast, so we’re coming up on 11 years of Floppy Days very soon.

We are currently covering computers that were released in the year 1982. We are very early in that year, with lots of other computers to be covered.

This episode is about a machine that was developed in the UK. It was pretty much unknown in the United States and even in the UK didn’t get much traction. The machine I’m talking about is the Grundy NewBrain. There are a lot of unique things about this machine that you’ll discover through the history episode, these interviews and the episodes that cover the details.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to contact a few people who were involved in the development of the machine. I’ve published interviews so far with John Grant and Steve O’Hara-Smith. This episode is also an interview episode, but this time with another key member in its development: Gerald McMullon. Gerald has a lot of interesting information to share about the NewBrain, including information about its development and support of the machine after its release.

I have been able to contact some other principals in the development of the NewBrain: Basil Smith and Mike Wakefield. Unfortunately, Basil has had a lot of recent requests for interviews, so I’m waiting in line for that. However, should I be able to talk with Basil and/or Mike, I will of course bring all of that to Floppy Days in future episodes.

This current episode is the end of the interview episodes around the NewBrain at this point in time. Next month, and actually likely the next 2 months, we will be covering the details of the machine such as tech specs, emulators, software, newsletters, peripherals, web sites, etc. That will happen with a special co-host that I’m going to leave as a surprise for right now.

New Acquisitions

TI95 cassette interface - https://github.com/molleraj/ti95interface
AquariCart + 32K RAM - https://www.ebay.com/itm/124471439128
MC-10 3-button joystick pad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzsGst8HAiI

Upcoming Computer Shows

Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 17-18, 2024 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com
Interim Computer Festival SPRING - March 23rd and 24th, 2024 - Intraspace, Seattle, WA - https://sdf.org/icf/
Midwest Gaming Classic - April 5-7 - Wisconsin Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
VCF East - April 12-14, 2024 - Wall, NJ - http://www.vcfed.org
Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - April 13-14 - Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/
VCF Europa - April 27-28, 2024 - Munich, Germany - https://vcfe.org/E/
The 32nd Annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST! - May 4-5, 2024 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
VCF Southwest - June 14-16, 2024 - Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas - https://www.vcfsw.org/
Boatfest Retro Computer Expo - June 14-16 - Hurricane, WV - http://boatfest.info
Pacific Commodore Expo NW v4 - June 14-15 - Old Rainier Brewery Intraspace, Seattle, WA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pacommex:start
Kickstart Amiga UK Expo - June 29-30 - Nottingham, UK - https://www.amigashow.com/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 19-21, 2024 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Fujiama - July 23-28 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2024/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 15-28 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-se
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29, 2024 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html
Facebook show schedule - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Interview

Gerald’s Website - http://www.mcmullen.com
NewBrain Nutshell History by Gerald at Binary Dinosaurs - https://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Grundy/gerald.php
NewBrain history article by Gerald in Micro Computer Mart newsletter - https://newbrainemu.eu/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,96/Itemid,52/

Floppy Days 132 - Grundy New Brain History with Steve O'Hara-Smith

21 november 2023 | 73 min

Grundy NewBrain History with Steve O’Hara-Smith

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

0 Floppy Days Tune

1 min 14 sec Vintage Computer Ads

1 min 43 sec Intro

6 min 14 sec bumper - Steve O'Hara-Smith

6 min 32 sec New Acquisitions

22 min 53 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon

23 min 36 sec Upcoming Computer Shows

26 min 51 sec Feedback

30 min 19 sec Interview with Steve O'Hara-Smith

71 min 46 sec Closing

Hello, and welcome to episode 132 of the Floppy Days Podcast; a podcast about home computers in the magical years of the late 70’s through the 80’s. I’m Randy Kindig, your host on this voyage.

We are currently covering computers that were released in the year 1982; a banner year for personal computers. It’s actually going to take quite some time to get through this year in history.

This is the second episode about a computer that few in the United States know much about. It was released in the UK and even there didn’t get much traction. It was a unique beast, with its own personality and quirks; before it went quietly into the annals of history. The machine I’m talking about is the Grundy NewBrain.

As it was so relatively unknown, I’m going to be spending a lot of air time talking about its history:

in the last episode (Episode 131) I summarized its history, including a short interview with John Grant of Nine Tiles, whose company did some work on the machine
This episode contains an very informative interview with Steve O’Hara Smith, who was involved with development of the machine
The next episode will have an interview with Gerald McMullon, also having done some work on the early NewBrain, as well as support after its release
Finally, there will be 1 or more episodes to cover the usual topics of tech specs, Web sites, emulators, etc. I will have a special guest co-host for that.

So, as you can see, there’s a ton of upcoming information about the NewBrain. Please join me in learning more about this unusual machine.

Before we get into this interview, I’ll let you know what I’ve been up to and have been able to acquire lately; which continues to grow seemingly beyond my control.

That brings me to some administrative news. In order to provide maximum flexibility for my listeners, I’m going to start publishing a timeline in the show notes. It will have a time marker for each section of the podcast, so that, for instance, if you want to jump straight to an interview and re-listen to just that section, you can do so. This is an easy thing to provide, with the audio editing software I use, so from now on expect to see that information in the show notes.

New Acquisitions

TS2068/Spectrum group - https://groups.io/g/TS2068
Wafadrive - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotronics_Wafadrive
mini-bus expansion board - https://www.andertone.com/product/ts1000-expansion-extender/
composite mod for TS1000/ZX81 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/175512970894
64K RAM pack (Memopak) - https://www.andertone.com/product/memopak-64k-ram-pack/
TS1500 keyboard membrane - https://www.ebay.com/itm/304824623956

Upcoming Computer Shows

Atari Party 2023! - Saturday, December 2, 2023, 1pm to 4pm - Quakertown Train Station, Quakertown, PA - https://quakertowntrainstation.org - organized by Peter Fletcher
World of Commodore - Dec. 2-3, 2023 - Admiral Inn Mississauga, Mississauga, ON - http://www.worldofcommodore.ca/
Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 17-18, 2024 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com
Interim Computer Festival SPRING - March 23-24, 2024 - Intraspace, Seattle, WA - https://sdf.org/icf/
Midwest Gaming Classic - April 5-7 - Wisconsin Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
VCF East - April 5-7, 2024 - Wall, NJ - http://www.vcfed.org
Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - April 13-14 - Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/
The 32nd Annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST! - May 4-5, 2024 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
VCF Southwest - June 14-16, 2024 - Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas - https://www.vcfsw.org/
Boatfest Retro Computer Expo - June 14-16 - Hurricane, WV - http://boatfest.info
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 19-21, 2024 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Fujiama - July 23-28 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2024/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 15-28 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-se
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29, 2024 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html
Facebook show schedule - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Floppy Days 131 - Grundy NewBrain History with John Grant

26 oktober 2023 | 58 min

Floppy Days 130 - Interview with Forrest Mims III

25 september 2023 | 91 min

Floppy Days 129 - Paul Terrell - Exidy Part 2

30 augusti 2023 | 80 min

Paul Terrell - Exidy Part 2

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, and welcome to episode 129 for August, 2023 of the Floppy Days Podcast, with your host, Randy Kindig!

If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that we’re in the middle of a series of episodes where we talk with Paul Terrell. Paul has been credited with essentially jump-starting the personal computer industry in many ways, not the least of which was by buying the original Apple I computer from the just-getting-started Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and selling it in his equally-famous computer store, The Byte Shop. This was one of the first personal computer retail store chains in existence. Paul was also a member of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club and attended the West Coast Computer Faire. He was involved in the development of both the Exidy Sorcerer and BYT-8 computers and he later went on to start ComputerMania Inc. which was a chain of computer stores created with the purpose of renting computers and software.

The first episode with Paul (June 2023’s episode) was a sort of overview before Paul’s time being involved with Exidy and the Exidy Sorcerer computer. Last month was segment 1 of 2 focusing directly on Exidy and the Sorcerer. And, this month is segment 2 of 2; again focusing on Exidy and the Sorcerer. You’ll hear more about how the Sorcerer came about, hear Paul’s insight into why certain design decisions were made, and what mistakes were made. The Sorcerer was truly an early, important machine, and had impressive features for the timeframe that it came out. As a reminder, if you want to hear additional information about the Sorcerer and about Exidy, there are 2 other Floppy Days Podcasts you’ll want to listen to:

Episode 17, where the Sorcerer is covered in detail - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-episode-17-the-exidy-sorcerer-live-from-vcfse-20
Episode 114, which features an interview with Howell Ivy. Howell was the principal designer of the Sorcerer and recollects his time at Exidy. - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-114-howell-ivy-exidy-sorcerer-and-exidy

Paul decided he would really like to be able to talk about his incredible career in its entirety, including an amazing number of industry-impacting contributions, more than just the time with Exidy, and I of course was ecstatic that he decided my humble podcast could be a good medium for that. What that means for the listener, is that you can expect an even broader series of continued podcasts with Paul in the near future, interspersed with other computer-based and interview episodes along the way.

I really hope you enjoy the Paul Terrel series in general, and this episode should give you a nice wrap-up on his involvement with Exidy and the Sorcerer!

New Acquisitions

Console5 - http://www.console5.com
Okimate 10 printer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okimate_10
ATR8000 - https://www.atarimagazines.com/v3n4/ATR8000.html
Happy 1050 - https://www.8bitclassics.com/product/happy-1050-upgrade-for-atari-1050-disk-drive/?ref=Floppydays
Atari Joystick USB Adapter (JAKAdapter) - http://kair.us/projects/jakadapter/index.html

Upcoming Shows

VCF Midwest - September 9-10 - Waterford Banquets and Conference Center, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
World of Retrocomputing - September 16-17 - Kitchener, Ontario, Canada - https://www.worldofretrocomputing.com/2023-worc-expo
Tandy Assembly - Sep. 29-Oct. 1 - Courtyard by Marriott in Springfield, Ohio - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
Amiga38 Germany - Oct. 6-7 - Das Rote Krokodil - Kunstwerk Mönchengladbach - https://amigaevent.de/WB.html
The Interim Computer Festival - Oct. 7-8 - Seattle, WA - https://sdf.org/icf/
AmiWest - October 14-15 - Sacramento, CA - https://retro.directory/browse/events/4/AmiWest.net
Dragon MeetUp - October 7-8 - The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge - https://www.facebook.com/events/225011523831254/?ref=newsfeed
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 13-15, 2023 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 14, 2023 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore - Dec. 2-3, 2023 - Admiral Inn Mississauga, Mississauga, ON - http://www.worldofcommodore.ca/
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html
Facebook show schedule - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Paul Terrell Interview

Paul on LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-terrell-2441a17/details/experience/
Paul on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/paul.terrell.92/
Paul at WikiPedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Terrell
Interview with Paul at NextShark - https://nextshark.com/paul-terrell-apple
“Today in Apple history: The Byte Shop, Apple’s first retailer, opens” by Cult of Mac - https://www.cultofmac.com/457420/byte-shop-opens-tiah/
“The Man Who Jump-Started Apple by Harry McCracken”, August 23, 2007, PC World - https://web.archive.org/web/20110511184229/http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/005240.html

Floppy Days 128 - Paul Terrell - Exidy Part 1

28 juli 2023 | 82 min

Floppy Days Episode 128 - Paul Terrell - Exidy Part 1

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, and welcome to episode 128 for July, 2023 of the Floppy Days Podcast, with your host, Randy Kindig!

If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that we’re in the middle of a series of episodes where we talk with Paul Terrell. Paul has been credited with essentially jump-starting the personal computer industry in many ways, not the least of which was by buying the original Apple I computer from the just-getting-started Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and selling it in his equally-famous computer store, The Byte Shop. This was one of the first personal computer retail stores in existence. Paul was also a member of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club and attended the West Coast Computer Faire. He was involved in the development of both the Exidy Sorcerer and BYT-8 computers and he later went on to start ComputerMania Inc. which was a chain of computer stores created with the purpose of renting computers and software.

