Talk:Itty bitty machine company

Notes

Does anybody know what really happened to this company? There is a story that IBM sent more lawyers to their shop than they had employees but I've seen that story attached to other names (of course, the basic story may have happend more than once). Anybody know what they made or how big they were? (I saw them at a trade show in Phoenix AZ in 1979 or 1980 but don't remember anything but the name and an impression that they made micros, though I may not have really known the difference at the time) It'd be really nice to have someone who worked for them update this... 3ch — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.228.250.183 (talk)

They did not "make" micros, but rather they sold kits. Or assembled kits for sale. I have updated the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted@SysAdminDay.com (talk • contribs)

I need expert help to properly edit this article for wikipedia standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted@SysAdminDay.com (talk • contribs)

Clean-up

I did a bit of cleaning to take off some but not all of the initial rough edges. I'll only mention one removal here, that of the sentence "They are mentioned in the book Soul of a new machine by Tracy Kidder, in the chapter "Going to the fair"." If some relevant article content can be cited to this source, then that's ok, but just noting the company was mentioned in a book is not relevant. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Northwestern University

I believe the location of the store and it's relationship to Northwestern University is important. Many of the customers where Northwestern University engineering students. Several of the employees where also Northwestern University students. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted@SysAdminDay.com (talk • contribs)

Thank for help with Wikipedia standards

Thank you very much for the great editing and help with the Wikipedia standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted@SysAdminDay.com (talk • contribs)

Soul of a new machine by Tracy Kidder

The reference to "Soul of a new machine by Tracy Kidder" was from the original poster of this article. I've got a copy of this book in my bookshelf, So, I will find the reference in the book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted@SysAdminDay.com (talk • contribs)

One of the first places to buy an Apple I computer

In the interview article (reference), it states that this store is one of only four places to purchase an Apple I computer. It's location was walking distance from Northwestern University, which was not an accident. The interview states that Steve Jobs made the deal to sell Apple I computers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted@SysAdminDay.com (talk • contribs)

I used to work there...

I worked there part-time for a while, back in the 1977-78 timeframe. I was one of the guys down in the dungeon (basement), assembling and testing the kits so they could sell pre-assembled hardware. IIRC they were indeed visited by IBM lawyers, but were allowed to continue using the name provided the 'i', 'b', and 'm' were never capitalized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Uchima (talk • contribs) 21:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I ran worked in Evanston store and then ran the Lombard store

I don't remember anything about gangs of lawyers entering the store. I believe it was all done by mail in the usual way lawyer way.

I remember one very funny in retrospect incident at the store. A man bought a Lear ADM3 video terminal kit from us. He came back on Monday and said "This thing doesn't work." I went in the back room with Perry Ferrazi the manager at Eveanston at the time. We opened it up and there were caterpillars of solder everywhere. Each DIP chip (example 7400) had globs of solder running from one pin to the next making a dead short across all of them. Perry knew this was an important customer we wanted to keep. We walked out front to talk to the solderer. Perry asked him "How long did it take you to build the kit?" He replied, "About 2 six packs." Perry walked to the back and was very angry. He sent me back to tell the ADM owner it would probably take us a week or so to fix it. The man was happy. We had to build a new ADM3 to give him and then try desoldering and rebuilding the ADM3 that was wrecked. Kit building failures didn't help itty bitty profits. A9k (talk) 01:33, 3 May 2010 (UTC)