By: Gary Field

Here is a true story:

In 1976 the recently invented microprocessor (1971) had caught on and was making it possible for people to have their own computers. In addition to small computers, dumb terminals (or glass teletypes as they were sometimes called) became practical and enabled people to connect to time sharing systems via the phone line. My friend Larry and I decided that we would design and sell phone modems. We started a company called CompuComm. Larry and I each put up $500 and Larry’s uncle Izzy put up $2000 to get us started.

We designed the modem (300 bps, which was close to state of the art at the time), made some kits, and sold some through a few local computer stores.

Well, later the same year, Kilobaud Computing (A personal computing magazine started by Wayne Green after his loss of Byte magazine in a divorce settlement), sponsored a computer show in Boston at the Commonwealth Pier Exhibition Hall (now called the World Trade Center). Being the big entrepreneurs that we were, Larry and I had to get a booth. We convinced the magazine to let us have a booth in exchange for one of our modem kits.

We figured we should try to use the show to full advantage. So, to build up a mailing list, we bought a $20 Texas Instruments watch to raffle off and got people to fill out their name and address on slips of paper and put them in a box for the raffle. The night before the show we were still spray painting the cases in my father’s garage. They were barely dry in time. We ordered a temporary phone line installed at the show so we could demo our modems. We put up our hand painted signs and got ready to peddle our wares.

We talked to lots and lots of people but I don’t remember actually selling any modems at the show. One Chinese man with a red bow tie spent a while talking to us about our business and our product and then filled out a raffle slip and put it in the box and went on his way to other booths.

After the show, we pulled a random name from the box and sent off the prize. Later, when we sat down to transcribe all those names and addresses into a mailing list, we came across one slip that read "An Wang, Lowell, MA"!

It turned out that this must have been some sort of omen, because shortly thereafter, I ended up working for Dr. An Wang at Wang Laboratories in Lowell, MA and remained there for the next 16 years!

If there ever was an entrepreneur it was Dr. Wang. Apparently, he was pleased and no doubt amused, by our budding modem business and probably remembered back to the early 1950s when he first started out. We only ever sold a couple hundred of those modems, but the experience of doing it was quite worth while.