This guy has had an amazing career and I am truly honored to be able to bring you a series of interviews with Paul for the podcast. Paul and I will be covering his entire career, from his early beginnings, thru the Byte Shop years and his time with the nascent Apple Computer, and beyond. The first segment (last month’s episode) was a sort of overview before Paul’s time being involved with Exidy and the Exidy Sorcerer computer. This segment is part 1 of 2 focusing directly on Exidy and the Sorcerer. You’ll hear how the Sorcerer came about, hear Paul’s insight into why certain design decisions were made, and what mistakes were made. The Sorcerer was truly an early, important machine, and had impressive features for the timeframe that it came out. If you want to hear additional information about the Sorcerer and about Exidy, there are 2 other Floppy Days Podcasts you’ll want to listen to:

Episode 17, where the Sorcerer is covered in detail - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-episode-17-the-exidy-sorcerer-live-from-vcfse-20
Episode 114, which features an interview with Howell Ivy. Howell was the principal designer of the Sorcerer and recollects his time at Exidy. - https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-114-howell-ivy-exidy-sorcerer-and-exidy

Paul first contacted me after the interview I had with Howell Ivy and Howell’s involvement and remembrances of the Exidy Sorcerer. He really liked Howell’s interview and wanted to add a few details and give his perspective on the Sorcerer. As we talked further, Paul decided he would really like to be able to talk about his incredible career in its entirety, more than just the time with Exidy, and I of course was ecstatic that he decided my humble podcast could be a good medium for that.

I really hope you enjoy the Paul Terrel series in general, and this episode should give you a nice perspective on his involvement with Exidy and the Sorcerer!

Upcoming Shows

Vintage Computer Festival West 2023 - August 4 & 5 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/
Atari Buy/Sell/Swap/Trade Event - August 5th 10am-2pm - 15 miles SE of Charlotte, NC - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/352517-atari-buysellswaptrade-event-august-5th-10am-2pm-15-miles-se-of-charlotte-nc/
ZZAP! Live 2023 - August 12 - The Holiday Inn, Kenilworth, CV8 1ED - https://fusionretroevents.co.uk/category/zzap-live/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 17-20 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2023-se
Fujiama 2023 - Aug. 30 - Sep. 3 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2023/
VCF Midwest - September 9-10 - Waterford Banquets and Conference Center, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly - Sep. 29-Oct. 1 - Courtyard by Marriott in Springfield, Ohio - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
Amiga38 Germany - Oct. 6-7 - Das Rote Krokodil - Kunstwerk Mönchengladbach - https://amigaevent.de/WB.html
The Interim Computer Festival - Oct. 7-8 - Seattle, WA - https://sdf.org/icf/
AmiWest - October 14-15 - Sacramento, CA - https://retro.directory/browse/events/4/AmiWest.net
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 13-15, 2023 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 14, 2023 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore - Dec. 2-3, 2023 - Admiral Inn Mississauga, Mississauga, ON - http://www.worldofcommodore.ca/
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html
Facebook show schedule - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Paul Terrell Interview

Paul on LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-terrell-2441a17/details/experience/
Paul on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/paul.terrell.92/
Paul at WikiPedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Terrell
Interview with Paul at NextShark - https://nextshark.com/paul-terrell-apple
“Today in Apple history: The Byte Shop, Apple’s first retailer, opens” by Cult of Mac - https://www.cultofmac.com/457420/byte-shop-opens-tiah/
“The Man Who Jump-Started Apple by Harry McCracken”, August 23, 2007, PC World - https://web.archive.org/web/20110511184229/http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/005240.html

Floppy Days 127 - James Shackel Estate Haul and Paul Terrell Intro

30 juni 2023 | 61 min

Floppy Days 127 - James Shackel Estate Haul and Paul Terrell Intro Interview

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, and welcome to episode 127 for June, 2023 of the Floppy Days Podcast, with your host, yours truly, Randy Kindig!

I doubt there are few listeners who don’t know the name Paul Terrell. Paul has been credited with essentially jump-starting the personal computer industry in many ways, not the least of which was by buying the original Apple I computer from the just-getting-started Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and selling it in his equally-famous computer store, The Byte Shop. This was the first personal computer retail store in existence. Paul was also a member of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club and attended the West Coast Computer Faire. He was involved in the development of both the Exidy Sorcerer and BYT-8 computers and he later went on to start ComputerMania Inc. which was a chain of computer stores created with the purpose of renting computers and software.

This guy has had an amazing career and I am truly honored to be able to bring you a series of interviews with Paul for the podcast. Paul and I will be covering his entire career, from his early beginnings, thru the Byte Shop years and his time with the nascent Apple Computer, and beyond. This first segment is a sort of overview leading up to Paul’s time involved with Exidy and the Exidy Sorcerer computer. You’ll hear a small bit about Bill Gates, the early Micro-soft, the Byte Shop, the early Apple, the Homebrew Computer Club, the West Coast Computer Faire and a whole lot more. Later episodes will be focused primarily on a single topic, such as the Sorcerer, the Byte Shop, etc.

Paul first contacted me after the interview I had with Howell Ivy and Howell’s involvement and remembrances of the Exidy Sorcerer. He really liked Howell’s interview and wanted to add a few details and give his perspective on the Sorcerer. As we talked further, Paul decided he would really really like to be able to talk about his incredible career in its entirety, more than just the time with Exidy, and I of course was ecstatic that he decided my humble podcast could be a good medium for that.

I really hope you enjoy the series in general, and this short episode should give you a taste of the things to come!

What I’ve Been Up To and New Acquisitions

Console5 (cap kit for Osborne) - http://www.console5.com
“The Commodore Room” YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@thecommodoreroom4554

Upcoming Shows

Kickstart Amiga UK Expo - July 1-2 - Nottingham, UK - https://www.amigashow.com/
KansasFest, the largest and longest running annual Apple II conference - July 18-23, 2023 (in-person) - July 29–30, 2023 (virtual) - Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri - https://www.kansasfest.org/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 28-30 2023 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Atari Buy/Sell/Swap/Trade Event - August 5th 10am-2pm - 15 miles SE of Charlotte, NC - https://forums.atariage.com/topic/352517-atari-buysellswaptrade-event-august-5th-10am-2pm-15-miles-se-of-charlotte-nc/
ZZAP! Live 2023 - August 12 - The Holiday Inn, Kenilworth, CV8 1ED - https://fusionretroevents.co.uk/category/zzap-live/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 17-20 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2023-se
Fujiama 2023 - Aug. 30 - Sep. 3 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2023/
VCF Midwest - September 9-10 - Waterford Banquets and Conference Center, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly - Sep. 29-Oct. 1 - Courtyard by Marriott in Springfield, Ohio - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
Amiga38 Germany - Oct. 6-7 - Das Rote Krokodil - Kunstwerk Mönchengladbach - https://amigaevent.de/WB.html
AmiWest - October 14-15 - Sacramento, CA - https://retro.directory/browse/events/4/AmiWest.net
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 13-15, 2023 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 14, 2023 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore - Dec. 2-3, 2023 - Admiral Inn Mississauga, Mississauga, ON - http://www.worldofcommodore.ca/
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html
Facebook show schedule - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Paul Terrel Interview

Paul on LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-terrell-2441a17/details/experience/
Paul on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/paul.terrell.92/
Paul at WikiPedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Terrell
Interview with Paul at NextShark - https://nextshark.com/paul-terrell-apple
“Today in Apple history: The Byte Shop, Apple’s first retailer, opens” by Cult of Mac - https://www.cultofmac.com/457420/byte-shop-opens-tiah/
“The Man Who Jump-Started Apple by Harry McCracken”, August 23, 2007, PC World - https://web.archive.org/web/20110511184229/http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/005240.html

Floppy Days 126 - Bob Frankston - VisiCalc

26 maj 2023 | 63 min

Floppy Days 126 - Interview with Bob Frankston, Co-developer of Visicalc

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

Hello, everyone! Welcome to episode 126 of the Floppy Days Podcast, with yours truly, Randy Kindig, as the host.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, listening to this podcast has surely heard of the ground-breaking application (for its time) Visicalc. Visicalc was the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp on October 17, 1979. It is considered the killer application for the Apple II, turning the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool, and then prompting IBM to introduce the IBM PC two years later. More than 700,000 copies were sold in six years, and up to 1 million copies over its history.

Initially developed for the Apple II computer, VisiCalc was ported to numerous platforms, both 8-bit and some of the early 16-bit systems, such as the Commodore PET, Atari 8-bit, TRS-80 (TRSDOS), CP/M, MS-DOS, and even the HP Series 80.

VisiCalc was later replaced in the market by Lotus 1-2-3 and eventually by Microsoft’s Excel, which is the dominant spreadsheet today. Spreadsheets, along with word processors, and presentation tools are still today considered one of the key applications for computing.

Bob Frankston, along with Dan Bricklin, are the co-inventors of VisiCalc. This month, we have an interview with the aforementioned Bob Frankston. Bob was kind enough to take time to talk with me about what it was like to create such a ground-breaking tool.

Before doing that, I have a few new acquisitions to discuss and I’ll tell you about upcoming computer shows.

New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To

Retro Innovations
Lige and the YouTube show “The Commodore Room” - https://www.youtube.com/@thecommodoreroom4554
Console5 (cap kits)

Upcoming Shows

The 64 bits or less Retro Gaming Festival - June 3-4 - Benton County Fairgrounds in Corvallis, Oregon (sponsored by the Portland Retro Gaming Expo) - https://www.64bitsorless.com/
Boatfest Vintage Computer Exposition - June 23-25 - Hurricane, WV - http://boatfest.info
VCF Southwest - June 23-25 - Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX - http://vcfsw.org
Pacific Commodore Expo NW v4 - June 24-25 - “Interim” Computer Museum, Seattle, WA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pacommex:start
Kickstart Amiga UK Expo - July 1-2 - Nottingham, UK - https://www.amigashow.com/
KansasFest, the largest and longest running annual Apple II conference - July 18-23, 2023 (in-person) - July 29–30, 2023 (virtual) - Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri - https://www.kansasfest.org/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 28-30 2023 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
ZZAP! Live 2023 - August 12 - The Holiday Inn, Kenilworth, CV8 1ED - https://fusionretroevents.co.uk/category/zzap-live/
Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 17-20 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2023-se
Fujiama 2023 - Aug. 30 - Sep. 3 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2023/
VCF Midwest - September 9-10 - Waterford Banquets and Conference Center, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly - Sep. 29-Oct. 1 - Courtyard by Marriott in Springfield, Ohio - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
AmiWest - October 14-15 - Sacramento, CA - https://retro.directory/browse/events/4/AmiWest.net
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 13-15, 2023 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International World Faire - October 14, 2023 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore - Dec. 2-3, 2023 - Admiral Inn Mississauga, Mississauga, ON - http://www.worldofcommodore.ca/
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html
Facebook show listings - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/

Interview

Bob’s Website - https://www.frankston.com/
New York Times article on Bricklin and Frankston joining Lotus (acquisition) - https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/10/business/business-people-former-friendly-rivals-joining-forces-at-lotus.html
Bob interview on TwitTV - https://twit.tv/shows/triangulation/episodes/4

Floppy Days 125 - ZX Spectrum Part 7 With PJ Evans

23 april 2023 | 91 min

Floppy Days 124 - ZX Spectrum Part 6 with PJ Evans

29 mars 2023 | 116 min

Floppy Days 123 - Amiga 1000, Parceiro, and Podcast Tenth Anniversary!

28 februari 2023 | 47 min

Floppy Days 123 - Amiga 1000, Parceiro and Podcast Tenth Anniversary!

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors:

Welcome to episode 123 of Floppy Days for February, 2023, where classic computers are all the rage and we lovingly take you back to the days when computers were simpler and we were younger.

This is a special show for me, because this month (Feb. 17 was the publish date) marks the 10th anniversary of publishing this podcast! Man, oh, man, where has the time gone?! This podcast itself has become vintage, depending on your definition of vintage.

My original intent was to continue the coverage of the ZX Spectrum this month, but my special co-host for that show was unable to record this month. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to have a special show to in some way commemorate the 10-year anniversary. My co-host and I have scheduled the recording for the Spectrum show for early March, so I’ll publish that as early in March as I can. In the meantime, for this show I wanted to talk about how the show has changed and grown over the years and what my plans are for the future.

