1st Meeting of The Apple Corps of Dallas

George Wruck cassette audio transcribed using MacWhisper:

“I'm Bobbie Ferrell, and I work here at Greenhill School. We are very happy to have you here on our campus today. Some of you were asking about the school. Greenhill is a college prep school for ages 3-1/2 years through 12th grade. We have two Apples [Apple IIs], and we're very enthusiastic about them, and I really enjoy learning about them.

I know absolutely nothing to tell you about this year [for Apple]. Bob's going to do that. But I did want to see if there was enough interest in having an organization. Evidently, there is. How often do you think it would be worthwhile to meet? Once a month? What do you think? I am going to pass these papers around so you can put your name, address, and any comments you might have.

Ray Thompson:
Just a suggestion, if you don’t mind, you might also put where you work. Sometimes, there is good cross-feed from our jobs! Thanks.

Bobbie:
And now I'll turn it over to Bob to talk about new developments [at Apple].

Bob:
First, I’d like to thank Bobby for offering the school and doing all the work to get this thing started. As you all know, I would have never accomplished it myself. I think what I'd like to say is that it’s really encouraging to see so many people come. So that must mean that you either love them [Apple] or hate them, one of the two, and I hope it’s love them. I don't want an Apple user thing to become a commercial venture. So this is probably the last time you're going to see me come and do anything other than sit there like a stone.

[I thought we could do] a couple of purposes today that might be interesting to everybody. [I’ll] tell you a little bit about what we know [that is] currently available [from Apple] and maybe answer any questions you collectively may have.

Warren recently visited Apple. He spent a whole day at their plant. They have a brand new plant. It's about a 20,000-square-foot facility in Corteña, California. They're turning out Apples at a great rate, now shipping more units than any other personal computer manufacturer in our business. So it's sort of encouraging since the product has only been out about eight or nine months. If you purchased a machine from me, I told you that many things were coming, and sure enough, they are beginning to arrive. I think it's like software products; everybody says it'll be done in January, and it's always done in June!

So, there are a couple of things that we brought along today to give you an idea of what kinds of things can be done with Apple. The unit you see sitting over here with all the black boxes, chords, and things is a music synthesizer. It plugs into the bus in the back of your Apple. There is preliminary software written in BASIC, and you can write music for it. I know nothing at all about music and very little about this machine other than I took it home and played with it for a couple of days. Any score you want to put into the machine can be entered from the keyboard using certain characters or groups of characters to indicate the notes you want. I think it has an octave range, but I couldn't tell you whether it really and truly does. It is kind of an interesting application of digital analog use of your Apple. All of the information is generated digitally and then pushed through the machine to produce sound. There will be a full production unit for this. I'm told by the people that are making it sometime in the first quarter or the middle of summer. It will have four oscillators; it now has a single oscillator. They have a pre-production unit that Leon Russell uses in his studio to record some of that strange music you hear him play. The Apple [II] has the ability to drive 16 oscillators without slowing us down, so I think that their production unit of four oscillators will be fine. The way it's set up now, you can plug it into a stereo or reproduction system. I just have a little speaker here with me. And something is definitely wrong [with it]. I don't know anything about it other than it did sound nice once when I had it plugged together. I don't know what the instructions are. It's kind of interesting. It's all programmed in Basic, so if you want to change it, it's pretty simple to go in and have modifications to it and get it to do something [different]. I'm not sure whether we will handle these in the store, but I’m quite happy to supply you with the manufacturer’s name if you're interested in contacting them directly. It will probably be in the $500 or $600 range if they have established a price for it. [They will include all] software, the interface, and everything else.

The other thing that we brought along that's fairly new is the interface for the Southwest Tech printer, which comes with a cassette tape and interface board. It goes inside your Apple, and you can connect it up to a little Southwest Tech 40-column printer. It's fairly nice for the Apple because it has a 40-column output. You can do program listings and printer output. The quality is not all that great, but neither is the price. The printer and kit form cost $250, and the interface is $50. The whole thing [is] assembled and tested, and we will be selling for $495. Go buy them!

Listener:
Are we going to be able to get the interface boards through you?

