Burning Down the House

by Neil Harris

By the later part of 1981, I spent much of my time on the road, helping the sales executives whose mission was to get Commodore home computers into the mass merchant channel. I was a sort of sales engineer, even though that role had not been defined in our industry just yet – my job was to demonstrate the machines and describe what they could do in terms that lay people would understand. Along with VP of National Accounts David Harris (no relation), I showed off our systems to major chains like Kmart, Montgomery Ward, and Sears, along with regional chains.

One day this found us at the headquarters of Kiddie City, a mid-Atlantic toy seller that was eventually wiped out by Toys’R’Us. Aside from the VIC-20 and new software, I was to demonstrate the forthcoming VICmodem.

I had learned through experience to always arrive early and test everything before the demo. In the worst case, if something was not working, we would simply not mention it – everything we talked about worked, and anything not working stayed out of sight.

The VICmodem that I had was a prototype – a circuit board with no case. I set up the VIC and the monitor and plugged in the modem to the cartridge port and… nothing. Worse than nothing. The power light on the VIC had gone out.

I opened up the VIC case and looked at the fuse. Blown. 

We could skip demonstrating the modem, but skipping the computer demo was not an option. 

I had an idea what might be wrong, but I needed to check with the engineers back at the office. You see, the user port used an edge connector, and devices had a tab on the connector to ensure that you could not plug in devices upside down. But my prototype modem had no tab.

I called Andy Finkel. “If I plugged in the modem upside down, would it blow the fuse in the VIC?”

There was a thoughtful pause and I could hear Andy conferring with others in the office. The answer came back… “Probably.”

So, I removed the computer’s fuse and took a few quarters out of my pocket and put them in the fuse slot so the computer would work. Then I looked at the modem and carefully flipped it over and said a brief prayer. Either this demo was going to work, or we might just burn down the building, or at least melt the computer. I looked at David and he gave me a look back that clearly communicated something regarding my career prospects.

I plugged in the modem. No smoke emerged from the computer and the red light stayed on. I attached the modem to the phone and dialed The Source. Everything worked.

The demo was great, we made the sale, and when we got back to the office I got a new fuse for the VIC, a tab for the modem’s edge connector, and my quarters back.


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