I apologize for not having one of my two typical formats (machine coverage or interview) for this show. Not to worry though, I’ve got what I think is an interesting story around my recent work to test and set up some Amiga 1000s that have come my way; including some information about a great upgrade for the A1000 called Parceiro II.

I do also want to mention that I now have some show sponsors for Floppy Days.

https://www.8bitclassics.com, run by my friend Corey Koltz, is a great place to get vintage computer items. This includes video cables, power supplies, PC boards, cartridges, upgrades and more for a wide variety of vintage computer platforms. In the New Acquisitions section I cover each month on this show, often one of the items I talk about has been ordered from 8-Bit Classics. Corey has been a friend of the show for some time and I really appreciate his support of the podcast. Check out the site… he has some great stuff.

https://www.arcadeshopper.com, run by my friend Greg McGill, is another terrific site to get vintage computer items. Greg has a wide variety of hard-to-find items for a large number of platforms. This is another site that I do and have done a lot of shopping at and have mentioned numerous times on Floppy Days. If anything shows out of stock, just ping Greg through the contact form and he can check whether he has or can get more of the item for you.

I also wanted to mention those listeners who appreciate the show enough to donate through patreon.com. This includes Chris Petzel, Tony Cappellini, laurens, Richard Goulstone, Josh Malone, Andy Collins, Simon McCullough, Jason Moore, Quentin Barnes. I really appreciate you guys and it helps offset the cost of running the podcast.

On a sad note, one other thing I wanted to talk about was the passing of a good friend in the community, James Shackel (aka Airshack). James passed from this earth in January of this year due to illness, and it was a shock to me to realize I would no longer have James to talk to. James came from the TI community, but was interested in a lot of the vintage machines. Over the years, I traded a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A to him for a TIPI network card for the TI99 and James sent me things numerous times, such as books or software. Most recently, just 3 months ago, I traded a Commodore 128 to him for an Atari 1200XL he had. He also had been a patreon donator for Floppy Days for some time. He pinged me all the time to discuss ANTIC or Floppy Days or just to let me know about some new vintage computer thing he came across. I saw James at Tandy Assembly in October last year, just the second time I had ever seen him in person, but he never told me he was ill.

James had a singular sense of humor and I will miss it, and him, very much. It reminds me that we need to appreciate the people around us while we can, as we don’t know how long they will be around. James, I will truly miss you.

Ok, let’s get on with the show. I hope you find something interesting out of this episode. Here’s to 10 more years of Floppy Days!

Intro

James Shackel passed away - https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/legacyremembers/james-shackel-obituary?id=39585348

New Acquisitions

computer trading cards - https://www.8bitkick.cc/home-computers.html
Yamaha MSX AX-150 Computer - https://www.msx.org/wiki/Sakhr_AX-150
memory mapper + SD card interface - Arcade Shopper
Amiga 1000 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000
Parceiro II by David Dunklee:

Upcoming Shows

Midwest Gaming Classic - March 31-April 2 - The Wisconsin Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
VCF East 2023 - Apr 14-16, 2023 - InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/
The Commodore Los Angeles Super Show - April 15-16, 2023 - Burbank VFW Hall, Burbank, CA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=class:start
31st Annual “Last” CocoFest - April 22-23, 2023 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago, Carol Stream, IL - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - April 29 & 30 - Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/
Pacific Commodore Expo NW v4 - June 24-25 - “Interim” Computer Museum, Seattle, WA - https://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pacommex:start
KansasFest, the largest and longest running annual Apple II conference - July 18-23, 2023 - Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri - https://www.kansasfest.org/
Southern Fried Gaming Expo - July 28-30 2023 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 13-15, 2023 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/
http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html

10th Anniversary Special Content

OldComputers.net timeline - http://oldcomputers.net

Floppy Days 122 - NEC PC-6001 and Japanese Computers with Carlos Camacho - Part II

31 januari 2023 | 98 min

Floppy Days 121 - NEC PC-6001 and Japanese Computers with Carlos Camacho - Part I

7 januari 2023 | 93 min

Please donate at: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays.

Welcome to Floppy Days #121 for December, 2022. And I’m your host, Randy Kindig. Happy holidays to all!

We are currently covering the very productive year for home computers of 1982. As regular listeners will know, we’ve been covering the ZX Spectrum and the myriad of information about that machine. While we still have more information to cover, such as emulation, Web sites, and a lot more, we’re going to take a tiny step back and pick up coverage of a machine that I recently acquired and wanted to talk about, but which came out in very late 1981. That machine is the Nippon Electric Company (NEC) PC-6001 and its US variation, the PC-6001A, or NEC-TREK. It actually was released in November, 1981 in Japan. So, you can see that this is really a very tiny detour to go back and pick up this machine. It’s one I didn’t know about, honestly, and when I acquired a very clean, boxed version in the Great Barn Find of 2022, not only did I decide to keep the machine but also to cover it on Floppy Days. I hope you can forgive me this minor detour off the path of covering the machines in the approx. order they were released. I think you’ll find this machine interesting, as I did, and enjoy hearing about it.

With me this month to provide the co-hosting duties will be Carlos Camacho. Carlos lived in Japan for a while and has a great perspective on this line of computers, as well as a lot of experience and knowledge around Japanese computers in general, which I think you’ll find interesting. The research he did on the PC-6000 line a few years ago was a tremendous help in pulling together information for this show.

This will be a 2-part episode, due to the amount of material we were able to pull together and length of time it took to go through it.

After that, we’ll return to ZX Spectrum coverage.

As usual, I will also talk a bit about what I have been up to, including an update on the The Great Barn Find of 2022, as well as a few new acquisitions (beyond the barn find) that have come my way. In addition, I’ll briefly tell you about upcoming shows of which I’m aware and share any feedback I’ve gotten.

Finally, while I usually abstain from talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. On that topic, I do intend to beef up the various Floppy Days offerings, including some additional content depending on the donation level at Patreon. Look for that as soon as I’ve figured out what I want to offer and how to manage it. I do want to send out a heart-felt thank you for everyone who has already contributed and continues to contribute!

I hope you enjoy the show!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

Tandy M100/T102 items from http://www.ArcadeShopper.com
Inside Commodore DOS by Richard Immers and Gerald G. Neufeld
The Personal Computer BASIC S Reference Manual by Donald A. Sordillo
An Introduction to Electronic Data Processing by Roger Nett and Stanley A Hetzler
Principles of Compiler Design by Alfred V. Aho and Jeffrey D. Ullman
A Comparative Study of Programming Languages by Bryan Higman
Assembly Language Programming for the IBM Personal Computer by David J. Bradley

Upcoming Computer Shows

VCF East 2023 - Apr 14-16, 2023 - InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/
31st Annual “Last” CocoFest - April 22-23, 2023 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago, Carol Stream, IL - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Indy Classics presented by Indy Vintage Computer Club - late April - near Indy airport - TBA

Feedback

Byte High No Limit Podcast episode - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/byte-high-no-limit/id1649091845?i=1000590462992
You can play the Elite game yourself here - https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/teletext_elite.html

Co-host Interview

The Color Computer Store - https://twitter.com/trs80cocostore, @TRS80CocoStore, https://www.ebay.com/usr/colorcomputerstore

Floppy Days 120 - ZX Spectrum Part 5 - Tech Specs with Chris Smith

2 december 2022 | 80 min

Dontate at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Welcome to Floppy Days #120 for November, 2022. And I’m your host, Randy Kindig. I hope everyone is well.

We are currently covering the very productive year for home computers of 1982. This episode is the continuation of a multi-episode arc that covers the Spectrum through all the usual topics. I’m still unsure how many episodes we’re going to end up with in this arc. There’s so much to talk about and so many knowledgeable people on the subject, that the Spectrum is probably going to set the illustrious Floppy Days record for the number of episodes about a single machine. This is the fifth of those, with the first having been the interview with John Grant of Nine Tiles, the second and third being coverage of the history of the Spectrum with Alessandro Grussu, and the fourth being the interview with the author of the terrific book “The ZX Spectrum Ula: How to Design a Microcomputer”; Mr. Chris Smith.

As I don’t know of anyone who knows more about the internals of this machine than Chris, as evidenced by his book, other than maybe the original designers, Chris continues to help me with this episode and we cover the tech specs of the Spectrum.

As usual, I will also talk a bit about what I have been up to, including an update on the The Great Barn Find of 2022, as well as a few new acquisitions (beyond the barn find) that have come my way. In addition, I’ll briefly tell you about upcoming shows of which I’m aware and share any feedback I’ve gotten.

Finally, while I usually abstain from talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. On that topic, I do intend to beef up the various Floppy Days offerings, including some additional content depending on the donation level at Patreon. Look for that as soon as I’ve figured out what I want to offer and how to manage it. I do want to send out a heart-felt thank you for everyone who has already contributed and continues to contribute!

Before we get started, I want to apologize for the lateness of this episode. It’s being published a couple days into December due to my son having been in the hospital the past week. However, I’m happy to report that he’s home now and I’m delighted to be able to get this to you now. I hope you enjoy it.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

Upcoming Shows

World of Commodore = Dec. 3-4. - Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2022 - Virtual and Physical!
VCF East 2023 - Apr 14-16, 2023 - InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/
Indy Classics presented by Indy Vintage Computer Club - late April - near Indy airport

Feedback

Josh Renaud blog - https://breakintochat.com/blog/2022/11/26/bringing-dry-bones-back-to-life-the-kirschen-software-collection/

Tech Specs

The ZX Spectrum Ula: How to Design a Microcomputer (ZX Design Retro Computer) Illustrated Edition by Christopher David Smith (Author) - https://www.amazon.com/ZX-Spectrum-Ula-Microcomputer-Computer/dp/0956507107

Floppy Days 119 - ZX Spectrum Part 4 - Interview with Chris Smith

31 oktober 2022 | 66 min

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Welcome to Floppy Days #119 for October, 2022. And I’m your host, Randy Kindig. I hope everyone is safe and sound...

We are currently covering the prolific year (for home computers) of 1982. This episode is the continuation of a multi-episode arc that covers the Spectrum through all the usual topics. I don’t even know yet how many episodes we’re going to end up in this arc. There’s so much to talk about and so many knowledgeable people on the subject, that the Spectrum is probably going to set the illustrious Floppy Days records for the number of episodes about a single machine. This is the fourth of those, with the first having been the interview with John Grant of Nine Tiles, and the second and third being coverage of the history of the Spectrum with Alessandro Grussu.

In this episode, I talk with the author of the wonderful book “The ZX Spectrum Ula: How to Design a Microcomputer”; Mr. Chris Smith. I don’t know of anyone who knows more about the internals of this machine than Chris, as evidenced by his book, other than maybe the original designers. In this episode, I interview Chris about him, his book, his collection and other topics.

As usual, I will talk a bit about what I have been up to, including an update on the The Great Barn Find of 2022, attendance at a computer show, as well as a few new acquisitions (beyond the barn find) that have come my way. In addition, I’ll briefly tell you about upcoming shows of which I’m aware.

Finally, while I usually abstain from talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. Thank you so much everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions and What I’ve Been Up To

Apple GS monitor connector for CoCo - Mike Rojas, Facebook - (https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/392874865780089/?ref=share_attachment)
GFA BASIC - http://gfabasic.net/
“GFA BASIC Training Reboot Camp - A Beginning Tutorial for the GFA BASIC Interpreter” - https://docs.dev-docs.org/
“GFA BASIC Book - An intermediate programming tutorial for GFA BASIC” - https://docs.dev-docs.org/
GFA BASIC Atari Reference Manual
Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com
Vintage is the New Old with Paulo Garcia - https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/
Jeff Birt’s Website at Tindie - https://www.tindie.com/stores/hey_birt/

Upcoming Shows

Chicago TI International Worlds Faire = Oct. 29, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore = Dec. 3-4. - Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2022 - Virtual and Physical!

