Forgotten Memories
of Great and perhaps lost opportunities
Who knows?

A Penny for your Thoughts

.

Dominic Vautier
7/2012

This is an unusual story and it was only after many years that these things happened I was able to fit together the pieces. My memory certainly may have played tricks on me, but I believed that the events actually did happen as I describe below.

In 1974, I had taken a full time job at Tektronix, in Beaverton, Oregon. Tektronix at that time was the largest private manufacturer in the state and was one of the big producers of electronic measuring equipment and oscilloscopes. A few years later I started a private software development business on the side to make ends meet. I was also doing a lot of software work for our local Catholic parish in Milwaukee, Oregon. It was a busy time for me and very stressful. My private business was mostly software contract work with local banks, and retail establishments. This was 1977 and large-scale IBM computers dominated the computer industry. Some mid size, or “mini” computers were around as well as the small desktop micro computers (later to be known as PCs) but initially they were not taken very seriously be the industry.

The parish I worked for had a very energetic pastor who wanted me to develop a number of systems: name and address, collection programs, fund raising, campaigns, all on his "microcomputer". He got a Radio Shack TRS-80 model II, (known popularly as the TRASH-80), a small workhorse of a machine that had a pritty good Basic (an early computer language). As I recall, there were only two operating systems around at that time; one was the TRS-80 which was very friendly and easy to program. The other was CPM, which worked on a UNIX system. The CPM system was too expensive and required a lot of specialized knowledge.

I developed several church applications for my parish in Milwaukee using Basic, but some of the instructions were not working as advertised. I called the Radio Shack help line and they put me in contact with the vendor, which turned out to be this little pee-waddle, back room company in North Seattle. I called the number and a very pleasant young man answered the phone. He told me his name was Bill, and he was quite interested in what I was doing. We actually talked for several hours, and I explained my idea of developing a more generalized "microcomputer" product that could be used on all small computers and could therefore be marketed and sold for a cheep price to many users.

Later that year the parish Pastor, Fr, Webber and I had a falling out about the direction I was going in my software development. I was trying to come up with a more generic product that could be marketed and he wanted just his own stuff done in his way on his microcomputer. So our relationship ended. This occurred around 1978.

My family and I moved with to Seattle in January 1979 and I took a job with Boeing. It was very busy work but at the same time I kept my company “Clover Microsystems” going. I also had several lucrative contracts up In Everett. Again I started to develop software on the "microcomputer" for Christ the King, the local Catholic Church where my kids attended, and this experience proved very satisfying and successful. I also began working with an OBGYN doctor to help support his practice. He needed a billing system, appointments, and Medicare reports, plus a lot of other software. I developed these programs on a newer TRS-80 model III, which had a system called TRSDOS, the first real good operating system I had ever seen. Again I needed some technical support so I called Radio Shack and they referred me to the same backroom outfit that had provided the TRSDOS system with basic software. I called and asked for Bill.  He came on the phone and immediately recognized me.  Again we had a long talk and I told him about the medical system I was developing.  He said that the company had moved to Albuquerque but that they would soon be back in Seattle. He also said that I had some great ideas and suggested that if I wanted to, I could join their team. I politely declined. After all I had a solid job at Boeing and a successful business programming "minicomputers" and as far as I was concerned "microcomputers" were still a way from becoming anything serious. This whole venture with microcomputers did not sound like a good prospect anyway.  It had a questionable future and I had a wife and kids to support.

Things began to get really bad for me over the next year--1982. I became very stressed out. I basically had a breakdown. I quit my good Boeing job and took off with the kids to California.  I finally came back but I was really a complete wreck. It took me a good six months to regain any mental balance. My wife promised to change her spending ways so I would not need to work at two or three jobs. She promised to sell our big expensive house and get a smaller one. She promised a lot of things, none of which happened. I stopped doing any work outside of Boeing.  I never wanted to look at another "microcomputer" again. I shut down my business. I forgot everything that happened over those horrible and troubling years.

Four years later in 1989 I divorced my wife and by 1992 I was again married and very happily married with three wonderful kids.

So one night about 15 years later I couldn't sleep, and suddenly started putting some pieces back together.  I recalled all the experiences that went on during those turbulent years, and wondered whatever happened to that little back-room company and that nice guy Bill what's-his-name.

My God! I realized who he had become—the richest man in the world.

We Christians call it Devine Providence. Others may call it fate or kismet or luck or fortune or karma. I never even thought about getting fabulously rich anyway, but in just that one flash of realization I had to stand back and say----GOSH.