– Guestbook

I started BTI Computer Systems January of 1981 working in the Quality Dept. As an incoming inspector, then WIP and final inspection for the BTI 8000, working for Bob Carlson when he was hired on.

I seemed to outshine with Kathy Hensley, as she had commented that I would make a good buyer with my part knowledge. I started in the purchasing dept. August of 1982 on a trial run. I exceeded all expectations and got the job as a buyer and eventually as a Senior Buyer, until November of 1990 when my name came up on the layoff list.

I worked with Juergen Kaiser again until his retirement from Geometrics, almost 5 years ago. I am still with Geometrics, 18 years in May. BTI was the best company ever and the management style. Thank you Kathy Hensley for believing in me! May you rest in peace!

frankers77@yahoo.com

I worked at BTI in England from 1982 to 1986, before moving to Sun. Some fun trips around Europe.

I'm roger.collier77@gmail.com if anyone's interested.

I was somewhat of a late-comer to BTI. I arrived in Sunnyvale, CA in August 1983 to serve as the IBM communications architect reporting to Rudy Folden. In addition to defining the strategy to connect the BTI 3000 and 4000 to IBM mainframes, I needed to build a team to execute on that strategy. Rudy and I hired Bob Consoli and TK (Thangavel Kilakkathi) to make the entire IBM networking team.

By the time my first anniversary rolled around in the summer of 1984, it had become clear that we would not be able to execute on an IBM networking strategy with only 3 developers. I left BTI that summer and, after IBM networking stints at Ungermann-Bass and 3Com, I joined Cisco Systems.

At Cisco, I was finally able to form the team I needed to build the software necessary to connect Cisco routers to IBM's SNA networks. I spent 20 years at Cisco and retired in 2009 after successfully leading the engineering team that ousted IBM from the field of data networking entirely. That effort required building an entire business unit of over 300 engineers, marketing, and sales people ... therefore proving that my gut reaction to abandon that 3-person team at BTI back in 1984 was the right decision.

I was Midwest Sales Manger in Minneapolis and believe I sold the first BTI 8000 to a new customer. Paul Kruger was my systems guy. Gary Mueller was Manager of FE support in Mn.

I worked as part of a 2 member IT team with Dayton's Ticket Service in Minneapolis from 1984-85, where we moved a BTI 8000 from one floor to another.. We made up most of the cabling for our bank of multiplexers and 9.9K modems from scratch

Have not been on the site for awhile, but it was good to check in. The comment from the USIU person hit home. Before joining BTI I was one the founders of CHAMA and worked on SOARS until moving back East and joining BTI in 1980. Great times for sure.

I enjoyed browsing through the website and remembering some of the history. I worked at BTI from 1983 to 1986 as a hardware engineer working on CPU5 for the BTI 8000 (see my story in People). Great website.

I learned to program in high school in an HP 2000. In college, I went to work for a construction company and we purchased a BTI xxx. Don't recall model number. It was so exciting in 1976 to have "my own" computer. We bought a construction package and used it for years until the company closed due to the owner dying. Great machine.

I worked for US International University in San Diego in the 1980s. We ran our school administration package on a BTI 4000 there on another at our satellite campus in London. Both campuses upgraded to 8000s. We also had a model 3000 sitting unused in the corner that I was told had been the second one BTI had sold. The professor who managed the department had also spun off a company (Chama Corporation) to sell the administrative software to other colleges.

Almost everything we did was in BASIC.

Today Martin Peters died, he was on the English Football team in 1966 when England last won the World Cup. After his football carreer he set up a car dealership in London with Geoff Hurst another famous footballer. They ran their business on a BTI 8000 computer until 1991 when my company bought them out and scrapped their computer systems, so I remember the 8000 well. Just a snippet of history

Goodness knows how I found this site.!