Interview with Chris Smith

The ZX Spectrum Ula: How to Design a Microcomputer (ZX Design Retro Computer) Illustrated Edition
Chris’ Web site - http://www.zxdesign.info/indexPage.shtml
Harlequin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones#Harlequin
ZX Spectrum 30-year Anniversary event - http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/news/23039/Celebrating-30-Years-of-the
MicroMen:

Floppy Days 118 - The Great Barn Find of 2022

10 oktober 2022 | 37 min

“The Great Barn Find of 2022!”

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Welcome to Floppy Days #118 for September, 2022. And I’m your host, Randy Kindig. I hope everyone is doing well..

I decided to take a 1-month break from the ZX Spectrum series of episodes, of which I’m currently in the midst, in order to talk about some other vintage computer activities with which I’ve been involved lately. There has been a lot going on the vintage computer front for me, as well as some changes in my personal life that I wanted to share with all of you. I apologize that you’re just going to hear my voice for the entire show, but I’ll make sure not to drone and try to keep it lively.

I will talk a bit about what I have been up to, an amazing barn find, attendance at the largest vintage computer show of the year, and an incredible computer museum adventure, as well as a few new acquisitions (beyond the barn find) that have come my way. In addition, I’ll briefly tell you about upcoming shows of which I’m aware.

Next month, we’ll pick up where we left off with the Spectrum series. I have some additional guest hosts lined up to really dive into topics like tech specs, peripherals, books, magazines, modern upgrades, Web sites, etc. I think you’ll enjoy the remaining Spectrum topics and guests I have planned.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

What I’ve Been Up To

VCFMW - http://vcfmw.org/
Kevin Ottum and his Nu-Brick company - https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/181163469893545
Jim Brain and his RetroInnovations company - http://go4retro.com
American Computer and Robotics Museum - https://acrmuseum.org/

Upcoming Shows

Portland Retro Gaming Expo = Oct. 14-16, Portland, OR - https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International Worlds Faire = Oct. 29, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore = first weekend of Dec. - https://www.tpug.ca/category/woc-posts/ NOT YET ANNOUNCED

Floppy Days 117 - ZX Spectrum Part 3 - History with Alessandro Grussu

31 augusti 2022 | 81 min

Dontate at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Welcome to Floppy Days #117 for August, 2022. And I’m your host, Randy Kindig. I hope everyone is doing well..

Thank you so much, Andy Collins, for providing your thoughts and memories about the ZX Spectrum to kick off this episode. Great work!

We are currently covering the prolific year (for home computers) of 1982. This episode is the continuation of a multi-episode arc that covers the Spectrum through all the usual topics. I don’t even know yet how many episodes we’re going to end up in this arc. There’s so much to talk about and so many knowledgeable people on the subject, that the Spectrum is probably going to set the illustrious Floppy Days records for the number of episodes about a single machine. This is the third of those, with the first having been the interview with John Grant of Nine Tiles, and the second being coverage of the history of the Spectrum through about 1984.

In this episode, I once again talk with the author of the wonderful book “Spectrumpedia”; Mr. Alessandro Grussu. In this episode, Alessandro and I continue to walk through the history of the machine, covering additional models that were produced, its competition at the time, its positives and negatives, and ultimately the impression it left in home computer history books.

As usual, I will talk a bit about a few new acquisitions that have come my way in my attempt to use up every square inch of exhibition and storage room in my home, as well as bring you news about upcoming shows.

Finally, while I usually abstain from talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. Thank you so much everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

A500 mini - https://www.amazon.com/Amiga-A500-Mini-Retro-Console-Commodore/dp/B09BW8N7JZ
BlueSCSI - https://scsi.blue/

Upcoming Shows

VCF Midwest = Sep 10-11, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly = Sep 30-Oct. 2, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo = Oct. 14-16, Portland, OR - https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International Worlds Faire = Oct. 29, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore = first weekend of Dec. - https://www.tpug.ca/category/woc-posts/ NOT YET ANNOUNCED

References

“Spectrumpedia” by Alessandro Grussu

Wikipedia

Floppy Days 116 - ZX Spectrum Part 2 - History with Alessandro Grussu

1 augusti 2022 | 81 min

donate at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Welcome to Floppy Days #116 for July, 2022. And I’m your host, Randy Kindig.

Mark Hacker provides his thoughts and memories about the ZX Spectrum to kick off this episode.

As mentioned in the last show, 1982 was a landmark year for home computers, as there were some significant introductions in this year. One of the most impactful computers released at this time was the ZX Spectrum; in the UK by the iconic Sir Clive Sinclair. This episode is the continuation of a multi-episode arc that covers the Spectrum through all the usual topics. In fact, there’s such a rich history leading up to the introduction of the Spectrum, and through its lifetime in the market, of which many in the US may not be aware, that we’re going to be spending three (3) full episodes just on its history. This is the second of those, with the first having been the interview with John Grant of Nine Tiles, who played a part in the development of the Speccy.

As I was looking for materials to help discuss the history of the Spectrum, I had difficulty in finding books and other references that went into the full timeline, other than Wikipedia. Luckily, I happened upon a wonderful reference that covers all aspects of the machine, called “Spectrumpedia” by the Italian Alessandro Grusso. I was able to contact Alessandro and he graciously agreed to co-host on one or more topics, starting with history. His book has a wonderfully complete and detailed section about the history of the Speccy. In this episode, Alessandro and I attempt to walk through the introduction of the machine, all of the different models that were produced, its competition at the time, its positives and negatives, and ultimately the impression it left in home computer history books.

I will, as usual, talk about a few new acquisitions that have come my way in my never-ending adventures to discover new modern upgrades for my collection of old machines; as well as bring you news about upcoming shows.

Finally, while I usually abstain from talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. Thank you so much everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

Commodore 64 Assembly Language Programming by Derek Bush and Peter Holmes - https://archive.org/details/Commodore_64_Assembly_Language_Programming/page/n13/mode/2up
Complete Commodore Inner Space Anthology by Karl J. H. Hildon - https://archive.org/details/Complete_Commodore_Inner_Space_Anthology_The_1985-03_Transactor_Publishing
Visible Solar System cart - https://www.amazon.com/Visible-Solar-System-Commodore-64/dp/B001RY5X0U
The Paper Computer Unfolded by Mark Jones Lorenzo - https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Computer-Unfolded-Twenty-First-Illustrative/dp/1537421131/
Vic-20 Exposed edited by John Vander Reyden - https://www.amazon.com/VIC-20-Exposed-Retro-Reproductions/dp/1789825857/

Upcoming Shows

VCF West 2022 = Aug 6, 7, The Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/
VCF Midwest = Sep 10-11, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly = Sep 30-Oct. 2, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo = Oct. 14-16, Portland, OR - https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/
Chicago TI International Worlds Faire = Oct. 29, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
World of Commodore = first weekend of Dec. - https://www.tpug.ca/category/woc-posts/ NOT YET ANNOUNCED

References

“Spectrumpedia” by Alessandro Grussu
- https://www.alessandrogrussu.it/sp.html
- Amazon.it: Spectrumpedia - seconda edizione: volume 1 - Grussu, Alessandro - Libri
Wikipedia

Floppy Days 115 - ZX Spectrum Part 1 - History with John Grant

2 juli 2022 | 55 min

Floppy Days 114 - Howell Ivy, Exidy Sorcerer and Exidy

30 maj 2022 | 61 min

https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Please consider donating to keep Floppy Days going!

Interview with Howell Ivy, Co-founder of Exidy and Developer of Exidy Sorcerer Computer

Welcome to Floppy Days episode 114 for May, 2022. I am Randy Kindig, your host.

Again this month, I have a special interview show for you that actually has been a few years in the making. Some time ago, I had come across and had gotten initial contact with Howell Ivy, who it turns out was co-founder of Exidy and was instrumental in the development of the Exidy Sorcerer computer.

The Exidy Sorcerer is a machine that I covered clear back in 2014 in episode 17 of Floppy Days. It was a very early machine, just after the release of the home computer triad of the Commodore PET/Apple II/TRS-80 Model I and before the Atari 400/800, with great graphics, a Z-80 processor, and one of the first home computers (after the VideoBrain) to have plug-in cartridges (these based on the 8-track tape cartridges).

After the initial contact with Howell, he went silent and I was unable for the last few years to get an interview set up. Finally, recently, I was able to get a response and quickly got the interview in the books.

I also recorded a video for an interview for the first time! The link to the video interview on YouTube is in the show notes here.

Before getting into the interview, I do want to talk about some vintage hardware or modern upgrades I was able to acquire, as well as bring you information about upcoming vintage computer shows.

Finally, while I usually abstain from talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. Thank you so much everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute!

Links:

New Acquisitions

Mattel Aquarius Aquaricart and 32K RAM "Combo Pack" - https://www.ebay.com/itm/124471439128?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
Apple II Yellowstone Disk Controller - Big Mess o’ Wires

Upcoming Shows

Boatfest Retro Computing Festival 2022 - June 24-25 - Hurricane, WV - https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/boatfest-retro-computer-festival-2022-tickets-222333103297
The Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2022 - June 25-26 - Burbank, CA - https://portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=class:start
VCF Southeast - July 15-17 Southern Fried Gaming Expo - https://gameatl.com/
KansasFest 2022 - July 19–24, 2022, Kansas City, MO - https://www.kansasfest.org/
VCF West 2022 - Aug 6, 7, The Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/
VCF Midwest - Sep 10-11, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
Tandy Assembly - Sep 30-Oct. 2, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Interview Links

The History of Exidy - http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-ultimate-so-far-history-of-exidy_24.html
Howell Ivy interview at RetroGamer - https://www.retrogamer.net/profiles/developer/howell-ivy/

Floppy Days 113 - Monte Davidoff, Developer of Altair BASIC Floating Point

30 april 2022 | 62 min

Floppy Days 112 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 5 With Jim Leonard

31 mars 2022 | 55 min

Floppy Days 111 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 4 with Jim Leonard

28 februari 2022 | 81 min

Floppy Days 110 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 3 with Jim Leonard

31 januari 2022 | 78 min

Floppy Days 109 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 2 with Jim Leonard

27 december 2021 | 98 min

Floppy Days 108 - Albert Cory - Inventing the Future - Xerox Star

31 oktober 2021 | 85 min

Interview with Albert Cory, author of “Inventing the Future” about the Xerox Star

Welcome to Floppy Days episode 108 for October, 2021. I am Randy Kindig, your host.

This month is a special episode based on an interview I was able to get with Albert Cory, author of the recently published book, “Inventing the Future”. This book is a semi-fictional account of what it was like to work at Xerox in the late 70’s and early 80’s, while the company was working on the concept of the “Office of the Future” and the amazing computer known as the Xerox Star.

For me, this interview and book finally pushed me into researching this incredible part of computer history; of which I had a cursory knowledge, but had never gone into any detailed research. The Xerox Star was ahead of its time and the technology that went into this computer set the stage for our modern computers in many ways.

While Xerox didn’t truly take advantage of all this amazing technology, as the Star was considered a commercial failure, many other companies took the mantle from Xerox and successfully utilized much of its technology.

Albert sits down with me and talks about what it was like to work at Xerox in those days, what prompted him to write the book, and many other topics.

I think you’ll find it interesting. I know I did!

Before getting into the interview, I do want to talk about some vintage computer shows I was recently able to attend and, of course, some vintage hardware or modern upgrades I was able to acquire.

Finally, while I usually eschew talking about monetary support for this podcast, I do want to mention that I have a way for you to help if you have the inclination. I have a page set up at https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays where you can donate. Any funds will be used to defray the cost of managing the podcast as well as acquiring new hardware to talk about. Thank you so much everyone who has contributed and continues to contribute!

