Computersight -

In 1973, my daughter who had been my office manager, decided to go back to college to work on a postgraduate degree. Classical music record production is a highly specialized job, so rather than go looking for such a needle in an nonexistent haystack, I decided to fill the vacancy with a non-human: a computer! I’d been reading about these newfangled marvels, and now was the time to try one out. At the time, Radio Shack was touting its new TRS80 Model 1. The store offering the device was conveniently located in Santa Monica. I was pressed for time, so without futher ado, I bought one. $3,000 and change got me the monster, that consisted of a CPU and B&W monitor of moderate size, 2 outboard 5-1/4″ floppy drives (one for the operating system, the other for running programs). For storage, a cassette player, operating at 1-7/8 ips was provided. The ribbon printer – if I’m not mistaken, it was made by IBM – occupied half of my good-sized desk and weighed a ton. The entire house resonated with its clatter when it ran.

So far, so good. I was excited: on the cusp of new technology, as befits a progressive-minded fellow. Little did I suspect that behind the humorous, cartoon- and banter-filled pages of the instruction manual lurked a red-eyed monster. The learning curve for this system, deceptively written in BASIC (something-or-other Instruction Code) was steep. As in the Himalayas. Either that, or I was hopelessly stupid. I became deeper and deeper immersed, filling in pages of my notes to explain their notes. I learned to forgo my favorite late-night ‘Dragnet’ (goodbye, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan!), and would wake up groggy-eyed in the mornings, none the wiser. It turned out that Radio Shack did not stand behind the product they sold: how to use it was up to the unsuspecting buyer. The only help offered was a recommend- ation to consult some people out in the San Fernando Valley who “wrote software”.

• Come again?
• Software. You know, the code that tells the computer what to do.
• Was’nt that supposed to come with the computer?
• Noooo…that’s a whole different ballgame.

That is how I was initiated into the zeros and ones world of software: I called the number they gave me at RS, and two fellows showed up for a consultation. They examined the computer, ran a few checks and test- programs, and took notes. The programs that came with the computer were declared invalid and unuseable. New software – far better – would have to be custom-made for me. One for inventory, one for accounts, another for correspondence, et cetera. With the abundance of such soft- ware available now (much of it free!), it’s hard to believe, but that is how it was back then. Giving up was not an option, so we forged ahead. It would take a “couple of weeks” to put the programs together, I was told. In the interim (having made copies), I made the best of what I had on hand, and even learned some tricks that were not included in the manual. For diversion, I tried the bouncing-ball type of games that were built in. They worked flawlessly! Amazing how much 32 bytes(!) of memory can do.

As I feared, the new programs (to the tune of I forget how many hundreds of $) were not perfect. They’d often hang up, freeze the computer, and otherwise elevate my blood pressure. The path to my software gurus in the Valley became so familiar I could drive it in my sleep. I’d drop off the discs and go shopping while my friends would “debug” them. All this while, I was learning – the hard way – how to get around the pitfalls of this inadequate equipment, and make the best of a bad situation. If Radio Shack ever came out with a Model 2, I did not want to hear about it, since they took no returns or trade-ins. At that point, whenever the subject of The Beast came up, the missus would shake her head sadly. To make light of the matter, I joked that TR might hint at Tar-Baby. No, she smiled: TRash is more likely the answer. In short, I was ready for a change.

Through the grapevine I’d heard of a portable(!) self-contained and powerful computer made by Osborne. This model was all the rage at the time, so I went to have a look. The machine – about the size of a large typewriter – weighed in at 35 lbs. Hardly a laptop, yet it had more memory (64 kb!), 2 two built-in floppy drives, and came with a ready-to-run suite of programs. The tiny 5-inch monitor (with an unattractive orange background) was an invitation to myopia, so an outboard ten-inch monitor ($100) was a prerequisite extra. The Osborne was still no panacea, and had its own unique set of chronic problems.

 There was an Osborne Club that met at a high school in the Valley, where happy owners would congregate to swap yarns, files and programs, and share service resources. Very convivial and sometimes even useful. So I muddled along with the Osborne for another year or so. Meanwhile, what started as a rumor was beginning to pick up in volume, like an approaching thunderstorm. This was something called MSDOS, (MicroSoft Disc Operating System) – an advanced computer language cobbled together in a garage by a couple of whiz-kids, to be marketed, so went the rumor, by IBM* – no less!

The Microsoft Era

Nothing succeeds like success, and soon MSDOS drove most computers. The classic horizontal desktop model (with the B&W monitor atop) soon evolved into the upright 286 models, along with exponentially improved “brains” – the Central Processing Units (CPUs) that drove the machines. In quick succession there came color, then the mighty mouse. Hard drives that until then had only been rumored became commonplace (I had a 20Mb Seagate installed in my PC for $100). Out of Silicon Valley in California came thousands of new programs, games and accessories. Fortunes were made by enterprising software “engineers”.

Such programs were sold or leased to the rapidly growing number of computer users. I remember one such firm In Los Angeles in the early 1970s, that mailed catalogs of new programs available. You made up a want list and went to their boutique, where for a small fee copies were made, while one waited – as in the doctor’s office – perusing even more lists. Microsoft’s rival was Apple/McIntosh. I flirted with such a computer briefly, but went back to MS-DOS. After spending years becoming familiar with that language, and in spite of all the new versions and multiple Windows incarnations, I still use some of those tried and true DOS utilities daily.

Out there in cyberspace today lurk many good things – as well as knights and dragons of every description. Computers have conquered even the remotest corners of the known world. Nothing works anymore without computers. A current state-of-the-art PC – even an innocent- looking laptop – has the computing power that required two roomsful of tube equipment only a few decades earlier. The modern PC is so powerful that it’s not expected to last more than 3 or 4 years before it literally burns itself out. Out of loyalty or nostalgia perhaps, I keep a few old, low-powered clunkers running. A child coming of computer-age (younger and younger!) nowadays might well ask: Daddy, was there life on earth before the Internet?

*IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, anticipating Hitler’s needs. They did not merely sell the Nazis the programs, but leased them for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed to round up all the Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.