OT: Tandy Silver

[Marc Brumlik]

What a great collection of stories!

> The names that come to mind are Rich Hollander, and Bernie Appel.

I spent 12 years with Tandy.  I started in Chicago in 1974 as a repair  
tech and switched to computers when the Model I came out.  The moved me to  
Ohio and later to Fort Worth.  I have to agree that the success they had  
was largely in spite of themselves and the failure to stay in the market  
was their own fault.

While at the offices in Columbus, Ohio, there was concern that sales of  
non-computer merchandise was dropping due to computers.  Separate sets of  
sales figures had to be calculated which excluded the "26 series" to get a  
better picture of the sales trends managers should be paying attention  
to.  They were afraid that when this when the computer fad passed, Tandy  
would have lost its core business.

The mention of Bernie Appel caught my attention.  While in Fort Worth I  
spent some time reviewing third-party software.  In one application  
written for the pocket computer there was a file named "KILL.BA" (a BASIC  
program).  Tandy Corp decided to reject the software from inclusion in the  
"Source Book" unless the author renamed that file.  Apparently they  
considered it offensive since BA was Bernie Appel's initials!

In another case I was asked to review the owner's manual for one of the  
Tandy 1000 series machines.  After completing the corrections to both  
books (one for DeskMate, the other for DOS), I was told I'd wasted my time  
correcting the latter and that these corrections would not be submitted.   
This was because that book had already been approved by another  
department, and our department shouldn't challenge their decision.

It was issues like these that made me want to leave the company.

-- Marc