Past Presidents – December 1989
Newsletter
by Saul Lowitt, Ph.D., Founder, April
1982 to February 1983
There are members of
the Sarasota IBM PC User’s Group who have been familiar with (mainframe)
computers for 30 years: Skip Pape & Dr. George Petri, who worked for IBM,
and systems analyst Dean Ewalt, among them. For me, the computer age began in
September 1981 when I purchased my first (of 4) IBM PC. At that time, the
number of programs one could purchase was narrowly limited:
Easywriter (which never worked), Visicalc and a handful of
forgotten programs. I chose to learn Basic, which was included with PC DOS and
began a wonderful Career as a PROGRAMMER. At this time I was performing
endocrine research 4 days a week for the Pediatrics Department of the
University of South Florida. During the other 3 days I tried to supplement my
income writing computer programs. This took all of my time. I established a
small business, "Custom Scientific Computer Programs". I directed my
advertising to the 94 Medical Schools in the U.S.A. and received several
commissions to write programs to collect and (statistically) analyze data
from scientific experiments. I plunged headlong into these projects
(subsequent analysis showed that I earned about $ 2.00/hour for this effort).
At this early stage in my computer career, I didn’t know the appropriate use
of every Basic command and was stumped many times in both the creation of data
bases, and the proper method for selectively bringing stored disk data back
into the Basic environment for statistical analysis. Many times I called
Computerland (then, the only vendor of IBM PC’s in Sarasota) and requested
help with various Basic commands. The sales personnel were helpful, but I
needed more indepth help immediately (the optimal degree of after-the-sale
support has yet to be defined). Once I realized that others might also
require help, I concluded that regular meetings of a bunch of IBM PC Users
would be beneficial to everyone.
The first club meeting was held at my home in April 1982,
and six people were present: I was elected President shortly thereafter.
The problems I confronted then no longer exist today: (1)
There were few applications programs available, resulting in difficulty in
fmding anyone who could describe what his favorite program did & how he
made use of it (notable exception was a great talk by Chuck Entwistle about
Wordstar) and (2) there was an enormous gap in knowledge between our computer
professionals and beginners (not enough people attended meetings for us to
divide into SIG’s).
In February 1983, I became a full time member of the
faculty at the College of Medicine in Tampa and decided to step down from the
Presidency. Fortunately, Richard Reynolds, a fine organizer and experienced
programmer was elected President in about April 1983.
In Tampa I founded the U.S.F. IBM PC User’s group and was
able to attend meetings of both clubs.
I have much affection for the club members I know and have gotten much
pleasure from club meetings (and 90% of my knowledge).
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