I worked in Customer / Field Service in the UK friom 1982 to 1985. Fond memories. I left to start my own business in a completely different field and left the world of computers behind,

The 8000 certainly did have a Cobol compiler from RyanMcFarland - I wrote some test programs using it. we were looking for system that could handle a lot of terminals.

I worked as a parts manager for a Cadillac Oldsmobile dealership in PA. I went to "Reynolds & Reynolds" school in NJ In 1978 to learn all about the BTI-3000 system we just (purchased/leased) I was the backup SysAdmin. We had to build a special air conditioned room to keep the BTI-3000 cool. When I left in 1981 the tech login was "HEL-@003, tta" I could login from home (TRS-80 model 1) using my 300 baud modem to print reports on my own dot matrix printer because that was cheaper than getting another one from R&R... We had 2 "Scopes" in the parts department. Thank you for the opportunity to post!

Thanks to Alan Hartman for pointing me to this site. As he mentioned, I started my IT career at CHAMA in San Diego. We produced a college administration software package that ran exclusively on BTI hardware. We called the product SOARS (Student Oriented Admission and Registration Software). This was in the late 1970’s. We had very bright college “kids” at CHAMA who really pushed the envelope with BASIC and BTI hardware that helped improve BTI’s offerings. As a partner with BTI I had the opportunity to get know some great people like Tom Poulter and Jon Nickerson. As my plans changed to move back East in 1980, BTI offered me that job that Alan mentioned. We settled in Cherry Hill NJ and spent a few great years with all the folks that Alan mentioned. It also included the opportunity to continue to work closely with CHAMA while they continued to produce software on BTI hardware including the 8000. BTI produced literature and marketed the software. I do have old CHAMA literature which I will share with this site. The infamous “layoff” allowed me to dip my toe into direct sales as well maintain my tech skills. I learned a lot. Since that time, I made additional stops with other hardware companies but ended with a software company based in NYC selling Business Intelligence and data management software. We had relocated to Glen Gardner, NJ by then. Now, I am retired living in Greenville, NC.

I have very fond memories of my time at BTI and maintain a deep respect and admiration for all the people I met while working there.

Looking at this site, I saw several mentions of colleges using BTI. These schools were also customers of CHAMA running the SOARS software. I recall – USIU (CA), Southwestern Adventist College (TX), Liberty College (M), Bryant College (RI), Illinois College of Optometry (IL), Monmouth University (NJ), Bloomfield College (NJ), Knoxville College (TN), Messiah College (PA), Theil College (PA), Idaho State University (ID). An added data bit about Illinois College of Optometry (ICO) – I hired John Gilbert from USIU and while working with ICO he met his future wife and stayed on at ICO as their Director of IT managing the BTI 8000. John and I remain friends and stay in touch. In fact he had been my golf partner over the years.

My email is danpru52@gmail.com

Some Sunnyvale employees not on your list:

Downey Overton -- National Sales Manager

Diane Derin -- sales / marketing ?

Gail Dolby (accounting?)

Bill Feldman -- Eastern Regional Sales Manager, Piscataway NJ. Bill hired me to be ER Systems Analyst manager in 1979. I had been with Data General at the time, and my former coworkers were envious of the 8000's 60 MB/s bus.

Dan Prusinowski -- was the President of Chama in San Diego, a BTI 5000 dealer with college registration software. He came to work for BTI in 1980(?) as a Systems Analyst reporting to me. He and I remain in touch.

Eastern Region sales reps:

• Harold Shanske-- NJ
• John Hansen -- Boston
• Howard Skruggs -- Washington DC
• Sid Reich -- NJ

Sid was the sales guy responsible for the "Education" market. Of particular note, he sold a 5000 to Monmouth College, which was the site used for Daddy Warbucks' mansion in the movie "Annie". The payment Monmouth College received for their role in the movie helped fund their purchase of an 8000 a year later.

Bill O'Donnell,Atlanta sales rep, not sure if he reported to Bill Feldman or someone else.