Bob:
Oh, yeah, I've got them now. We have a bunch of them. And for those of you who [have continued to believe me,] that Apple is really going to produce some documentation, I have a preliminary copy of the ultimate user's guide here! [I believe this was the Red Book! RMT] You finally got your Applesoft manuals, I think? This one is a pretty healthy size. This is what they sent out to be typeset, and I got a copy of it. You are welcome to look through it. It is pretty detailed on what is in the Apple. It's got all the circuit diagrams and logic flows of the hardware, as well as a very lengthy discussion about how the machine is organized, the hardware, and the software. So you're welcome to look through that. It went out to be typeset about three weeks ago, and I would guess it's probably another three weeks before they're shipping. In other words, they’ll get it back and make final corrections before the final run. It will come directly to you because you sent in your warranty card and stuff. So you'll be able to pick it up.

We're beginning now to see some of the Apple software arrive, and it comes packaged very nicely. You can see there's the checklist program, which I think must have been beating the crap out of me in the charge. But do you like the fancy carrying case? The same is true with the Applesoft [package]. I don't know, did yours come this way, or did it just come with the table? Yeah, right. Do you have a little reference for that? Check the thing here. Oh, these? No. This is the book. There are going to be a number of others. There are some that I have on order, and they'll be in the store before they're sold.

Listener:
Do these come from Apple?

Yeah. These are the Apple software, which you will [begin seeing] them advertise. I’m sure they’ll send stuff directly to you, and that’s how they'll come packaged.

This is something they've been promising for quite a while. I guess I've had it for about six weeks or two months. It is an extender board that you plug into the bus, allowing you to put your components and circuits together and interface them [for an output]. And it's kind of a handy little thing if you want to play with some things around the house, like running model trains and such. You can do that, please. They're very inexpensive, about $25.

Listener:
How much?

Bob:
$25. Inexpensive? Come on in.

What else did I bring along today? Oh, probably the most important thing that I brought along was this. If you have, you'll probably hate me for announcing this, but if you have any friends or would like to have an Apple for each hand, Apple is having a first-anniversary sale effective Monday! They're here now, and I think they're getting ready to celebrate going from last place to first place in deliveries and its marketplace.

And so they've drastically reduced the price of their two computer systems, an 8K version and a 16K version. They dropped them by about $400, and it's effective through the 5th of February, and we will sell them on a first-come, first-serve basis. I have a pretty good supply right now, but Apple has agreed to take rain checks. If you know somebody who wants one and we're out of them, I will give you a rain check or give them a rain check for one, and we'll fill the order. I've already gotten several sales that I will deliver on Monday, so I don't think my supply is going to last that long. If you know anybody who really wants one, they probably ought to do something pretty quickly to get the machine and the manual to use it.

There is also one other thing, and I don't know where it went around here… There's a new modulator that I just got about three weeks ago. And they're in fairly short supply. They're fully assembled. This is the modulator that you use [on a] regular TV on the antenna terminals. And in some cases, it performs much better than the old-style modulator that I have. The other advantage of it is you don't have to assemble it. It's just kind of nice because people get frustrated with those things. They're in very short supply, but we have several hundred of them on order, and again, whenever the manufacturer decides to deliver them, they'll be available at the store.

Listener:
What kind are they in?

They're called the M&R Enterprises Supermod 2. And they're going to be $30, and it's set up kind of nice. It plugs into that little Molex connector that's on the output board for your video output. It gets its power off of there, and you don't have to mess around with batteries or external power sources or any of that stuff. So it's kind of a nice little gizmo to use. We've had mixed luck with them. Some televisions have a lot of automatic fine-tuning controls, and stuff like that doesn’t work as well as some simpler TVs. I've seen them look almost as good as a monitor, and I've seen them look at the other end. So, if you're concerned and want to check it out, I'll be happy to loan it to you. And then, if you decide that it's better than what you have and you want to make use of it, you can pick it up from there. I think what we ought to try and do is establish. Xxxxxxxx/

I'm not going to say anything more about the Apple product lines or anything like that other than that we have been favorably impressed by the Apple people ourselves and are going to become a lot more involved with Apple through my business. I think you've made a very good decision on Apple. [They] have a lot of products under development, and we're beginning to see advertising now for some of the products that will be available from second sources other than Apple. We do all kinds of interfaces and things that will make having an Apple an awful lot of fun if you're interested in that kind of stuff. They are developing.

