Re: Verizon to Buy Alltel

The Ghost of General Lee <ghost@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:geaka4d0rbd63oue7ftauomalfsaj8hj2r@xxxxxxx:

He used to clear $1,500-$2,000/mo. in
placement commissions (back in 1978-79), but the month after that
system went into service, he cleared $13,000 in a single month.

Big money in 1978! I used to sell Ohio Scientific systems in central SC
from a shop in Sumter:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=47
The big gun in 1978 was the Challenger III with its 74MB, 14" platter,
monster hard drive under OS-65/U operating system on a 6502 processor.
It came with a little word processor, a simple database program and OS
Extended BASIC, which we programmed into what the customer wanted it to
do on its multiple dumb terminals. It was very advanced for a
microcomputer....

We drove to Atlanta to get the first one, got home.....and never found
out how to boot it up!...(c; We nearly died of embarrassment calling
the supplier for help the next morning, much to his delight. They used
to make ADDS Regent 25 one-piece dumb terminals in Columbia, SC, and we
bought our terminals from them. Our first client was Sumter Music and
Amusements, who rented juke boxes, cigarette machines, etc., to
restaurants/bars/bubba stores. It took us 3 months of hard work to
write the machine accounting software to run on its BASIC and debug it.
We gave it to SMA to get a system online and happy to use as a
reference. I sold that system, with software and phone support for
years before MS-DOS and the PC put us out to pasture. We were too small
to be an IBM dealer and I quit retailing in the aftermath, still
providing support onsite to many of the systems that ran and ran and ran
and rarely ever failed. My "tip" for a job well done was a really nice
Seeburg jukebox for my home, always filled with the latest 45s, the envy
of the parties...(c;

Hey! I was single!

We expanded the line when the C4P came out in '79 selling for the
princely sum of $1695 with expansion card, floppy drive and ports for
printer, TV, home security and a modem. The Liggett & Meyers Tobacco
Company up in NC contacted us and bought 24 of them to be programmed by
their IT professionals for a microcomputer training program the company,
itself, started very progressively. I still remember going into that
factory for the guided tour, gagging and choking on the pure stench of
the tobacco fumes that permeated the whole place, even the offices. My
favorite part was that check for $40,680 they handed me on my way out of
the accounts payable office, the biggest payday I'd ever had. Instead
of trying to work us down on price, they wanted us to deliver and setup
the computers to check out the hardware before leaving Winston-Salem.
To our great relief, everything worked fine just plugging it in. We'd
gotten it all working at home before driving up...of course.

It was too bad OSI had little support from the software guys. The C4P
was twice as fast as the Apple II and Commodore PET and over three times
as fast as the Radio Shack TRS-80s and it showed it, easily! One of the
reasons it accessed the floppies faster was it left them RUNNING ALL THE
TIME! I never wore a disk out, which simply amazed me. The one running
in the store window 24/7 had some wear showing after a year or so....

Speed couldn't save it because only the geeks would buy it....having to
program it yourself. We did run some classes and had 4 modems hooked up
to 4 phone lines at the office so our clients who bought them could hook
their modems up to the Challenger III's little bulletin board I wrote
and left running on our 74MB hard drive all night so we all could share
software....which really sold units for us. It had an early Micro$oft
BASIC interpreter much simpler than the OSI extended BASIC in the
Challenger III.

It was a great time, even if we never got rich. We didn't realize until
many years later how close to the bleeding edge of technology our little
shop stayed....(c;

We were in the CB repair and sales business, which paid for all these
toys and fed us. Each repaired CB came with a free little tool kit
which included tuning tools so they could screw it up and make us more
money....(c; I was also Electronics Department Head of Sumter Area
Technical College, my "day job". My salary was nearly $10K/year!



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