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Summary of today's research -
Journalist: "This software company succeeded because of its visionary CEO, a marketing genius who turned things around and increased sales exponentially!"
[An hour later after digging through newspaper articles]
Ah, he cut his key product's price by 50% and increased his advertising budget 1,000%. Truly a strategy worthy of Harvard Business School graduate.
In 1984, John McCarthy, the father of artificial intelligence, pulled out of a scheduled "Computer Chronicles" appearance due to the presence of another guest, Hubert Dreyfus, an ethicist and #AI critic. McCarthy and SRI International, another scheduled participant, demanded Stewart Cheifet reschedule and exclude Dreyfus. Cheifet agreed but later invited Dreyfus to appear in a different episode.
This should've been the first warning that these folks were up to no good.
In 1985, Nat Goldhaber and Ed Zschau appeared on "Computer Chronicles" one week apart. This would lead to one of the silliest coincidences in history.
Goldhaber, a former Republican operative who founded a local area networking business, later returned to politics as the Natural Law Party's 2000 VP candidate. He also unsuccessfully sought the Reform Party's VP nomination.
Four years earlier Zschau, a former GOP congressman, also unsuccessfully sought the Reform Party's VP nomination.
Researching 1980s personal finance software for the next blog. The CEO of one company described a competitor's product as "like an adventure game, it's so hard!"
Now I'm trying to imagine what a Roberta Williams-designed accounting program would have looked like. 🤯
Jack Tramiel, chairman of #Atari Corp., in 1989, regarding the dominance of PC clones and Macs:
"The machines they make are like cigarettes – they’re bad for you, but an awful lot of people are hooked on using them. They’re expensive and they’re all alike.
"When I talk about a personal computer, I mean personal – a computer for the individual, not for a company. And that means a computer that the individual can afford."
I covered the STate of Atari in '89 here:
For more on HowardSoft's history, my blog post on that 1985 episode is available here:
Since it's income tax season here in the USA, let me shout out "Tax Preparer" by HowardSoft. First developed by Jim Howard in 1979 for the Apple II, "Tax Preparer" was featured on a 1985 "Computer Chronicles" episode, with Howard appearing in-studio with Stewart Cheifet and Gary Kildall.
41 years later, Howard is *still* updating and releasing "Tax Preparer" for the PC. It's almost certainly the oldest continuously developed program featured on "Computer Chronicles."
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