When we were out in California, we had a look at their disk system, which is under development. I'm saying three or four months, but I think you're talking about the middle of the summer. I can tell you a little bit about it. It's going to be based on multiple floppy disks. It's going to have two drives and a package that will be aesthetically compatible with your Apple somehow or another. And their target price is $1198, which is going to be a pretty good price for a dual-drive system. And that will include a disk-oriented basis.xxxxxx

Listener:
Will that be a ROM?

No, I think it will be on disk. What it will probably require, though, is some additional ROMs to have the bootstrap loader for the disk operating system. Their target price is $1198. I think they will probably make it [for that]. That will be a pretty powerful computer system, then, with two disk drives and 16K of memory.

Within about another month, we will have a couple of new interfaces: a parallel interface and an interface to all kinds of parallel terminals, Oki data, Solectrics, and other stuff. The first one is in production now. The documentation is completed, so it should arrive fairly soon.

Listener:
So it will be in there? Pardon? Bunked in and out.

Bob:
Yeah. It will have a fair amount of intelligence on the interface itself. Yeah, on the Solectrics, whatever interchange it is.

Listener:
will you be able to [use any memory], or would you have to order a memory from IBM? Can you just use the Solectrics typewriter?

Bob:
Yeah, but it will have to be a communicating Solectrics. It will be not just any old Solectrics, but a communicating Solectrics, or a similar type of terminal should be able to interface fairly easily. They are still working on the HAM radio operators interface, but those guys that have radio on them. When? How soon? I didn't ask. They may have made mention, but I didn't get a date on it.

Listener:
What's going to be the price of the parallel interface?

Bob:
I think it's going to be $180. That's the figure that I would call it. I have, for those people who have serial terminals, a very inexpensive interface for just driving a terminal for printing purposes. And I'll be happy to give you the circuits on it. It either uses one oscillator chip or a transistor and a couple of resistors. It's really pretty dumb. Most of it's done in software. I have that one, but I found out I could hook it directly to my printer without even going through that interface, and that's the way I'm running it now. I can print directly from the TTL. I can just record from the TTL for the enunciated port. Well, some terminals will operate TTL-level settings.

All the things that I was just talking about are going to be an RS-232-type signal. I noticed an ad in Bike Magazine from Heuristics Labs. Their speech lab is now offering a cut-down version for Apple, which costs $189. I plan to get one of those in the store so that you can come in and have a look at it. So you can talk to your computer.

Warren:
What Bob is talking about is a speech recognition device that allows you to talk into a microphone, and the computer understands what you're saying. It’s supposed to understand 30 words.

Listener:
Do they have to be multiple-syllable words, or can they be short?

Well, you know, drink. Those guys' words would probably be OK. I really don't know anything about it. It works the same way as their big version. It will take what they call a breath group, which is anything you can say in three or four seconds or less, like “open the garage door,” for example. It's probably used above one word. Only one person would be able to use it, though, because of the voice pattern. No, you can teach it and reteach it. And so, when you say 32 words, that's really not true either because you have many groups of 32 words. And you swap the words. That's what they use this for looking like. So like, five different people can probably use it. Except you're limiting the vocabulary. And if you want to use short words, you just have to say them out slowly. It takes up some time. And the software control, and that $189, I believe, includes the software.

So, I guess you can see there are a lot of very interesting things to get a hold of for your Apple. Tom Bonfield, who was around here somewhere, there he is… Just gave me a piece of paper that he got out of one of his 6502s. It shows a number of different interfaces. I'll leave it up here on the TV so you can look it over. And if you want to write to these people, you're more than welcome to do that. Find out what they have. But I think it's only indicative of the fact that there are an awful lot of Apples out there in the population today. I would imagine when this sale is over, there could be a lot more Apples out there. There could be a lot more people realizing that the people using these machines represent a large potential market, and they will either take existing products and make them compatible with the Apple or be designing new things.