Walt Flournoy -- Systems Analyst in Atlanta (passed away apx 1981)

I was part of the layoff in 82, but came back not long afterwards on a part-time basis when Dan P left. I've been involved with my own software business since 1984, and a sideline photography business for the last 10 years.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the note from Gina Luisi, former BTI 5000 customer. She & I became good friends over the years I was involved with BTI and afterwards as I did software consulting. We lost touch some years ago, but seeing her name & comments has inspired me to try to regain contact.

Thanks very much for putting this site together, my BTI years were some of the most satisfying years of my career, and I still feel honored to have worked along side of some very, very smart people.

Anyone who might want to drop me an email, try abh@skylandsphotography.com

In the early 1980’s I worked for a company named HR1 Connect, an off shoot of Performance Dynamics, both owned by Bob Gerberg. These companies were located in Parsippany, NJ and later moved to Roseland, NJ. Performance Dynamics was an executive job search company which provided clients with training on interview skills and prepared multiple customized resumes and cover letters. They also offered a service, through HR1 Connect, which matched the client to a Dun & Bradstreet industry data base based on SIC codes and then did mass mailings of custom resumes and cover letters to prospective employers in an effort to help them find the perfect job! That is where the BTI 5000 came into play. I worked for Bill Oliver and was the person who ran the IT services arm of HR1 Connect. I basically entered all of the client/job search parameters and ran batch jobs which matched the client to corporations. These searches resulted in files of mail merged cover letters and hundreds of labels per client. I then printed the resumes, letters and labels and moved them over to our distribution/mailing department for packing and shipping. In addition to the day to day operations, I was also responsible for maintaining the BTI 5000 and even repairing it on occasion! I remember being on the phone with a BTI technical support representative to diagnose problems, then new parts were shipped to me and I would take off the back panel, remove the bad part and replace it with the new part…all while being guided by a patient, kind, expert technician at BTI over the telephone! Those were the days!

While I am taking this brief trip down memory lane, I can’t fail to mention our consultant software developer, Alan Hartmann. He wrote the Basic-X code which performed the matching and merging of data. None of this could have happened without him. Eventually we expanded our job search database with a team of people who scoured the want ads from newspapers around the country, and entered that data in IBM PCs. Eventually the PC’s replaced the processes that had been done on the BTI 5000.

Thank you for the work you have done to build this site and keep this history alive!

I was a Technical Service rep for Reynolds and Reynolds from 1978 until 1989. I fondly remember working with these behemoths using Reynolds software in auto dealerships all over the country. We had a great working relationship with BTI and with many of their field techs. Those were some great days for both companies.

While working myself through Cal St. Disneyland (Cal State Fullerton that is) I worked up the road for 2 years at Beckman Instruments in Brea California. A few bright biology scientists had kludged together a small hospital Laboratory Management System (LMS) to hook up with the other laboratory test equipment Beckman was known for in those days. It was on the BTI-5000, the software was written in Basic, and BTI (or a consultant they recommended) got real interested and help them with their search algorithms etc. (first time I heard of the term b-tree). Beckman got real interested and made a product out of it, and I was hired as a programmer’s aide to test and help debug.

Basic was my first language, but by that time I was learning Pascal in school and was already realizing the beauty in modularization and specification.

I loved the BTI-5000. The code? Not so much, but it was a great environment.

Then Beckman got real serious and began product development based on BTI-8000. Our language would be Pascal! But nobody (other than me) really understood Pascal, and much less software engineering processes required to put out a robust product. So quickly several engineers were brought into the team, including outside contractors were hired. What I remember best about the whole experience is I learned more about software engineering from them than I ever did in school (my degree was C.S.). My second memory was asking a manager for a raise and pointing out my accomplishments over other engineers who were at a higher pay grade. He quickly pointed to my lack of a degree and I said “what does that matter, I’m better?” He said, “Look at it from management’s point of view, a degree shows that you can accomplish something, that you can finish something.” Apparently programming accomplishments alone didn’t mean very much, so I quit and went back to being a full time student.

