ACP Early History
About the PC Museum, ACP and Dave and Tom Freeman
The Beginning- First Pong Game Kit
Advanced Computer Products, Inc. (ACP) was founded by Dave
Freeman in the summer of 1976. While working at Fairchild and National
Semiconductor I experienced first hand the development of the basic monolithic
integrated circuit into a microprocessor chip. In 1975 General Instruments
developed an integrated video pong chip that minimized the number of parts
required to build a video game. This sparked a massive video game war that
included unlikely participants such as Ingersoll, Interstate Electronics and
others that jumped into the fray. Everybody got involved in building Pong
machines. Before GI started shipping the AY-3-8500 video game chip, I
negotiated an order 25,000 pieces to support the hobbyist market via mail
order. I convinced GI that this was a viable market that required extra support
and they agreed to set aside enough chips to support our needs. I developed a
video pong kit and started advertising in Popular Electronics and later in Byte.
The kit was available for $39.95 and the response was overwhelming. After two
months I had over $80,000 in the bank, still had a job with a semiconductor
distributor, but started building and shipping pong kits at night. Then the
unimaginable happened: GI reneged on my video pong chip orders! I had several
thousand dollars of mail order hobbyists' money and no chips to complete their
kits. The demand for the video pong chip was so high that GI took another step
placing the chip on allocation and only shipping to five manufacturers
worldwide. Many video game manufacturers invested big on getting this chip.
Many went out of business or lost substantial cash due to their inability to
get the chip. I contacted the manufacturers that were getting parts and came
across a contact in the Philippines that was willing to sell me ships via the
gray market for cash. The only problem was the parts would have the part number
and date code shaved off and the price would be a whopping $20 bucks each! 4-5
times the going price in the market. I arranged to meet this gentleman at Los
Angeles Airport and purchased 1000 chips at a time for $20,000 cash and the
parts were delivered in cigar boxes. He would then fly back to the Philippines.
Fortunately, for me the parts were genuine and I was able to deliver the kits
to our customers. This was the start of ACP. This was also the last time I
would have a good night sleep.
Early Life in a Garage
I quickly resigned from my position as Vice President of the
semiconductor distributor and concentrated fulltime on supporting the hobbyist
market via mail order. I worked out of a garage that had one light socket that
we octopused enough lines to power the equipment required to process and ship
orders. My brother Tom joined me at this time and we were in business. We
started adding more integrated circuits to our mail order ad such as the 8080
microprocessor and our mail order business continued to grow. Soon we increased
the size of our Popular Electronics ad to a full page and added Byte magazine.
This was a huge decision at the time as one page on Popular Electronics cost
$3000. We decided to go for it and it worked. Our mail order business doubled
each month for the next six months.
ACP Computer Retail is Born
I had a vision that the new personal computers just
introduced into the market were going to be purchased from retail stores. I
also believed that everyone would have a personal computer in his or her home.
A vision not shared by many during this time. In November of 1976 we opened a
retail store with 3000 sq.ft. of retail and warehousing. ACP (Advanced
Microcomputer Products, Inc. eventually changed to Advanced Computer Products
due to cease and desist order from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)) was one of the
first ten computer stores in the nation and still holds claim being the oldest
operating independent computer retail location on the planet. We quickly added
computers to our offering and became dealers for Imsai, Apple, Processor
Technology, TDL/Xitan, Smoke Signal Broadcasting and Vector Graphic.
In the early days I recall trying to convince friends and
business clients that there would be a personal computer in every home in the
USA. They were not convinced and I spent several years talking about how
personal computers were going to change the world. In those days my early
competitors in retail were “The Computer Store of Santa Monica”, owned and
operated by Dick Heiser, The “Byte Shop of Orange”, owned and operated by John
French and Hal Lashley (also George Tate of Ashton-Tate fame got his roots here.
There also was “Byte Shop” of Westminster. Owned by Marty and their top
salesman was Vern Raburn who later held top management positions with
Microsoft, Lotus, Vulcan Venture Capital and now builds airplanes in Arizona.