Tom, does that sale start now?

Starts Monday. Monday. I believe it's the 5th of February. It's about a month long. If not, what it wants now? I think it's four weeks. And, like I said, we've got pretty good stock now. But we will take backorders. But if everybody in the country really does a good job selling these things, they may be reducing their backlog for the rest of the year. It's pretty exciting. I do not expect that that will become the normal price of Apples. I do expect that the price will go back up immediately. I would be violating some confidence by telling you some of the other reasons that there are some very valid business reasons for Apple to be placing a lot of units in the market for financial and other reasons. So they have some good business justification for doing it. And I can't argue with them. It makes my job of selling these things a lot easier with reduced prices.
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The other thing I think we ought to try and accomplish today is to establish possibly the next meeting and assign some duties and things like that. I was thinking that actually, the volunteer program, the person who organized the program, would be the next person to do it. Yes, I think that would be nice. From doing that task as I am, I have more things to do. I have to leave, but I wanted to say about the meeting time. For myself, and probably a lot of other people, this particular time on Saturday can be quite difficult. I don't know whether that's being mentioned or not. We just put it on. 2 o'clock or something like that. Then you get your morning chores kind of the way I have to work the few Saturdays out of the floor or something like that. I want to make the meeting session. Well, I think that's what the inputs are for.

I'd like to let Bobbie take a minute, maybe recording something on this first meeting. And let's see if we couldn't establish a time and a date and somebody to be responsible for the program. She did mention that the headmaster of the school is agreeable to using this facility as long as there's not a conflicting activity going on. Actually, what she said, she'll have to check with the headmaster, but I think that will be all right. Would the second Saturday and February be a good time or the third Saturday? I don't know if you can hear me. Third Saturday? First Saturday? I thought it was the first Saturday. I can't remember. I just I don't see it. The reason I mentioned the second one, not the first, is we are having our admissions testing on the first and second Saturday, but the afternoons would be all right, but one of the hats I wear around here is the director of testing and I know on that first Saturday of the afternoon I'm probably not going to be able to do anything myself. OK. Somebody said that UCB has a meeting first Saturday, so maybe we ought to take a second Saturday. Just stay with the second Saturday of each now. All right. That seems to be a consensus. Those who disagree can leave now. We can leave now. Disagree? I'll see you later. At 10 o'clock, is the time proposed? Is that acceptable? I think we should do it one time—one time, and then see and think we about the next meeting. If we do have it here on that second Saturday, it would have to be on the afternoon because of UCB's building. I think we're only trying to establish the next one and not a second Saturday. Second Saturday of February at 2 PM, there will be another meeting.

Do we have a volunteer to establish some sort of program discussion about Apple software, hardware, insanity, or whatever else that goes on in this business? No volunteers? You mean we have to go into the selective service? All right. We'll assign everybody a number here and get the algorithm to select it.

Is there anybody who's working on something with their Apple that they would like to discuss or show next time? Or if there's someone here who you know several people have out there, you might need to be more of a physician to know what people want to do.

If the risk of getting myself in the position I don't want to be, I'd say that a good app or program is to let everybody get part of the program. And the other things that I'd like to see now, I'm not at all embarrassed to say that I've got an 8K machine. I'm still very happy with it. And I don't want to talk to people who are running 8K machines and still don't know a thing about machine language. The other reason I want to be in this group is to learn about the rest of it. But I would bring my simple little bar graph program that I'm so proud of, and I would show it at the next meeting. There's probably not over a couple that still want to learn. I'd still have done that. And if everybody else would just bring something that's their own, especially something that's their own, I think that's a lot of fun. Then that would help us get past another meeting. And I'd be very interested in seeing, well, he had an interface, like the one this morning, I found Mr. Interface.