Links:

New Acquisitions

VCF Midwest - http://www.vcfmw.org
ZX80/81/TS1000 ZXpand Super Serial + wireless module - https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/zxpand%2B-super-serial-card-40640
ZX80/81/TS1000 ZX-Key: The ZX81 Mechanical Keyboard and Interface Card (Gateron Black Switches) - https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/45028
ZX80/81/TS1000 ZX-Key main Web site - ZX81 Keyboard Adventure
Apple IIGS RGB-to-SCART cable - Cocoman - https://cocoman.onlineweb.shop/Apple_IIgs_SCART_Cable/p7004829_21371801.aspx
Microsoft BASIC I for Atari - https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Microsoft%20Basic%20I
Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com
MCX32SD for Tandy MC-10 - https://thezippsterzone.com/mc-10-items-for-sale/
REX# for M100/T102 - Steve Adolph - https://bitchin100.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ordering_Information
Backpack Drive for M100/T102 - Jeffrey Birt - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3es0NLJmd2c

Upcoming Shows

CocoFest November 6-7 Elk Grove Village, IL https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Commodore Los Angeles Super Show (CLASS) November 6-7, Burbank, CA, http://www.portcommodore.com/class
VCF East April 22-24, 2022: Vintage Computer Festival East , Wall NJ
VCF West August 6-7: Vintage Computer Festival West , The Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA

Interview Links

Albert Web site - https://www.albertcory.io/
Bitsavers documents - http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/sdd/
“Inventing the Future” by Albert Cory - https://amzn.to/3EtBOO1
“Dealers of Lightning” by Michael Hiltzik - https://amzn.to/3w7xVM0
Read the reviews from the participants - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57138737-inventing-the-future

Floppy Days 107 - Bill Degnan, Kennett Classic

19 september 2021 | 39 min

Floppy Days 106 - The History of the IBM PC

31 augusti 2021 | 36 min

Floppy Days 105 - Interview with Joe Decuir about the Amiga

31 juli 2021 | 75 min

Floppy Days 105 - Joe Decuir - Developing the Amiga

Hello, and welcome to another interview edition of the Floppy Days Podcast for July, 2021. I am Randy Kindig. I am extremely honored to bring to you today an interview with one of the true pioneers of the personal computer, one of the designers of the Amiga 1000, a primary designer of the Atari 8-bit line and Atari 2600, and the developer of modern USB based on his work developing the SIO port for the Atari 8-bit: Mr. Joe Decuir.

I’ve interviewed Joe for Floppy Days before, but that was about his amazing work on the Atari 8-bit line. Joe was able to provide a lot of history around the development of the Atari 8-bits for the shows where I was covering the 400 and 800 computers.

The majority of this interview is around the work he did on the Amiga. Joe worked closely with Jay Miner and others to design a computer in the days when personal computers were just in their infancy. Joe shares with us the thoughts and reasoning that went into the design of the Amiga 1000 and thus brings all of us a little closer to being a part of an amazing time in computer history. Joe also mixes in some Atari 8-bit and Atari 2600 information, talks about the Apple II, has a story involving the TI-99 and numerous other tidbits.

Before diving into the interview, I will cover a few of the new acquisitions that have been added to my ever-growing vintage computer and modern upgrades collection.

I had a great time, as always, talking with Joe and learning more about what it was like back in the 70’s and 80’s as a developer of some of the most incredible hardware developed up to that time. Please enjoy!

Links:

Amiga .5MB upgrade - https://www.ebay.com/itm/274483642683
AmigaSD - ozkanocakli at gmail.com - https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/sdcard-interface-for-the-commodore-amiga
Amiga Addict Magazine - https://www.amiga-addict.com/
Upcoming Shows
- VCF West August 7 & 8, 2021: Vintage Computer Festival West , The Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- VCFSE Aug 20-22 - https://gameatl.com/vintage-computing-festival-southeast-8-0-at-sfge/ or http://southernfriedgameroomexpo.com/ , Atlanta, GA
- VCF Midwest Sep 11-12 - http://vcfmw.org/announce , Elmhurst, IL (Chicago)
- Tandy Assembly October 1-3 in Springfield Ohio - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
- VCF East October 8, 9, 10, 2021: Vintage Computer Festival East , Wall NJ
- Commodore Los Angeles Super Show (CLASS) November 6-7, Burbank, CA - http://www.portcommodore.com/class

Floppy Days 104 - Interview with Leonard Tramiel

30 juni 2021 | 54 min

Floppy Days 103 - Kay Savetz Interviews Mark Englebardt, Wayzata Technology

31 maj 2021 | 77 min

Floppy Days 102 - The BBC Micro, Part 3

21 december 2020 | 118 min

Floppy Days 101 - The BBC Micro, Part 2

30 september 2020 | 105 min

Floppy Days 100 - Ed Smith, Developer of APF MP1000 and IM-1

30 juni 2020 | 61 min

Floppy Days 99 - The BBC Micro, Interview with Hermann Hauser

31 maj 2020 | 57 min

The BBC Micro - Interview with Hermann Hauser

Hi, everyone, and welcome to episode 99 for May 2020 of the Floppy Days Podcast, where we look at home computers of the 70’s and 80’s across the globe, not just the U.S.

This episode is one in a series of episodes on one of the iconic British machines that was so important to the home computer revolution: The BBC Micro. In episode 97, I had an interview with one of the key members of the BBC Micro team: Mr. Steve Furber. In this episode, with Steve’s help, I was able to get an interview with another key member of that team: Mr. Hermann Hauser.

Last episode (#98) I summarized the history of the BBC Micro and I don’t want to repeat that here, but I want to give you just a bit of information about Hermann to help set the stage for the interview to follow:

Chris Curry and Mr. Hauser set up a company called Acorn Computer Ltd. and in January 1979 they launched their first product: a microcomputer kit named Acorn System 75. The name Acorn was chosen because the microcomputer system was to be expandable and growth-oriented and appeared before "Apple Computer" in a telephone directory.

Their follow-up product was a microcomputer called the Atom. After it had been released into the market, Acorn (due to an idea proposed by Hermann) decided to build an improved 6502-based machine with far greater expansion capabilities: the Proton.

Hauser quickly pulled in Steve Furber (who had been working for Acorn on a voluntary basis) and Sophie Wilson to help complete a revised version of the Proton which met the specifications that the British Broadcasting Corporation was shopping around to find a partner for their planned literacy program. BBC visited Acorn and were given a demonstration of the Proton. Shortly afterwards, the literacy program computer contract was awarded to Acorn, and the Proton was launched in December 1981 as the BBC Micro.

Hermann Hauser believes that if he had had just a little more foresight all those years ago, the world would now talk about Acorn compatible rather than IBM compatible computers. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Anyway, I’m very excited and proud to have gotten an interview with Hermann and I enjoyed talking with him very much. I hope you enjoy it as well.

I’m still planning, in upcoming episodes, to cover all of the usual topics on the Beeb, such as its history in depth, tech specs, modern upgrades, Web sites and a ton of other information about this machine.

Before we jump into the interview, I’ll spend just a moment to let you know about any new acquisitions I’ve managed to get for the hobby and any hobby-related things I’ve been working on.

Please enjoy!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

Heathkit ET-3400 Microprocessor Trainer - https://www.vintage-computer.com/heathkit3400.shtml
ET-3400 Microprocessors Book 1 - https://archive.org/details/6800-Microprocessors-Book-1and-2-Heathkit-1985
Oh! Pascal by Michael Clancy - https://www.amazon.com/Oh-PASCAL-Doug-Cooper/dp/0393954455
Software Tools in Pascal - Brian Kernighan - https://www.amazon.com/Software-Tools-Pascal-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0201103427/
Personal Pascal for the Atari ST
- https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Pascal-Atari-1040-Version/dp/B000Q9VAOU
- https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n1/pascalandmodula2.html

Upcoming Shows

July 24-25, KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/ (virtual) cost $20 to register
August 1-2, VCF West, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ - going virtual
Aug. 20 - Aug. 23, 2020, Fujiama, Lengenfeld, Germany - http://abbuc.de/~atarixle/fuji/2020/
September 12-13, VCF Midwest, Elmhurst, IL - http://vcfmw.org/
October 10 - 12, VCF East, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ NOTE: You can order a t-shirt to support the VCF events at http://vcfed.org/wp/t-shirts/ for $20 + shipping
October 24, Chicago TI International World Faire, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/faire/
October 30 - November 1, 2020, Tandy Assembly, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/
December ?, World of Commodore, Mississauga (Toronto), Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/

Floppy Days 98 - The BBC Micro History

30 april 2020 | 66 min

Floppy Days 97 - The BBC Micro, Interview with Steve Furber

24 februari 2020 | 84 min

Floppy Days 96 - Epson HX-20 Bonus, Norbert Kehrer Interview

31 december 2019 | 48 min

Interview with Norbert Kehrer, Flashx20

Hello, and happy 2020 to all the listeners out there. As the final episode of 2019 I’m bringing to you a bonus show on the Epson HX-20. I was able to get an interview with a gentleman who has developed a terrific piece of software that qualifies as a modern upgrade for the HX-20, called flashx20. That gentleman is Mr. Norbert Kehrer and he was kind enough to talk with me about his software and how it’s used. I think you’ll find it interesting, especially if you have a machine and can give his software a whirl.

Next month I will begin a series of episodes on one of the groundbreaking machines in the UK, the BBC Micro. I haven’t decided yet how many episodes there will be, but I was able to get an interview with an early computer pioneer involved with the development of the BBC Micro, so I intend to be as thorough as possible in the coverage of the machine. Stay tuned for more on that.

For this episode, I will talk a bit about my new vintage computer acquisitions and what I’ve been up to, as well as the usual news about upcoming vintage computer shows and a bit of feedback.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

Atari: A Visual History by Darren Doyle - https://www.greyfoxbooks.com/
MagPi magazine issue #88 - Retro Computing with Raspberry PI 4 - https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/
BBC Micro Joystick Adapter - https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Acorn-BBC-Micro-Dual-Double-Atari-Amiga-Joystick-Adapter-715/124010566212
Compact Flash Adapter for the BBC Micro - http://www.retroclinic.com/

Upcoming Shows

March 21-22, 2020, Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest, Living Computers:Museum+Labs in Seattle,Washington - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-pacific-northwest
April 18-19, 2020, CoCoFest, Elk Grove Village, IL - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest
April 24-26, 2020, Vintage Computer Festival East, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east
October 30 - November 1, 2020, Tandy Assembly, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Interview with Norbert Kehrer

Norbert’s Emulators - http://members.aon.at/nkehrer/flashx20.html

Floppy Days 95 - The Epson HX-20 Part 2 With Earl Evans

29 november 2019 | 92 min

Floppy Days 94 - The Epson HX-20 Part 1, with Earl Evans

31 oktober 2019 | 124 min

The Epson HX-20 Part 1

Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 94 of the Floppy Days Podcast for October, 2019, where this month we will be talking about one of the world’s first portable computers: The Epson HX-20. Thank you, Terry Stewart, for your thoughts about the HX-20 to lead off the show. For those that want more information from Terry, check out his Website and Youtube channel where he has a terrific video on the HX-20, as well as lots of information on other vintage computers.

I’m extremely happy to announce that my good friend, and one of the godfathers of vintage computer podcast, Mr. Earl Evans, will be my co-host for this topic. It’s always a thrill to have Earl join me on this podcast as he and his Retrobits podcast were the inspiration for Floppy Days. It turned out that Earl not only knows the gentleman I interviewed last month, Chris Rutkowski, but he also used to work for Epson and supported the HX-20 and its successor the PX-8. He also owns a couple of machines. As a result, Earl is able to provide great insights into the HX-20 and is a perfect color commentator for this topic. I know you’ll enjoy Earl’s contributions to this show.

It turned out we have so much material to cover that I’m breaking this topic into 2 parts. This month will be part 1, and Earl and I will cover HX-20 history, tech specs, and peripherals. Next month will be part 2, in which Earl and I will continue coverage by discussing how to use the machine, emulators, software, ads and appearances, modern upgrades, Web sites and more. In addition, I was able to get interviews with a couple of gentlemen who have done recent work around the HX-20 in the areas of emulation and modern upgrades.

So, we have a lot to cover and a short time to get there!

