I remember the instant I first saw the Apple Newton.
EUREKA !
THE CELLULAR COMPUTER !!
I was a computer supplies salesman, on foot in the SF Financial District. My job was good and fun, but I could see a future where there would no need for a guy like me. And I wanted to be able to continue to feed my family.
If a customer asked me “Can you get me 2000 reels of magnetic tape tomorrow morning ?” That’d be a $20,000 order if I could get the answer back FAST ! The way it worked was I had to leave their office, find a nearby payphone bank in one of the fancy hotels, call my headquarters and ask BettyLou if we had the goods, at what cost, and ask to speak with the warehouse manager to ask if he could meet the delivery requirements. If I got good answers, I’d then call my customer and ask for the purchase order.
Sheesh. A lot of running around, and think how much better that scenario could have been if I could get the answers and order placed, while sitting at my client’s desk and never leaving my guest chair !
I figured with one of these I could connect to my company’s mainframe in the headquarters office, while I was IN my client’s office.
While salivating on that prospect, I imagined other applications. Medical professionals accessing patient history and possible methodologies in Medical databases while at the patient’s bedside. Lawyers in the courtroom getting records from their office files and past decisions from legal services like Lexis-Nexis, and Westlaw. Engineers and repair people accessing infrastructure maps.
I was really getting fascinated with all the possibilities.
I began researching Wireless Data Communications. I went to meetings of the people working to make it happen, held at Apple Headquarters on Infinite Loop in Cupertino. I even made up a business name and card with it: Wireless Rackmount ! I imagined I would become a systems integrator for companies looking to offer such services to their employees and customers. Mind you, this was years before a viable internet was a real thing.
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When making sales calls on my diverse computer customers I often had to wait in the lobby. I would peruse their industry magazines on display. On a visit to one of the larger engineering firms I discovered TRENCHLESS TECHNOLOGY. Still a birthing infrastructure methodology, with great potentials. Instead of disrupting busy downtown comings and goings or threatening historic buildings, they re-purposed oil drilling/exploration tech to go sideways instead of down. If a sewer line had collapsed, for instance, they could drive from an adjacent basement, with the drill head breaking up the damage into a perfect medium, and the new pipe and it’s contents would be following on the rear portion of the assembly. One shot and the entire installation would be complete.
Before the dig, a camera would be sent through the tube to evaluate the damage and the best way get to where work was needed. A company in a town near my home was developing such a seeing eye.
I attended Trenchless trade shows to meet sales managers of interesting companies and convince them to hire a seasoned salesman. No dice…..