Sam's telling me, and I'd just like to know a little more about it. A lot of things that I'd like to do, Bob, is have some of the more experienced programmers help us with machine language programming. I've done a particular project from every service that I've had. And one of the things that we talked about earlier was that memory testing program that I got out of the kinkbook. I'm stuck on that one on how to take that particular program and use it with the Apple monitor. And I've tried. I've not done it too well yet. That would be something I'd be interested in, as well as the business-type programs that I'm writing.

Well, we have use of the school's computers, or should a couple of us bring them around? We have two here, and I'm sure that we could have those available. I've got to go, but it would be very useful if we could take maybe three, four minutes now and just go let each person say what area they would like to see the club working in in the future. That way we would all know what different people interested might be getting, business applications or otherwise.

Well, yeah, I think so. Let me make one other comment. We see a lot of newsletters from different clubs. This seems to be the traditional thing, trying to find a few, getting things up here and making some sort of presentation. The one thing that I do know is programming. And that is machine language programming and programming basics. Maybe this club could take a little different time and do some real educational work. That's to have somebody make a presentation each time on some facet of programming and basics or something. Yeah, or a series of, start us out on a series of machine language programming, basic, and that'd be great. I think that's a task that would really make the club a very violent thing.

I think your suggestion to get some ideas is pretty accurate. I'll do it. I'll start off and then we'll go that way. Why don't we make some notes? Just as a guess, each person would give their first interest. We want to make it two interests. Say the first two interests. OK. OK, that's my first two interests. Number one would be games. And number two would be efficiency of programming. The little techniques that people have learned to do things.

You're primarily interested in basic or machine language?

I’d say basic at this point. I'd like to put machine language, simple instruction there myself. I almost attempted to violate my own suggestion for a third. That would be interest in the use of graphics. Anybody else? I'll just go right up and down the list. I think graphics would be my first interest there.

I'd also like someone out here who is a bit better at it than I am to give some pointers on data storage. I understand now we can do it just in the Apple basics, but also we're especially working on data storage in Apple software. Anybody have any information on that?

I would say education or proficiency in programming. I think programming is my primary interest. I mean, business, I think. Analysis, accounting, and credit. Well, I'm interested in all of them. I just heard crazy that you use. And in particular, I teach computer programming to send home writers. This is one I think is here. But if you look through it, I have some data that they wrote in the 40s, 50s, and 50s. We're in the process of convincing our administration to actually put their name on the line and give us one.

