I think my curiosity about how computers work, and not wanting to miss out on the ‘next big thing’ was what drove me to buy the Commodore PET in 1978. I had taken a programming class in college where my work was output on paper punch cards to feed into the ‘mainframe’ computer, and I didn’t particularly enjoy that. But seeing the hobbyist market develop quickly for having your own computer caught my interest, even though at the time, I understood that I had to learn BASIC programming to do much with it, given the relative lack of published software at the time.

My first job out of college was with 3M Company, in their Business Products Sales division in San Francisco. Compared to other companies I interviewed with, 3M seemed very ‘techy’ for those times, which appealed to me. I became an inside sales coordinator supporting our customers as they purchased all their copiers, microfilm systems, fax machines and 3M Linolex word processor machines from us. When I saw that I could buy a PET ($795 I think) which could conceivably do everything the 3M word processing systems could do, which 3M sold for $14,000+, I quickly realized that the world was changing quickly, and I wanted to be part of it.

I became aware of the PET while attending the first West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco in 1977. 3M Co. was an exhibitor there showing their magnetic tape and floppy disks, and the Faire was held a short distance from the office where I worked.

I recall meeting Chuck Peddle at the Commodore booth. I assume that having met the designer of 6502 microprocessor at the show is what gave me the confidence that his was the right computer to purchase, as $795 was a big ticket item for me back then. And I recall thinking it was far less costly than the Apple II, which was out of my budget.

I signed up for a subscription to Cursor magazine, hoping to find more things to do with my PET. And I do recall anticipating the arrival of my next Cursor cassette tape and being fascinated by seeing what other PET owners had created. I assume that I contacted Cursor after I developed the Miner game, but I have no recollection beyond that.

I don’t recall any feedback from anyone regarding my Miner game, so I had no idea of what kind of reception it got. The fact that Cursor published it was enough satisfactioin for me. Yes, I was surprised to learn that it was used by anyone other than hobbyists/gamers.

I cannot recall what my inspiration was for the mining style game, other than I used to go hiking/backpacking quite a lot up in California’s ‘gold rush’ foothills and Sierras. I don’t think I was trying to replicate anything else, since I had only the PET computer and very little exposure to other software. I imagine I was dealing with the limits of my own knowledge about programming movement on the screen via characters, not individual pixels.

I think my technical challenges with the PET were relative to that era, given all personal computers were brand new, and you had to learn at least a bit of programming to get any use out of it. I don’t recall anyone I knew spending $795 in those days just to play games other people created. It was more of the ‘wanting to learn something new – something that had the potential to change a lot of things.’

That’s a great feeling, knowing something I created many years ago is still being appreciated. Thank you for letting me know!

Miner was my only published program for the PET or Commodore 64. While I never did aspire to pursue programming per-se for a career, I did recognize early on that my skill was in helping others make use of new technologies. So, I did focus on helping others with computers and software the rest of my career, while leaving the actual programming to others.

It’s hard to recall exactly what prompted me to create PAL, other than a) I’m sure I struggled somewhat with programming in BASIC, b) and I was certain that others would also have similar challenges. I had seen such fast growth of the hobbyist computer market, I’m sure a certain part of me wanted to figure out how to start my own business, as I envied those that had that ambition.

I don’t actually recall what if anything happened to Miner after being published in Cursor. I remember being very surprised many years later where it came up on a Google search.

I can’t really recall the details of trying to sell my PAL booklet. I imagine I likely had a couple hundred copies printed to sell, but beyond that I can’t remember much. No, I don’t have any surviving copies of PAL, other than the one colorful cover page saved in a file drawer.

I think that I moved on pretty quickly, having bought a C64 in 1982, excited to have new capabilities (color screen, more software, floppy disk, etc.). But I am certain my focus moved more toward using software developed by others than trying to do it all myself. I do recall working on creating what I called the 'Discatalog' which was going to be a catalog of all the C64 software on the market, which you could load into your C64 from a floppy disk. However, I really never got that off the ground.

In early 1982, while still at 3M Co. (but now in their Los Angeles office) I recall being asked to show our new hires how to play the games on the DEC Minicomputer terminals used in our office, there to familiarize them with ‘using the keyboard’, which was still a new skill for many at the time.

Also in that year, as a ‘thank you’ from IBM Corp. our office received a brand-new IBM PC, in appreciation of 3M’s support of the IBM’s PC launch with 3M’s floppy disks, etc. Since I was the only person in our office who had any idea what to do with it, I got to take it home to figure it out (MS-DOS, WordStar, etc.)

I remember using the Lotus 123 spreadsheet to calculate all of the ‘click’ charges we tracked to bill 3M’s customers for all of the copies they made on their 3M copiers. But I quickly realized that was a bad idea, since that would cause me to have to do all that work each month, instead of the person it was assigned to.

In 1984, when I saw a demo of the Apple MacIntosh with the mouse and GUI, I knew it was time to make the change, and I left 3M for the ‘personal computer’ and software industry and have been there in various roles ever since. By 1988, as general manager for ComputerLand of Los Angeles, we pioneered corporate/enterprise sales and became the primary computer supplier to Disney, LA Times, Honda and a host of others large companies.

In 1994, I was working for OnLine Connecting Point, where in addition to selling all of the top brands, we also sold Sun Microsystem products, and to my knowledge we sold the very first ‘web server’ in So Calif. In 1997 we became one of the first dealers for BlackBerry handhelds, which paved the way for the mobile Internet. In 2000, after seeing where the Internet was taking things, I moved on from computers and services to working in software development full-time, managing teams of offshore developers, initially to develop mobile applications for the BlackBerry (pre iPhone), which later evolved into custom application development of all types.

More than anything else, I enjoyed the challenge and excitement of learning something new, and how that could be translated into making it useful, whether it be playing games or automating business processes. It was the same type of feeling that I had around 1994 when the Internet was brand new, and I got to explain to countless others what it was, and why you might want to understand it.

While I am a history buff, I’m not too tuned into the retro computing scene. But my 1978 PET is still in my garage, after countless other computers I’ve owned have come and gone!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to organize my thoughts around why I was drawn to and remain connected to the computer and software industry. Regards, Ron Longfellow