My Life with Apple
Early in 1977 I got a telephone call from Gene Carter,
National Sales Manager for National Semiconductor, inviting me to come up to
Silicon Valley for a visit. Gene proceeded to pick my brain about the personal
computer revolution. His interests were particularly in Apple Computer. I told
him it was for real and he immediately joined Apple as one of its first
managers along with Mike Markkula and Phil Roybal. Phil had joined National as
the result of my arranging an interview for him. Mike Scott, Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak were already at Apple. I then became one of Apples first dealers.
ACP grew its Apple sales to over 5 million per year and actually set-up a
series of technology centers for the Greater LA Schools to train teachers.
Still an independent we were one of the top Apple resellers in the country.
Other Apple dealers in the Southern California area included: Wabash Computer,
Priority One and Computique. Apple quickly let their early success go to heir
heads and started changing the policies and procedures for resellers. Apple
tried to control the entire market and forced many resellers to unfortunately
exit the retail computer business. Apple management became more and more
concerned about dealers selling their computers via mail order. My good friend,
Gene Carter, who I helped his decision making process to join Apple and become
a mega-millionaire, sent all Apple dealers a new contract. This contract would
add the condition that Apple had the right to change the contract with only 10
days notice. Within days a new contact was sent out giving all dealers 10 days
to be out of the mail order business. All Apple sales would require a
“face-to-face” meeting with the end customer! ACP had just distributed its new
mail order catalog with a 12-page Apple-only color insert. This represented a
major capital commitment on the part of ACP. We basically bet our business on
future Apple business we would get from the new catalog. Unfair, that is an
under statement! ACP joined with five other dealers such as Olympic Sales to sue
Apple for its mail order ban based on the Robinson-Patman fair trade agreement.
Unfortunately for us Ronald Regan was in power and big business was protected
by his administration and we lost in a summary judgment. (About this time we
received a call from the White House and they ordered 15 memory upgrade kits
via mail order…….(we gave them open account and received payment in 180 days!).
All of the other mail order companies involved in the Apple lawsuit went
bankrupt. ACP survived but lost millions of dollars as a result of the Apple
decision. Fair to say ACP was not the only one to become a victim of the
arrogant, self-serving decisions to be made by Apple in the future. Ironically,
Apple is now a big player in the mail order business and at the time of the
lawsuit Apple had a small software mail order business as well. Trying to
adhere to Apples policies of prohibiting sales of computers outside our
approved Zip codes and face-to-face meetings, I recollect calling Apple one day
to see if we could handle an order for 20 Apple II computers for an education
center in Katmandu, Nepal. They approved this transaction and ACP was the first
to introduce computers to Nepal. I never understood this decision and never
will. In 1986 we ceased to offer Apple products in view of their desire to only
sell to major chains such as Businessland, Sears, Computerland and others. The
personal computer had become big business.
Operating a Computer Retail Store
Operating a computer retail store in the early days from
1976-1980 was a real test for any businessman. Cash flow was generated by
selling computers for cash (usually cash in advance)……problem was in those days
all manufacturers demanded cash in advance for computer purchases. Credit lines
were non-existent! Distributors were also not yet founded. Imsai, one of the
first personal computer manufacturers, would make us send cash in advance plus
order significantly more computers than we needed. Our salesman was Bill Lohse,
who went on the be the publisher of PC Magazine and executive for Ziff Davis.
My opinion is that Bill Millard, infamous founder of Imsai and Computerland
(now living in Saipan) started early gathering cash for his sudden exit from
the USA! The toughest decision we made on a weekly basis was how much cash to
send computer manufacturers and will they go out of business before they
complete our advance orders.
Market Driven by Computer Shows
In 1977 ACP participated in the first West Coast Computer
Faire, founded by Jim Warren. This became the foremost showcase for new
personal computer products and we were part of all of them. Apple introduced
their Apple II at this show and wowed the computer hobbyists with their live
demo of “Breakout”. Mike Scott personally handled the demos!
ACP also participated in the world’s second computer show
held in Trenton, New Jersey (the first was held in Atlantic City a short-time
earlier). Computer Shows became very popular through 1979 as we traveled to
Boston (Wayne Green’s Shows), Toronto, Philadelphia, New York, Houston and many
other venues to show our products. The key show and the most significant show
however, continued to be the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.
In 1977 the first Comdex show was held in a back room at the
MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. I was there and it consisted of about 50 booths
and who would of imagined that Sheldon Alderson would turn Comdex into the
success that it has enjoyed over the years! Until its recent demise however.