That brings up a point that I wanted to mention, too. How many of you have children of an age who are or would be interested in you? I would be very interested in having a junior section of the organization. And I hope you would bring your students. Yeah, I'd like to join. I'd like to join. I'd like to show you around. Well, I think there would be a lot of interest there working with them all day, every day here. And I know Norma realizes there would be a lot of interest. So I would encourage you to bring your children or other students that you know who would be interested. And I think perhaps they could meet either with this group that they wanted to or separately on the same day and talk about things that are of interest to you. So that's a great idea. What does that tell you? Junior members? No, they're not like you. I know I will. I'm on here. I'm on help. And I'm sure the students we have would do a lot. And I think you just need to get them a machine. What do you teach? 7K for math, algebra, and math. What kind of programming? What language? Well, the machine had no use for single language. But the big thing I forget was it was constructed with about half a K of RAM, which gave them 7K. But you can't use that much for that. And so I try to figure out things that are easy enough they can understand and short enough that you can program. And you know. What is that? It's, the grand name is number up, which most people don't program because of capital. Have you ever thought about programming in a high-level language? It doesn't have any room. It doesn't have that much room. No, that's the problem. It has approximately 2K or less in general. And it's got the whole thing. And so it was designed for drill practice and computation. But it has this other room at that time. It's a band of programs. One point I think we ought to make here. It's fairly significant. Bring a few phrases for Bobby and her organization here. They use their machine from the first grade through high school in China. It's just incredible considering that we have a lot of time. Two students here, Mark Lindsay and David Bach, are doing some of the teaching. I'm starting to teach or operators how to use them. They go that slowly. They're going to be 10% faster. And Mark is also working for a science project for Mr. Trying to Use the Apples, a cloud feedback machine. My wife is a fourth grade teacher. She has yet to see the narrative by buying an Apple phone. Bring her along. I'm working on some materials for people like that called Apprenticeship in Apples, All Things. That's my husband. Yesterday, he was in a black and white movie. It's a good way for him to get a college degree. The black one looks much better on camera. Going around, I understand the next row. Well, I don't have an Apple yet. Actually, my main interest is to come here to see what the users were interested in. But they've been working on it. You're taking notes, then, probably. Write it down. My interest probably would be with interfacing the Apple with various peripherals. The second would be to get John Bowie here with me. He's the one that does my machine-level programming. My interest in Apples is I'm in the habit of befriending people at home. I'm interested in basic subroutine, particularly business subroutines, and also machine-level languages. You sound like a good kid to do some presentations. I hope not. You're going to frame the group. Scientific and technical stuff, statistics programs. Right now, I'm getting an academic credit demonstrating the utility of machine. Our computer science department is run by a man who probably knew grace and offered personally. He started work with the V-Line computers. If it doesn't have a 72-bit word and 50 megabytes online, he doesn't think he can do much with it. I would also like to see the formation of a club software library. I think that's a really good idea. That would take a lot of work. Very nice gathering point. Take some of the responsibility off me. Also, if we had a software library, we could keep a master copy of each in her office. In our meetings, people could bring their consent and make copies of them for their machines. It would also be nice if someone had a working pen interface which generates a hard copy. That's a good point. I have my interest right now. I have a pen or two. And I have an ID. I'm going to go through some 38-column thermal paper right now. I could get some copies, and I can also make copies where I work, which is no problem. What's your name? Chuck. Chuck is my name. You'll find it on there. In that area, I have an interest in machine language. I have an interest in machine language programming. And of course, everything else that the machine will do, everything that's listed up there, I have an interest in. But my big goal is computer-aided manufacturing. I've studied some programming in there, you know. What is that? Dale drove all the way here from Long Beach today. I'll say that. Well, I'm just starting out, and I'm very interested in the programming aspect of it. But listening to these gentlemen talking about it, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. And I'm going to try to figure out what I want to do. And I'm going to try to figure out what I want to do. I've been talking about it, and I'm trying to major in computer science. I've had data processing. And listening to these gentlemen talk, I know I don't know anything about these computers. So I'm starting to be programming business applications. I just want to learn about the microcomputer. I know that we're going to be talking about the regular computer generally. Two ways, one way or the other. I think I agree with you. Listening to people talk, we obviously have quite a spectrum of interests and abilities. But I think perhaps there would be room to touch on all of them. Yeah. I think my primary interest, two primary interests right now, are programming and basic. And graphics. And I'm especially interested in just the home budget and home bookkeeping program. And I'd like to make a comment or two about our potential organization. I think most anyone that's been in a club is aware that this is usually the first thing we get into is that sure enough we are interested in everything. And then sometimes people get disappointed because the club is not going in a particular direction. But really that's a disadvantage. And I hope that everyone will enjoy all of the other things that they're not presently interested in. One of the main advantages of the club. And I'd like to ask a couple of things to discuss after we break up. I've got two