Episode 132: Yukon Software

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Flack
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Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by Flack »

Episode 132 is Online.

In Episode 132 of You Don't Know Flack I talk about the computer store my family owned and ran in the 1980s, Yukon Software.

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Episode 132: http://podcast.robohara.com/?p=317
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AArdvark
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Re: Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by AArdvark »

Was this a sad episode for you? Sounded kinda subdued. Or was it the thin hotel walls?
Earl Green

Re: Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by Earl Green »

Just getting caught up. I can totally relate to doing a podcast in a weird conspiratorial "stage whisper" trying to sound normal - I had to re-record some of my little mini-podcasts recently while my kid was in the bathtub and was trying to do my normal "RADIO VOICE!" without being so loud that the inevitable "DAD WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO!?" would appear in the background. :lol: (As it happened, something even worse interrupted - he started screaming because he lost tooth #2!)

Now here's the part where, after nearly every podcast, my own closest-comparable-experiences-to-Flack's come racing back to me:

I spent a lot of time in Fort Smith's original (and, at the time, only) Apple dealership, Bits & Bytes, circa 1983 or so. Which would've made me... 11? I was hanging out there because I had just taken over the only BBS in town, which was operated by the Apple users' group; the SysOp was actually an elected position chosen by the members of the users' group, and I think I got it by virtue of "Great! No one else wants to mess with it. Let the kid run wild." The BBS ran on an Apple II+ in the back with two floppy drives, and needed some serious TLC, so I'd spend entire days there, pretty much between my mom dropping me off in the morning and picking me up when she got off work, so I might as well have been working there.

The users' group was called HAUG - a play on Hog (i.e. Arkansas Razorbacks), and an acronym for Hardcore Apple Users' Group. When my grandmother heard what the name of the users' group was, she was completely disgusted. Hardcore? Doesn't that mean porn? (The funny thing is... I had never heard of porn before my grandmother mentioned it. Thanks grandma!)

The BBS was called... well, the BBS used the name of its software, as early bulletin board systems were wont to do. It used the Public Message System software... and so it was PMS BBS. And I cheerfully spent that whole summer trying to get everyone to call PMS. Because PMS is the coolest in town. Again, I had no idea that there were implications beyond... well, Public Message System. Thanks PMS!

The guy running the place was named Dick. He was a very humorless guy, and barely seemed to tolerate me being there. During one of the evening users' group meetings, I had my big box o' floppies there and was using a copy program to copy... for someone else... the "demo" side of the Dazzle Draw floppy. My own Dazzle Draw floppy. He didn't want the program, he wanted the demo side. I guess Dick was familiar enough with what a copy program looks like (what's up with that, Dick?) that he marched over, grabbed my Dazzle Draw floppy out of the drive and took off with it, grumbling "I'm gonna teach you to copy MY software!" Two things happened at the end of the meeting:

1. I was told by the group president that I had been relieved of my SysOp duties and was no longer welcome to attend the meetings because I'd been caught copying the store's software. I was also told my parents would be getting a call. (Best I can tell, they never did.)

2. While I was packing up my stuff and waiting for my folks to pick me up, almost in tears, Dick showed up with the Dazzle Draw floppy. He hadn't realized until after he'd thrown his behind-the-scenes bitch fit that my name was written on the label. Thanks Dick!

So thus ended my summer-and-change at Bits & Bytes. Not quite the same childhood-in-a-computer-store tale, but it was entertaining enough at the time. And I did have the last laugh - I had copied one disk in the store's possession: the BBS software. I wiped the database, gave it a new name, and started my own BBS on the second phone line my folks had gotten for my outgoing-BBS-call habit. And there was no way I was going allow some Dick to call it PMS. Period.

Oh, as a footnote: the group president was busted a few years later for software piracy on some kinda grand scale. If my memory isn't completely off, he ran or co-owned a local construction company. Guess Dick never got all over him... erm... anyway.
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Flack
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Re: Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by Flack »

AArdvark wrote:Was this a sad episode for you? Sounded kinda subdued. Or was it the thin hotel walls?

I'm a little depressed at the moment after being gone for (counting) 9 days so far, but it didn't have anything directly to do with the topic. If anything I was more tired than sad.
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Flack
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Re: Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by Flack »

[quote="Earl Green"]I spent a lot of time in Fort Smith's original (and, at the time, only) Apple dealership, Bits & Bytes...[/img]
I was a member of two different local Commodore user groups. Both were anti-piracy, one more vigilant about it than the other. Mostly what I discovered was, it wasn't okay for US to copy games, but when the adults did it, it was okay.
Flack
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Earl Green

Re: Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by Earl Green »

Flack wrote:Mostly what I discovered was, it wasn't okay for US to copy games, but when the adults did it, it was okay.

Yep. After I was chewed up and spat out by the HAUG, I started hanging out with the local Commodore group. Even though I didn't own Commodore anything. They tolerated me mainly because I was good at cracking jokes on very short notice. But that's a whole different set of stories.
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AArdvark
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Re: Episode 132: Yukon Software

Post by AArdvark »

The one and only users group meeting I ever went to was either Atari or Apple (don't really remember which) but the only thing that sticks in my head was one of the members calling it shameful that one of their machines was hooked up to a Commodore 1701 monitor. Opened my eyes about how these people really thought about 'the others'.

After that I joined CUGOR (by mail) and called it good.


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