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions and What I’ve Been Up To

Atari 8-bit modern power supplies and video cables from Corey Koltz - https://www.8bitclassics.com/
Nu-Brick power supplies (Kevin Ottum) - Facebook
Tandy PC-1 LCDs by Robert Baruch - https://www.tindie.com/products/halfbakedmaker/lcd-replacement-for-trs-80-pc-1-sharp-pc-1211/
Commodore The Amiga Years by Brian Bagnall - https://amzn.to/2WocDrz
Electronic Dreams by Tom Lean - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-Dreams-Britain-Learned-Computer/dp/1472918339
101 Programming Tips for the TI99 by Len Turner - https://amzn.to/2q1ylpe
TI’s Compute Collection Vol. I by Compute - https://amzn.to/31WpG4F
Micro Kids: An 80s Adventure with ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and more by Gary Plowman - https://amzn.to/2NnerNl
Atari Projects by Jason Moore - http://www.lulu.com/shop/jason-moore/atari-projects/paperback/product-24223087.html
SDrive Max cases (1050 and 810) from Steve Boswell - https://atari8bit.net/sdrive-max-cases/

Upcoming Shows (https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows)

Nov 2, 2019, Chicago TI International World’s Faire, Evanston, IL - http://chicagotiug.sdf.org/
Dec 7, 2019, World of Commodore 2019, hosted by the Toronto PET Users Group (TPUG) at the Admiral Inn Mississauga - https://www.tpug.ca/2019/09/announcement-world-of-commodore-2019
March 21 & 22, 2020, Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest, Living Computers:Museum+Labs in Seattle,Washington - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-pacific-northwest
April 24-26, 2020, Vintage Computer Festival East, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east
October 30 - November 1, 2020, Tandy Assembly, Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com

Floppy Days 93 - Chris Rutkowski, Epson QX10, ValDocs

6 september 2019 | 100 min

Floppy Days 92 - Dave Lagerquist Interview, Editor CLOAD and Chromasette

6 juli 2019 | 69 min

Floppy Days 91 - The Osborne 1 with Lee Felsenstein

30 maj 2019 | 109 min

Floppy Days 90 - Lee Felsenstein Interview

26 april 2019 | 82 min

Floppy Days 89 - The Apple III - Part 3 with David Fradin

3 februari 2019 | 56 min

Floppy Days 88 - The Apple III, Part 2 with Paul Hagstrom

30 december 2018 | 106 min

Tandy Assembly 2018 Ads

4 november 2018 | 10 min

Floppy Days 87 - The Apple III - with Paul Hagstrom

4 november 2018 | 156 min

Floppy Days 86 - The Sinclair ZX80 Part II with Earl Evans

11 augusti 2018 | 143 min

Tandy Assembly 2018 Ad

11 juli 2018 | 1 min

Floppy Days 85 - Interview with John Grant, developer of ZX80 OS-BASIC

8 juli 2018 | 77 min

Floppy Days 84 - The Sinclair ZX80 with Earl Evans

31 maj 2018 | 131 min

Floppy Days Special Promo for VCF East XIII with Evan Koblentz

13 maj 2018 | 20 min

Floppy Days 83 - The Intellivision Keyboard Component with Paul Nurminen of Intellivisionaries

16 april 2018 | 144 min

Floppy Days 82 - The Acorn Atom with Roland Leurs

1 mars 2018 | 80 min

Floppy Days 81 - David Needle, technology reporter

1 februari 2018 | 38 min

Floppy Days 80 - Tandy Pocket Computers, Part 2 with Ian Mavric

31 december 2017 | 76 min

Floppy Days 79 - Tandy Pocket Computers, Part 1 with Ian Mavric

30 november 2017 | 71 min

Floppy Days 78 - Interview with Stewart Cheifet, Computer Chronicles

27 oktober 2017 | 60 min

Floppy Days 77 - The Commodore Vic-20, Part II

28 september 2017 | 98 min

Tandy Assembly Ads and Sponsors

1 september 2017 | 5 min

Floppy Days 76 - Interview with Ian Mavric, TRS-80

12 augusti 2017 | 56 min

Floppy Days 75 - VCFSE 5 Post-show with Thomas Liebert, Jon Guidry, Amiga Bill & Anthony

8 juli 2017 | 106 min

Floppy Days 74 - Giacomo Vernoni, Commodore Vic 20: A Visual History

12 juni 2017 | 38 min

Floppy Days 73 - The Commodore Vic-20, Part I

29 maj 2017 | 108 min

Floppy Days 72 - Neil Harris, Vic-20 Commando Team

27 april 2017 | 74 min

Floppy Days 71 - Brian Bagnall, Commodore: A Company on the Edge

31 mars 2017 | 77 min

Floppy Days 70 - Michael Tomczyk (Vic-20)

1 mars 2017 | 137 min

Floppy Days 69 - The Commodore Vic-20, History with Michael Tomczyk, Neil Harris, Brian Bagnall

29 januari 2017 | 65 min

The Commodore Vic-20 - History, with Brian Bagnall, Michael Tomczyk, and Neil Harris

Welcome to episode 69 of the Floppy Days Podcast, where our computers may be old, but that’s why we love them.

In the vintage computer timeline, we are in 1980. The next computer I want to discuss that debuted that year is the Commodore Vic-20. The Vic-20 is significant because it was the first color computer to sell for less than $300, at a time when other home computers with color graphics were 2 to 4 times that amount. It also was the first home computer of any type to sell over 1 million units.

In this first episode about the Vic-20, I want to cover the history of this machine: why it was developed, some of the stories around its development, what happened after its release, and when it was canceled. To that end, I contacted some notable persons that were involved with the roll-out and support of the Vic-20, as well as a person who was involved in documenting Commodore’s history. The first person I contacted was Michael Tomczyk, who was an assistant to Jack Tramiel at Commodore and who led the so-called “Vic Commando Team”. Michael was intimately involved in the marketing and support of the Vic. In addition, a key member of his team, Neil Harris, agreed to help with this episode as well. And, finally, I talked with Brian Bagnall, who you might recognize as the author of “Commodore: A Company on the Edge”. This is an amazing line up of people who are very familiar with the Vic-20 and its history and I’m very lucky to have been able to get their assistance with telling its story.

Before we jump into that, I will cover a few new vintage computer items I’ve acquired, cover a bit of news, and cover a bit of feedback I’ve received.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

NADSBox - http://www.club100.org/catalog.html
“Now the Chips Are Down: The BBC Micro (Platform Studies)” Hardcover by Alison Gazzard - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262034034/?tag=flodaypod-20
Compute’s Gazette - https://archive.org/details/compute-gazette
“33 challenging computer games for TRS-80/Apple/PET Paperback” by David Chance - https://www.amazon.com/challenging-computer-games-TRS-80-Apple/dp/0830612750
“Atari Playground” by Fred D’Ignazio - https://www.amazon.com/Atari-playground-Fred-DIgnazio/dp/0810457709
Fred D’Ignazio Interview on ANTIC - http://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-53-fred-dignazio-prolific-writer
Juiced.GS - https://juiced.gs/

News

Vintage Computer Party in Indy - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260834-indianapolis-area-vintage-computer-club/?hl=%2Bindy#entry3668612
Vintage is the New Old - http://www.vintageisthenewold.com
Upcoming Shows
- VCF East - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/, March 31-April 2, 2017, InfoAge Science Center, Wall, NJ
- CoCoFest - April 22 & 23, 2017 - Lombard, IL - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/index.shtml
- VCF Southeast 5.0 - April 29 & 30, 2017, Roswell, GA - http://vcfse.org/
- KFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/, Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO, July 18th-23rd
- Commodore Vegas Expo v13 - July 29-30, 2017, California Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada - http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex
- VCFMW - September
- Tandy Assembly - October 6-8, 2017 - Chillocothe, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/https://www.facebook.com/events/671911082972172/
- Chicago TI International World’s Faire - November
- World of Commodore - first weekend in December - Toronto

Feedback

Andy Collins’ blog about the Interak-1 - http://www.randomorbit.co.uk/?cat=122

References

“Commodore, A Company on the Edge” by Brian Bagnall - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0973864966/?tag=flodaypod-20
“The home computer wars: An Insider's Account of Commodore and Jack Tramiel” by Michael Tomczyk - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0942386752/?tag=flodaypod-20
“The First Home Computer: 30 Years Later” by Michael Tomczyk - http://www.academia.edu/2242039/The_First_Home_Computer_30_Years_Later

Floppy Days 68 - Interview with Bill Kemper, HP Series 80 Software Engineer

1 januari 2017 | 38 min

Floppy Days 67 - The HP85B Computer, Part 3, with Everett Kaser and Vassilis Prevelakis

26 november 2016 | 135 min

Floppy Days 66 - VCFMW 11 Live Event Diary

1 november 2016 | 73 min

Floppy Days 65 - Week of the KFest with Mike Whalen

7 oktober 2016 | 80 min

Welcome to Episode 65 of the Floppy Days Podcast, where a summer computer camp for middle-aged geeks is the highlight of our year. My name is Randy Kindig. This is a very special edition of Floppy Days produced and contributed by my good friend Mike Whalen and it includes sound bites from many of the attendees of this year’s annual week-long KansasFest Apple II event that always happens in Kansas City, Missouri. Mike is a long-time Apple II and retro-computer fan and one of the hosts of the currently-dormant Electric Dreams BBS Podcast. I met Mike at the one-and-only KansasFest event that I’ve been able to attend thus far, that being in 2014. I would certainly recommend the event to anyone that enjoys getting together with a large number of vintage computer nuts for an entire week, living the college dorm life, and generally immersing themselves in the out-of-date-but-still-loads-of-fun Apple II computer. It’s one of things that you must experience at least once, although for most people it tends to be like Lay’s Potato Chips: no one can stop at just one.

I’m amazed at the effort and quality Mike put into this podcast. I want to thank him and the Apple II KFest community for allowing me to air this ode to KFest on Floppy Days.

Enjoy!

KansasFest Website - http://kansasfest.org

KansasFest talks on Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/kansasfest

KansasFest HackFest - http://www.kansasfest.org/hackfest/

KansasFest Door Contest from 2015 - http://www.kansasfest.org/2016/07/door-signs-2015/

YouTube playlist of Dr. Steven Weyrich's KFest-related Parody Songs - http://bit.ly/2dkQfvc

Twitter Accounts for some of the folks involved:

@a2fan -- Sean Fahey

@the_jongleur -- Michael Mulhern

@quinndunki -- Quinn Dunki

@callapple -- Call A.P.P.L.E.

@retroconnector -- Charles Mangin

@kevinsavetz -- Kevin Savetz

@CT6502 -- Chris Torrence

@textfiles -- Jason Scott

@65816guy -- Dagen Brock

@ultramagnus_tcv -- Mike Whalen

Call-A.P.P.L.E. - http://www.callapple.org

Call-A.P.P.L.E.'s "Nibble Viewpoints - Business Insights From The Computing Revolution" by Mike Harvey

Reactive Micro - http://reactivemicro.com/wiki/Main_Page

8-Bit Weapon - http://8bitweapon.bandcamp.com/

Bits With Byte - http://8bitweapon.bandcamp.com/album/bits-with-byte

BlipTastic by ComputeHer - http://8bitweapon.bandcamp.com/album/bliptastic

Charles Mangin's RetroConnector - http://retroconnector.com/

Quinn Dunki's Blog - http://quinndunki.com/blondihacks/

Nibble Magazine - http://www.nibblemagazine.com/

Mike has provided links in the show notes for Web sites that can help you find out more about the attendees you heard in this episode and about KFest itself ; just go to floppydays.com for the full list. If you wish to contact Mike about this episode, you can find some contact information for him in the show notes.

I very much encourage you to provide feedback for the show at iTunes or on the Web site, via email at [email protected], via Twitter at @floppydays or on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/groups/floppydays . I also want to mention that Floppy Days is also a member of the Throwback Network, a network of retro-themed podcasts. Check it out at http://www.throwbacknetwork.net. For one more way to listen, Floppy Days is also available for streaming at stitcher.com.

Until the next show, pull out a vintage computer and compute as if it were yesterday.

Bye!

Floppy Days 64 - The HP85B Computer, Part 2, with Everett Kaser and Vassilis Prevelakis

1 september 2016 | 103 min

Floppy Days 63 - VCF Midwest 11 Preview with Jason Timmons

28 augusti 2016 | 56 min

Floppy Days 62 - The HP85B Computer, with Everett Kaser and Vassilis Prevelakis

27 juli 2016 | 79 min

Welcome to episode 62 of the Floppy Days Podcast, where a little smoke once in a while is a hazard of the hobby. In the vintage computer timeline, we are still in the 1979 to 1980 timeframe. This month we are covering the HP-85 desktop computer, or actually the entire series of which the HP-85 was a part known as the HP Series 80.