problems right now that I'm interested in. One, I have a perfectly good TV set and I wonder if anyone knows anything about converting it to a monitor. I have information on converting black and whites, and I wonder if anybody has done it for a car set. And the second thing is I'm interested in a... I have a tape for my Apple and I have more memories of it. One of them is bad, I can't tell which one. And I wonder if anyone has memory diagnostics or any suggestions about how to go about figuring out that because there's a lot to go about figuring that out. All of the above. All of the above? Back up to the thing. All of the above, but I'd like to know some more about that machine language programming. Okay, too great a show. And back up to... Really games, other than that, it's just a little bit hard. I'll go to whatever happens to the stack. You okay? The machine language programming, of course, pardon me, I'm driven up the music. And the 6502 processor. Specific. I'm interested in all that stuff. I've been a programmer for 20 years now. I still love to do it. That's why I bought the computer, I like the programmer. Especially to help people debug their programming. What was there to program 20 years ago? It was an IBM 6-bit. Ben's G15. That's what I had my first experience on. Treco in Austin, about 15 years ago. Programming Labs, TX0, IBM 704, and stuff like that. Also, I have taught programming. I'm not a professional teacher, but 15 years ago, Control Data was selling computers to high schools. For bright students, they thought it had to be bright students. They charged $50,000 then for their selling G15s to them. I was their teacher. I know how to use machine language on this machine. You sound like another good candidate for it. So I'd be glad to help with any of those things. As easy as it is to program its computer, do you feel like the jobs become an obsolete? No. Not yet? They've got to be getting better. Programmers don't spend all their time programming. In fact, very little. They spend most of their time designing, maintaining, improving, debugging, helping design. Well, to give you an idea, I used to work for a company that had 1,500 employees in the computer business worldwide. And software development. We had about 100 full-time software developments. And if you looked at projects, all kinds of projects, they produced four lines of code, finished code, per hour of programming. I thought it was better than the average. I've heard averages like that thrown in the lab. What does the overhead come in? Well, it means total hours versus total lines of code produced. Finished product code, running, debug, and everything. So that's what you're talking about. It's because of the $10 a line. My primary interest is in programming, all aspects of programming. And also in computer engineering. Analog, digital, converters, digital, analog, converters, and so forth. Is that up here somewhere? I'm not sure. Is it up here? We're looking for the other place. I'm interested in everything. I'm trying to teach myself how to program so that I can pursue my interests. And basically machine learning? Mostly, I'm not interested in machine learning. I play games, I do graphics, whatever I can do with my system. I've taught software manager at Apple. He and I have gotten to be fairly good friends. The new Apple Soft will be available in ROM in about, he says, four months, give him six. It will cost about $200. It will be in about, we've got eight slots, it will be in eight crumbs. It will have high-res graphics capabilities, whereas the Apple Soft now does not. And it's going to be a big improvement over the Apple Soft now. Will it have the monitor? Yes, it will have everything. So you just have to replace all of your ROMs that you have now. I was talking to him about taking the Apple Soft and putting it into e-croms and relocating it. And he tried to turn me off on that. But I still think it's possible to relocate that Apple Soft so that we can put Apple Soft on a card on e-croms and then still have 16k left on your machine. That's, you know, I'm interested in some of the different things. Mr. Carpenter, I talked to you, Chuck, about what he wants to do on the computer-aided manufacturing. It's very interesting to me because we're on a service, a utility service now that does the same thing. And if he gets his thing working and if I'm here to tell him one of these days what we'd like to have, we'll do some business. But that's what I think. Well, I hope what I'm about to say is not going to be considered silly. I'm interested in home budgeting. I haven't got time to be a hobbyist. I'm looking for someone who can implement a system I have in mind, but I don't want to play an arm and a leg to do it. Well, there's several in the new magazines in basic that you could put into your machine. I'm probably the only person in the room who's bought a computer about two months ago and it's still sitting in the- I haven't got time to figure it out at the moment. That's really sick. He likes that computer. I haven't got time to figure it out at the moment. All these high school students- I'll let you use it as a trade-off before you get my program that I want to do up and working. It's still sitting in the box. It's still sitting in the box with the original styrofoam cover and plastic- Give it back to Bob. He'll sell it again. Someone did a good sales job. I told you it was going to be silly, but I haven't got the time at the moment and probably won't be for the next six months or a year. It's not so silly because I don't do as much with my computer because I don't know what to do. Given time, I can- I don't care about it. I get programs from Bob and I read them in the magazines. Given time, I could get interested in all this stuff and maybe six months or a year from now, I will have that time, but not at the moment. But I have a specific need now today, yesterday, six months ago. Bob, didn't you give him some progress? You could get your software the same way the digital group did. They went to one of the local high schools and challenged the high school students about how much they were getting written by the high school students for the use of the computers. That's the problem. Brandon, Bob was willing to show me how to use it. I didn't have time to take- for him to do that for me. I'm sorry. Did I get the 16 thing? Yeah. You are. You are. Did we leave anyone out? Primary interest in other high level materials, I'll just barely be doing on the list from my- I'm not going to get into more on that because I have more memory. You can't afford 16 page books.”