OT: computer nostalgia (was RE: Rapid once deployed too)

[D . Thomas Podnar]

On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 11:41:00PM -0700, Bill Campbell wrote:
> On Fri, May 05, 2006, Bob Stockler wrote:
> >Jay R. Ashworth wrote (on Fri, May 05, 2006 at 07:53:56PM -0400):
> >
> >| On Fri, May 05, 2006 at 05:03:15PM -0400, Bob Stockler wrote:
> >| > Snapp also had a multi-terminal board (I think, and think it
> >| > could allow 24 terminals to connect).
> >| 
> >| I heard about that, but never saw it.
> >
> >Snapp demonstrated it at a TCBUG (or whatever it was called
> >at the time) Conference in Fort Worth, way back when.
> >
> >As I recall, Tom Podnar also had a suite where he was showing
> >a product that didn't have to do with backups.  I -think- it
> >had to do with printing, and was written by some genius he
> >he knew.
> 
> That sounds like xroff, a troff implementation that worked nicely with the
> laser printers of the day.  John Copeland was the author and owner of Image
> Network, at least he made the Bell Labs code work on Xenix and drive laser
> printers.  I had the source from John at one time, attempting to cross-
> compile it for DOS -- which never was completed.
> 
> Bill
> --
> INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Systems, Inc.
> URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
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> 
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As I've mentioned, I prefer to live "for the future" and not "in the past",
but since you've mentioned my name, I'll go back a little bit and reflect.

In the mid-80s we caused a number of products to be available to
Tandy 6000 users.

 - While Bob Snapp did some piggyback soldering to create memory cards,
   we sold a 2MB memory board designed specifically by a DEC memory
   company for the Tandy 6000, using discreet 41256 memory chips.
   There were 72 chips (64 + 8 parity). The board ran as Swap, and we
   sold every card we could have manufactured. Just when Tandy brought
   out a memory management unit to run as real memory, and we were
   negotiating for Tandy to sell the card, a dumping case with Korea
   caused the 41256 chips to go from $3.00 to $13.00 per chip, and that
   business ended rather quickly.

 - We pioneered the use of 35MB and 70MB hard drive replacements in
   the Tandy 5MB and 12MB cabinets. I traveled around the country doing
   these (it wasn't just plug and play back then, there were wiring
   changes). One of these made it as far as an Indonesian mine.

 - We paid to port Xroff, as Bill mentioned, to the Tandy 6000, then to
   the 286 and 386 Xenix operating systems.

 - We had a business graphics suite that worked with pen plotters.

 - We brought Microlite CTAR to the Tandy 6000 and later other platforms.
   It sold for $75.00 back then.

Under SCO Unix (Open Desktop), the X Window system ran exceptionally
slow due to the nature of graphics cards an bus speeds at the time.

However, there were some new cards running TI 34010 and 34020 graphics
processors with separate on-board RAM and VRAM, and we worked with a
Pittsburgh company that put the X Windows system ON THE CARD, with
great performance increases.

But many years ago we made the decision to do one thing well, and the
result is our current products. Although other products seem to work
very hard to try to be "buzzword compliant" with ours, we're very proud
of what we have accomplished.


The first time I booked a suite at the Tandy Americana during a users
conference to show our our products was quite interesting. I don't drink
and had no idea how to stock a bar (just that I'd need one to help
motivate people to come up to the suite), so I enlisted the aid of someone
who had more experience. I'm not sure if I remember exactly, but I think
the mix was distinctly heavy with good Kentucky Bourbon. 

It is incredibly appropriate that this come up today. Thanks again Bob,
for your help back then and for all the help since. Enjoy your mint
juleps later today!
-- 
Tom
  D. Thomas Podnar
  Microlite Corporation
  2315 Mill Street
  Aliquippa PA USA 15001-2228
  724-375-6711
  888-257-3343 Sales
Developers of Microlite BackupEDGE