I struck gold when I found the two gentlemen who are co-hosting this episode with me. First is Everett Kaser, who worked for HP for 20 years and was intimately involved in the development and support of the HP-85. Secondly, we have Vassilis Prevelakis, who runs one of the best resources about the HP Series 80 in existence today, hpseries80.org. Once we started talking, and I interviewed the two gentlemen, I realized we were going to need a multi-part show to cover the large amount of information and history around this significant platform. So, the first show will be the interview with Everett and Vassilis and next month we will get into history, tech specs, emulation, Web sites, and all of the other information I like to cover.

Before we get into that, however, I will cover new acquistions, a little news, and some feedback I’ve received.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To

American Computer Museum, Bozeman, MT - http://www.compustory.com/
Micropendium (TI99 Magazine) Site - http://www.99er.net/micropendium.html
HP41 PPC ROM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-3SI5jRHv8
HP Calculator Poster at VCALC.NET - http://vcalc.net/#posters
Museum of HP Calculators - Museum Document Sets on Flash Drive - http://www.hpmuseum.org/cd/cddesc.htm

News

VCF West - August 6-7, 2016, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west-xi/
VCFMW - September 10-11, 2016, Holiday Inn Elk Grove Village, Elk Grove Village, IL - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/independent-festivals/vintage-computer-festival-midwest/
Chicago International Faire - Saturday, October 15th, Evanston Public Library - Contact Faire Chairman Hal Shanafield for more info.
VCFe-CH - Vintage Computer Festival Europe, Zurich, Switzerland, November 19-20, 2016 - http://vcfe.ch

Feedback

List of modules for the HP-41 - http://www.hp41.org/LibView.cfm?Command=View&ItemID=1232

Interview

Everett Kaser Website - http://www.kaser.com/hp85.html
Vassilis Prevelakis Website - http://series80.org

Floppy Days 61 - VCF West with Earl Evans and Evan Koblentz

26 juli 2016 | 46 min

Floppy Days 60 - The HP41C Calculator, Part II, with Richard Nelson and Gene Wright

11 juni 2016 | 140 min

Floppy Days 59 - The HP41C Calculator, Part I, History with Richard Nelson and Gene Wright

14 maj 2016 | 83 min

Floppy Days 58 - Ralph Rees, Editor, VAST TI-99 Newsletter Interview

24 april 2016 | 27 min

Floppy Days 57 - VCFSE4 Podcasters Roundtable

12 april 2016 | 34 min

Floppy Days 56 - TI99 Emulation, Web Sites with Chris Schneider and Rich Polivka

29 mars 2016 | 91 min

Floppy Days 55 - VCFSE 4 Preview with Earl Baugh

14 mars 2016 | 44 min

Floppy Days 54 - TRS-80 Trash Talk Podcast Promo

3 mars 2016 | 28 min

Floppy Days 53 - Interview with Don French, Co-designer of the TRS-80 Model I

21 februari 2016 | 84 min

Floppy Days 52 - TI99 Software,Books,Magazines with Chris Schneider and Rich Polivka

21 februari 2016 | 95 min

Welcome to episode 52 of the Floppy Days Podcast where we talk about our beloved old computers like some guys talk about their old cars. I’m Randy Kindig. I want to thank Michael Glaser for providing his thoughts and memories of the TI-99 computer. No, this hasn’t suddenly turned into a TI-99 podcast. However, this IS the fourth in a series of what now will be 5 episodes on the TI-99/4A home computer. There just turned out to be so much material on this very interesting machine and so much interest in the community, that this turned out to be quite an extended series. Having already covered history and technical topics on previous episodes, I had originally intended this episode to cover everything from software and magazines to Web sites, but by the time my co-hosts and I had gotten through the material it turned out to be over 2 hours of audio and I decided to break it into 2 parts. This episode will cover TI-99 software, books, magazines, ads and user groups while the next one will cover emulation and Web sites. My very special co-hosts for this episode are two more luminaries in the TI-99 community: Chris Schneider, who produces the SHIFT838 newsletter and Rich Polivka, who manages the popular 99er.net Web site. They provide a very interesting perspective on the TI-99 and I think you will enjoy this show.

One final thought. It was 3 years ago this month, on Sunday, Feb. 17, that I posted the very first episode of Floppy Days. It’s incredible to think that here we are 51 episodes later, still going strong. I was new to the podcasting game at that time, unsure how well the show would be received or if anyone would care, but determined to do this because it seemed like a tremendous amount of fun to learn about all the old computers from the 70’s and 80’s. I’ve been blown away by the interest and support from the community and have made an awful lot of friends along the way. I honestly and deeply want to thank everyone who helped me produce this show, provided an interview, or simply provided words of encouragement. Who would have thought that there would be 1,000 or so geeks like me out there who would care enough about old computers to listen to me ramble on month after month. All I can say, is thank you so much, and please keep listening because I have a lot of ideas for interesting shows for some time to come.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

New Acquisitions

“The Atari Book Volume 2” - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BKS5SHU/?tag=flodaypod-20
“Kids and the Commodore 64” by Edward H. Carlson - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0942386779/?tag=flodaypod-20

News

Bill Degnan’s “History of Commodore Computers” Poster - http://www.vintagecomputer.net/poster_detail.cfm
Floppy Days Logo Contest Poll - https://www.facebook.com/groups/floppydays/permalink/1699121653679601/?qa_ref=qd
VCF Southeast 4.0 - April 2 & 3 2016, Roswell, GA - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-southeast-4-0/
VCF East - April 15-17, 2016 - InfoAge Science Center, 2201 Marconi Rd., Wall, NJ, 07719 - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-southeast-4-0/
25th Annual Last Chicago CoCoFest - http://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/ - April 23 & 24, 2016, Heron Point Convention Center, Lombard, IL, Sat. 9-5, Sun. 9-3
TI Fest West 2016 - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/248617-pnw-ti-994a-fest-west-2016-april-30th/ - April 30, Centralia WA
KansasFest, 28th edition - https://www.kansasfest.org/ - Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, from Tuesday, July 19, through Sunday, July 24
Vintage Computer Festival West - August 6-7 at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California. - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west-xi/
VCF MIDWEST 11 September 10-11, 2016, Elk Grove Village, IL - http://www.vcfmw.org/
Portland Retro Gaming Expo - 11th annual Expo at the Oregon Convention Center on October 21-23, 2016 - http://www.retrogamingexpo.com/

Feedback

F18A Video Upgrade by Matthew Hagerty - http://codehackcreate.com/store#!/F18A-V1-7-Video-Board/p/14022176/category=0
ArcadeShopper.com by Gregory McGill - http://www.arcadeshopper.com/

Interview With Co-Hosts

SHIFT838 newsletter by Chris Schneider - http://shift838.wix.com/shift838
Rich Polivka’s 99er.net - [email protected]

Magazine/Newsletters

Repository of newsletters, magazines, books, software - ftp://ftp.whtech.com

Books

Bill Gaskill’s “Cartridge Collection Kit” - http://www.99er.net/cartkitreview.html

Software

Turbo Forth for the TI-99/4A by Mark Wills - http://turboforth.net
Extended BASIC 2.7 Suite Cartridge by Tony Knerr - http://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/?page_id=11#!/Extended-Basic-2-7-Suite/p/44354005/category=15846004

Floppy Days 51 - TI99 Tech Specs, Modern Upgrades with Tursi

25 januari 2016 | 84 min

Floppy Days 50 - TI-99 History

20 december 2015 | 111 min

Floppy Days 49 - TI99, Interview with Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills

16 november 2015 | 71 min

The TI-99/4A - History, Interview with Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills

In the home computer timeline, I’m currently covering computers released in the era from 1979 to 1980. Next up is the TI-99/4A. When I went to research the TI-99 I found an incredible amount of information about the machine and an involved, vibrant community surrounding it. As a result, I pulled in as many experts as I could find to be involved in providing information about this very interesting machine. I got so much involvement, and found so much information, that I will be covering the TI-99 for the next several shows. That will include the typical topics, such as history, tech specs, modern upgrades, emulation, Web sites and much more, as well as interviews with some TI luminaries. As I typically like to cover the history of the machine first, that will be the topic of the first couple of shows. For the history segment, I was lucky enough to find a couple of people who have an incredible history with the TI-99, Jim Fetzner and Mark Wills. Jim has an extensive, multilingual library of all things TI and possesses some very interesting hardware items related to the TI-99, as you will hear. Mark is the author of TurboForth for the TI-99/4A and has been involved in the TI-99/4A scene pretty much since 1983. He’s also English, living in the UK, so he has a rather British take on the home computer wars. Since the interview piece I typically do with the co-hosts before covering the main topic took so long and turned out to be so interesting in it’s own right, I decided to break out the interview into its own show and the next show will then cover just the TI-99 history with the help of these two gentlemen.

Links Mentioned in the Show:

Mark’s Forth for the TI-99/4A - http://turboforth.net

Tursi’s (Mike Brent) Website - http://harmlesslion.com

Classic99 TI-99 Emulator - http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=classic99

F18A video upgrade - http://codehackcreate.com

SID Master 99 Card - Marc Hull - http://www.dsapsc.com/what-is-sid.html

ForTI - Forth-driven sound card - http://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/forti.htm

ninerpedia - http://ninerpedia.org/index.php/Main_Page

FTP Site at whtech.com - ftp://whtech.com/

Chicago TI International World Faire - http://www.chicagotiug.com/tiki-index.php?page=Faire

Floppy Days 48 - Kevin Savetz Interviews Wayne Green

24 oktober 2015 | 60 min

Welcome to a special interview-only episode of the Floppy Days Podcast. For this show, we have an interview conducted by Kevin Savetz, interviewer-extraordinaire from the Antic Podcast. Kevin conducted this interview 2 years ago. Since the interviewee and topic are not Atari-related, but are very much vintage computer related, Kevin and I thought perhaps Floppy Days would be a good medium for publishing this interview.

Wayne Green, Computer Magazine Publisher

Wayne Green was founder of 73 magazine; Byte magazine; Kilobyte, which became Kilobaud, then Kilobaud Microcomputing; 80 Micro magazine for the TRS-80; Hot Coco for the TRS-80 Color Computer; Run for the Commodore 64, inCider magazine for the Apple II; and several other computer magazines.

This interview took place over Skype on January 29, 2013, when I was doing research for a book about the very first personal computer magazines — Byte, Kilobyte, and Creative Computing. Although I've decided not to write the book, I am publishing the interviews that I did for them.

Wayne Green died on September 13, 2013, eight months after we did this interview.

Teaser quotes:

"Sharing is the big deal for me. When I find something fun, interesting, I have to share it."

"Steve Jobs ... I heard about the Apple computer so my wife and I stopped by to visit him. ... He took me out to the garage and showed it to me. He says, 'What do you think?' I said 'I think you've got a winner. There's a first computer conference is going to be in Atlantic City in two weeks. Be there.' He says 'Oh, I can't afford to fly.' I said, 'Take a bus. Be there.'"

"Amelia Earhart kept her plane at my dad's airport. ... I used to play in that when I was a kid. ... I'm one of the few people who knows exactly what happened to her."