Here’s the brochure for the LMS system, I believe its a BTI-5000? I could be wrong.

http://veriloud.com/wp-content/uploads/Beckman_LMS.pdf

I was late to the game, starting using a BTI-5000 and an -8000 in 1989. I made the start of a great career developing and maintaining systems to run pulp mills from '89 until newer technologies rendered the old dumb terminals (et al) obsolete; Y2K was the nail in the coffin, and we shut them all down in '98 or so. I'm proud to still have a few BTI parts in my garage and the nameplate from my last 8000 still in my office. I miss the wonderful reliability and great tech support!

just browsing

How great to find this! I was a user at Bryant College (BTI 4000) and and employee after graduation in 1980. I was hired by Sam Cohen and worked for Shirley Henry, brian_richards@msn.com

I was a BTI employee from 1974 to 1994 and worked in Manufacturing

Hi. Is this site still active?

Walt Corwin - BTI Field Service 1975 -1979

waltcorwin@bellsouth.net

Hey, it's great to find this site. Thanks for putting it together.

In Junior High School and High School I was lucky enough to attend a school that ran a succession of BTI systems. From the BTI3000 through the BTI5000. It was my introduction to Computers, and Computer Programming.

Today, I manage multi million dollar systems that in turn manage 10's of millions of dollars of computer hardware. It all started on a BTI3000 running BASIC.

Thank you BTI.

As a former (1977-2009) Reynolds and Reynolds employee, I remember when there was the backlog of computers in inventory. This was prmarily due to the economic conditions at the time. This actually occured in 1979 when I was the local service rep in Richmond, VA. In the fall of that year Reynolds announced what they called CAMPAIGN 80, a sales blitz designed to reduce and eventually elilminate the back log. There was sustantial discounting of the VIM III computers, which were BTI mainframes with Reynolds and Reynolds software. This initiative was successful. In 1982 Reynolds came out with the Vim Net computers which was the beginning of the end of the relationship between Reynolds and BTI.

Paul Roberts: If your 5000 has a front panel like the 4000, that allows you to halt the system and peek and poke memory, I may be able to help you revive it.

My experience tells me that a conversation with an industrial rep who handles drive belts might find you a belt that would get that drive spinning.

I'm at DSC333@hotmail.com

I'll send you an e-mail. I'm just cleaning up after some flooding so have been pretty busy but it looks like most of the material made it through OK. Some of the original manuals I'm drying. It looks like OTI was reselling BTI systems in cooperation with CTI (California Time Sharing I believe) and that is why I seem to have a number of sales related material.

Paul -- when you submit your comment, I have no idea how to contact you. I'm very interested in getting a copy of your slides. Please contact me: jim@thebattles.net

Thanks

Huh, Interesting! I was cleaning the basement tonight and thought I had found some misplaced family photos but it turns out to be two slide cases of BTI architecture slides. For example, color charts of BTI 8000 Variable Resource Architecture (32-bit, 67 nanosecond bus), pictures of 1970s - 1 machine - many programs - many users, BTI Innovation Strategy, etc. color charts, graphs...

I'm guessing this is the predecessor of the "Powerpoint" presentation perhaps shown to potential customers. It probably doesn't cover any specs not already on the BTI8000 page but it is in color with graphics. Maybe I can fire up the old slide scanner and put the slideshow into a PDF file or something.

Very happy to see the entry by my old boss, Lou Yurek, and I'm curious to hear what happened to him after he left for Ireland.

I will dig through the attic and see what I have to donate.

We ran a BTI computer for our 3 store retail furniture operation in Dallas, TX in the mid 80's. Accounting and Inventory Management Software package was written by two former EDS employees. We had to enroll in Basic X computer language courses at the local technical college so we could help keep the system running.