Let’s Build It
In 1977 ACP developed one of the first 4K memory boards for
the Altair, Imsai and other S-100 bus computers. Our card solved the
instability and quality problems other 4K cards had and our sales took off. We
then added other S-100 cards. We then developed the Z-80 Softcard for the Apple
and a 256K memory card. We negotiated an OEM agreement with Microsoft and built
over 250,000 of each card sold under the Microsoft name. Our manufacturing
business became so big we spun it off under Vista Computer and added more
upgrade cards for the Apple and the IBM PC when introduced in 1981.
The World’s First Computer Superstore
In 1981 ACP opened two new stores, one in Tustin the other
in San Jose, California. Our San Jose store was named ACP Technology Center and
it was the first “Computer Superstore” in the country. Our objective was to
open Computer Superstores in 12 major cities within a two-hour plane ride from
Santa Ana. We hired industry executive, Tom Anthony to rollout, obtain
financing and secure authorizations for our expansion program. We invested over
one million dollars in opening this store. ACP Technology Center was an instant
success and we then tried to obtain authorizations from Apple and IBM to sell
their computers. The general concept of computer retail at that time was to
have a store on every corner a la Computerland. IBM was really focused on
getting an IBM medallion placed at every corner of the country. A Computer
Superstore did not fit their model and we were too early to market with our
concept. Six-months later Businessland convinced IBM that the way to go was
computer superstores and IBM bit on it hook, line and sinker. The rest is
history. In fact IBM became so selective and restrictive as far as their
computer resellers that the price of an IBM computer store medallion soared to
over $150,000 for one location.
First Computer TV Show
In 1982 we produced the first TV show for personal computers
on channel 48 in San Jose. "The Computer Show" was hosted by our
store manager, Manny Lucero and featured special guests and new product introductions
for the first 30 minutes and the remainder of the show took call-ins from the
viewers. Guests included Steve Wozniak, a real supporter of the show and the
store even though his brother has his own computer store in Cupertino, Steve
Jobs, Philippe Khan, Paul Terrell and others. The show continued for two years
and we were forced to go off the air as the costs increased dramatically and it
was difficult to get marketing funds from manufacturers at that time to support
a TV show.
Collecting PC’s
I always new there was something special about the genesis
of the personal computer revolution. I started early collecting PC’s and remain
an avid collector today. The PC Museum has over 700 computers online at the present
time and our objective to someday create a venue or traveling presentation where this memorabilia can be
displayed to our secondary school children. Our website is located at www.thepcmuseum.net.
Donations
If you have anything to donate please let us know as we
still have some computers that we do not have. Our short list of computers we
need includes: Sphere, Ithaca, Byt-8, PolyMorphic Systems, Heathkit H8,
Cromemco, TDL/Xitan, Smoke Signal Broadcasting and Apple I. We also need any
memorabilia, photos that we can get related to the history of personal
computers. If you have historical information about the systems we have online
we invite to submit the information to share with our website users.
It has been a special 28 years for me. Just surviving the
unpredictable changes in the personal computer field, which has been a roller
coaster ride, it is simply amazing that we are still here today. The memories
we have of the industry people we met and worked with has made it all
worthwhile. Our customers have also given us many rewards from their continued
support and the friendship we have enjoyed over the years. I am sleeping a
little bit better these days!
David Freeman
Founder and CEO of Advanced Computer Products, Inc.
Dave attended Long Beach State and University of Southern
California. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering. Married to
Barbara who has multiple degrees in Archaeology and Art History for UCLA and
University of Southern California. They have two sons, Morgan, living in New
York where he works as a producer, movie director and writer. Morgan is a graduate from UC Santa
Barbara, Sorbonne in Paris and NYU Film School. Morgan won the prestigious best
director and best film awards from the Sundance Film Festival in 1997. Presently he is Executive Producer for MTV shows Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant. Zac
lives in Chicago with his wife Paige and is a graduate from
Northwestern Law School. After a clerkship with an Illinois District
judge he joined a Chicago based Law Firm. Paige has been an executive with grownetwork.com and the Chicago School System. She is now CEO of Project Exploration in Chicago. Both are graduates of
Princeton University. Zac served with the Peace Corps for two years in Togo,
West Africa and also worked for Human Rights Watch in New York.
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