Links:

Obituary: http://www.arrl.org/news/ham-radio-publications-pioneer-visionary-iconoclast-wayne-green-w2nsd-sk

An article remembering Wayne: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2474900/windows-pcs/goodbye-wayne-green--and-thanks-for-the-memories.html

Wayne Green FBI file: https://archive.org/details/Wanye_Green_FBI_FOIA_Request_Response

Kilobaud Microcomputing issues: https://archive.org/details/kilobaudmagazine

Floppy Days 47 - Tandy CoCo, Part 3

19 oktober 2015 | 106 min

"History of Commodore Computers" Poster Now Available

10 oktober 2015 | min

Floppy Days 46 - Tandy CoCo, Part 2

20 september 2015 | 93 min

Floppy Days 45 - Evan Koblentz, Book-Abacus to Smartphone

7 september 2015 | 41 min

Floppy Days 44 - Tandy CoCo, Part 1, History with Boisy Pitre

23 augusti 2015 | 93 min

Floppy Days 43 - VCFMW 10 Preview with Jason Timmons

22 augusti 2015 | 50 min

Floppy Days 42 - TRS-80 Model III & 4, Michael Nadeau

28 juli 2015 | 102 min

Floppy Days 41 - Jason Scott, Every Computer in your Browser

29 juni 2015 | 55 min

Floppy Days 40 - The Atari 400/800, Part III

24 maj 2015 | 97 min

Floppy Days 39 - Inverse Antic Personal Computing Floppy Maccast

11 maj 2015 | 32 min

Floppy Days 38 - Anniversary Computers, with History of Personal Computing

10 maj 2015 | 33 min

Floppy Days 37 - John Linville, author Fahrfall

10 maj 2015 | 19 min

Floppy Days Episode 36 - The Atari 400/800, Part II

30 april 2015 | 103 min

Floppy Days 35 - VCFSE 3.0 Preview with Earl Baugh

21 april 2015 | 54 min

Floppy Days Episode 34 - Bob Swoger, CoCoFest 2015

4 april 2015 | 42 min

Floppy Days Episode 33 - The Atari 400/800, Part I

25 mars 2015 | 63 min

Floppy Days Episode 32 - VCF East 10.0, Evan Koblentz

6 mars 2015 | 50 min

Floppy Days Episode 31 - Eric Enge, Phoenix Tech.

28 februari 2015 | 41 min

Floppy Days Episode 30 - Paul Ceruzzi, Smithsonian

29 januari 2015 | 28 min

Floppy Days Episode 29 - Freiberger & Swaine, Fire in the Valley

18 januari 2015 | 43 min

Hello and welcome to episode 29 of Floppy Days. My name is Randy Kindig and I’m the host of this podcast. This is a special interview-only episode of Floppy Days. I’m very excited to have with me today the authors of the various editions of the computer history book entitled “Fire in the Valley”; that being Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. I think a majority of the listeners will be familiar with the book. I have mentioned it several times before on this podcast and have used it as a reference for the vintage computers I’ve covered. Many listeners will also be familiar with the movie “The Pirates of Silicon Valley” starring Anthony Michael Hall as a young Bill Gates and Noah Wyle as a young Steve Jobs which was made based on the book. I was amazed when I recently contacted the authors about coming onto Floppy Days and both of them immediately responded that they would be happy to. Pay special attention to our conversation at the end of the interview, which may hint at something special to come on Floppy Days. Before we begin, I do want to warn you that the Skype quality for this interview was not the best at times. Nevertheless, I think you will enjoy it!!

Links:

“Fire in the Valley” 2nd Edition at Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071358927/?tag=flodaypod-20

“Fire in the Valley” 3rd Edition at Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/dp/1937785769/?tag=flodaypod-20

“Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer, Third Edition” by Michael Swaine and Paul Freiberger at the Pragmatic Bookshelf - https://pragprog.com/book/fsfire/fire-in-the-valley

“The Pirates of Silicon Valley” at IMDB - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_38

“The Pirates of Silicon Valley” at Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009NSCS0/?tag=flodaypod-20

Paul Freiberger’s Site - “Fire in the Valley: the Making of the Personal Computer” - http://www.paulfreiberger.com/book/fire-valley-making-personal-computer/

Swaine’s World - Michael Swaine’s Blog on Writing and Technology - http://www.swaine.com/wordpress/category/about/

Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/FireInTheValley

Paul Freiberger Contact Information:

[email protected]

Michael Swaine Contact Information:

Blog: www.swaine.com

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @pragpub or @mswaine

Floppy Days Episode 28 - TRS-80 Model II

25 december 2014 | 130 min

Floppy Days Episode 27 - Ohio Scientific Challenger

26 november 2014 | 155 min

Floppy Days Episode 26 - Terry Stewart interview, Classic Computers Website

23 november 2014 | 54 min

Floppy Days Episode 25 - Pepe Tozzo interview, author of Retro-Electro

11 oktober 2014 | 33 min

Floppy Days Episode 24 - The CompuColor II

4 oktober 2014 | 135 min

Floppy Days Episode 23 - KansasFest Diary

5 september 2014 | 93 min

Floppy Days Episode 22 - The APF Imagination Machine

20 augusti 2014 | 55 min

Floppy Days Episode 21 - Live from KansasFest!

30 juli 2014 | 84 min

Floppy Days Episode 20 - Peter Bartlett TRS-80 Model I MISE

21 juli 2014 | 49 min

Floppy Days Episode 19 - Interview with Apple II Fan Ken Gagne

20 juli 2014 | 52 min

Floppy Days Episode 18 - The VideoBrain Family Computer

18 juni 2014 | 121 min

Floppy Days Episode 17 - The Exidy Sorcerer - Live from VCFSE 2.0

14 maj 2014 | 31 min

Floppy Days Episode 16 - The Apple II (Part III)

13 maj 2014 | 71 min

Floppy Days Episode 15 - VCFSE 2.0 Preview

16 april 2014 | 54 min

Floppy Days Episode 14 - 2014 CoCoFest Preview

31 mars 2014 | 41 min

Floppy Days Episode 13 - The Apple II (Part II)

26 mars 2014 | 80 min

Floppy Days Episode 12 - CoCo Book Interview w/Boisy Pitre & Bill Loguidice

7 mars 2014 | 41 min

Floppy Days Episode 11 - VCF East 9.1 Preview w/Evan Koblentz

9 februari 2014 | 36 min

Floppy Days Episode 10 - The Apple II, Part I, History with Steve Weyhrich

5 februari 2014 | 81 min

Show Theme Song

29 december 2013 | min

Upcoming Show Schedule

29 december 2013 | min

Floppy Days Episode 9 - The TRS-80 Model I (Part II)

27 december 2013 | 143 min

Floppy Days Episode 8 - The TRS-80 Model I (Part I)

21 november 2013 | 71 min

Floppy Days Episode 7 - Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 8.0

9 oktober 2013 | 65 min

Floppy Days Episode 6 - The Commodore PET

22 augusti 2013 | 47 min

Floppy Days Episode 5 - The American Computer Museum

15 juli 2013 | 46 min

Floppy Days Episode 4 - The Apple 1

8 juni 2013 | 35 min

Floppy Days Podcast 3 - The TI59 Programmable Calculator

6 maj 2013 | 47 min

Floppy Days Episode 2 - The Altair 8800

25 mars 2013 | 37 min

Floppy Days Episode 1

17 februari 2013 | 34 min

Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast

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Floppy Days 149 - The HP97 Programmable Calculator - Part 2 - With Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz

Floppy Days 148 - HP97 History and Memories with Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz and Everett Kaser

Floppy Days 147 - Lorenzo Hagerty, Dynasty Computers

Floppy Days 146 - Interview with Dan Bricklin, VisiCalc

Floppy Days 145 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 4

Floppy Days 144 - Interview with Don French and Steve Leininger, Co-Designers of the TRS-80 Model I

Floppy Days 143 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 3

Floppy Days 142 - Interview with Steve Leininger, Designer of the TRS-80 Model I

Floppy Days 141 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 2

Floppy Days 140 - Paul Terrell Interview - The Byte Shop Part 1

Floppy Days 139 - Vic Tolomei (Exidy) Interview

Floppy Days 138 - Interview with Hans Franke, VCF Europe and Computeum

Current Year Vintage Computer Show Schedule

Floppy Days 137 - Post-VCF SoCal 2024 with Paul Nurminen

Floppy Days 136 - Grundy New Brain Peripherals to Web Sites with Chris Espoinidis

Floppy Days 135 - Grundy New Brain Tech Specs with Chris Despoinidis

Floppy Days 134 - VCF SoCal 2024 Preview with the Organizing Team

Floppy Days 133 - Grundy NewBrain History with Gerald McMullon

Floppy Days 132 - Grundy New Brain History with Steve O'Hara-Smith

Floppy Days 131 - Grundy NewBrain History with John Grant

Floppy Days 130 - Interview with Forrest Mims III

Floppy Days 129 - Paul Terrell - Exidy Part 2

Floppy Days 128 - Paul Terrell - Exidy Part 1

Floppy Days 127 - James Shackel Estate Haul and Paul Terrell Intro

Floppy Days 126 - Bob Frankston - VisiCalc

Floppy Days 125 - ZX Spectrum Part 7 With PJ Evans

Floppy Days 124 - ZX Spectrum Part 6 with PJ Evans

Floppy Days 123 - Amiga 1000, Parceiro, and Podcast Tenth Anniversary!

Floppy Days 122 - NEC PC-6001 and Japanese Computers with Carlos Camacho - Part II

Floppy Days 121 - NEC PC-6001 and Japanese Computers with Carlos Camacho - Part I

Floppy Days 120 - ZX Spectrum Part 5 - Tech Specs with Chris Smith

Floppy Days 119 - ZX Spectrum Part 4 - Interview with Chris Smith

Floppy Days 118 - The Great Barn Find of 2022

Floppy Days 117 - ZX Spectrum Part 3 - History with Alessandro Grussu

Floppy Days 116 - ZX Spectrum Part 2 - History with Alessandro Grussu

Floppy Days 115 - ZX Spectrum Part 1 - History with John Grant

Floppy Days 114 - Howell Ivy, Exidy Sorcerer and Exidy

Floppy Days 113 - Monte Davidoff, Developer of Altair BASIC Floating Point

Floppy Days 112 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 5 With Jim Leonard

Floppy Days 111 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 4 with Jim Leonard

Floppy Days 110 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 3 with Jim Leonard

Floppy Days 109 - The IBM PC 5150 Part 2 with Jim Leonard

Floppy Days 108 - Albert Cory - Inventing the Future - Xerox Star

Floppy Days 107 - Bill Degnan, Kennett Classic

Floppy Days 106 - The History of the IBM PC

Floppy Days 105 - Interview with Joe Decuir about the Amiga

Floppy Days 104 - Interview with Leonard Tramiel

Floppy Days 103 - Kay Savetz Interviews Mark Englebardt, Wayzata Technology

Floppy Days 102 - The BBC Micro, Part 3

Floppy Days 101 - The BBC Micro, Part 2

Floppy Days 100 - Ed Smith, Developer of APF MP1000 and IM-1

Floppy Days 99 - The BBC Micro, Interview with Hermann Hauser

Floppy Days 98 - The BBC Micro History

Floppy Days 97 - The BBC Micro, Interview with Steve Furber

Floppy Days 96 - Epson HX-20 Bonus, Norbert Kehrer Interview

Floppy Days 95 - The Epson HX-20 Part 2 With Earl Evans

Floppy Days 94 - The Epson HX-20 Part 1, with Earl Evans

Floppy Days 93 - Chris Rutkowski, Epson QX10, ValDocs

Floppy Days 92 - Dave Lagerquist Interview, Editor CLOAD and Chromasette

Floppy Days 91 - The Osborne 1 with Lee Felsenstein

Floppy Days 90 - Lee Felsenstein Interview

Floppy Days 89 - The Apple III - Part 3 with David Fradin

Floppy Days 88 - The Apple III, Part 2 with Paul Hagstrom

Tandy Assembly 2018 Ads

Floppy Days 87 - The Apple III - with Paul Hagstrom

Floppy Days 86 - The Sinclair ZX80 Part II with Earl Evans

Tandy Assembly 2018 Ad

Floppy Days 85 - Interview with John Grant, developer of ZX80 OS-BASIC

Floppy Days 84 - The Sinclair ZX80 with Earl Evans

Floppy Days Special Promo for VCF East XIII with Evan Koblentz

Floppy Days 83 - The Intellivision Keyboard Component with Paul Nurminen of Intellivisionaries

Floppy Days 82 - The Acorn Atom with Roland Leurs

Floppy Days 81 - David Needle, technology reporter

Floppy Days 80 - Tandy Pocket Computers, Part 2 with Ian Mavric

Floppy Days 79 - Tandy Pocket Computers, Part 1 with Ian Mavric

Floppy Days 78 - Interview with Stewart Cheifet, Computer Chronicles