The secret passwords to reset date and other CPU maintenance and other hardware issues put the machine out of use, once the BTI shop was now longer available for tech support. As I understand it, BTI was instrumental in helping to bring database management into the public arena.

Concerning the comment by Paul Roberts concerning the OKIDATA hard drives; Several others we knew, at the time that were using the BTI system were converting to the newer compact PC type hard drives.

Glad to find the BTI history website. This brings back a lot of memories. Must add that converting from old paper based inventory and accounting systems was a big task and I learned that acquiring a computer was like adopting a newborn baby. They can require a lot of attention and can get cranky at times.

I am still an IBM PC clone user currently using Windows 7 & XP Pro, since AutoCAD and most of the available wood engineering applications run on Windows. However as I contemplate the passing of Steve Jobs, I very much appreciate his and Steve Wozniak for humanizing the computer and for developing the GUI. My son is a dedicated Mac pro user.

I have a BTI 5000 in the basement. I believe it was what would have been 'Oregon Timeshare Incorporated'. I used it briefly before the hard drive threw a belt. Try to ask any modern computer supply store where you can get a belt for an Okidata hard drive -- Two most popular responses are "A belt?" and "Okidata makes hard drives?" I tried to repair it but I think the front-panel code looked up as 'drive not up to speed'.

At one point I called BTI support to ask about the maintenance password so I could play a bit more through the maintenance port instead of the 'basicx' user accounts (as I recall). To my surprise I was told they couldn't provide that because there were still a number of auto dealers actually using that model. I think support was a bit surprised there was a 5000 not in a data center too. :-)

In the early 80s, it became apparent that my timesharing users were going to migrate to their own computers, and at the time my impression was that they would pay from 15 to 20 thousand for such a system that would run their applications, which were built on my DBMS.

(Since I had no imagination at the time, someone at BTI named it "MINDS")

IIRC, at the time the BTI 5000 in a minimum configuration was about $25,000, simply too much for the market here.

At the same time, computer memory was rapidly getting denser and cheaper, so that the system wouldn't need disk-based swap tracks, and the user space of about 12 KB could be expanded at minimal cost.

I brought these subjects up with BTI marketing, but didn't find much interest. It was obvious that all the resources were going to the 8000 program, and I can't honestly say that the 8000 wasn't the best bet at the time for BTI, but with some new small-end product, my shop would have turned into a systems house, and maybe some others out there, and this might have merged into the PC stream and kept BTI alive.

Coulda, woulda, shouda.

As long as we're throwing stones, my own big error was not translating MINDS into Microsoft Basic. There never was a shortage of DBMS software for small systems, but we'll never know how many chips were left on the table.

I worked on the travel team for 4 years or so. Some of the gang was, Jack Vanmeel, Bill Dollahite, Dennis Pramstaller, Mike Hoffer, Rodney Hofner, Eric Minoski, John Diehl, Bert Briggs, and lots of others I will try to remember more names and list as the old brain allows.

Great to see the site. Brings back some very fun memories.

Thanks for sharing.

It was neat to find your BTI-8000 website this evening. I was having a conversation with a friend this last weekend and my years of working on the BTI-8000 came up. I wanted to look up and find out what happened to the company. I thought it was a great computer in it's day. I'm glad I found your website.

I went to Southwestern Adventist College (SAC) in Keene, Texas from 1979-1983. Some time during that time the college bought a BTI-8000. The computer center was run by Steve Sowder (he may have actually been responsible for purchasing it) and during my last couple of year there took Basic, Pascal, and COBOL. From what I understood, there were only 2 BTI-8000's in the state of Texas at the time. The other one was at Old American County Mutual Fire Insurance Co, in Dallas, TX. Old American was looking for entry level programmers so where better to go to find one than 1 hour away at SAC. Steve recommended me for the job which I took and started around Jan 1983. I worked there for 3 years before moving on to IBM mainframe shops. I had never heard of BTI since then so it was good to read about the history on your website.

Thanks for sharing...