‘It’s going to revolutionize the computer market’

© Mark Ollig

What year comes to mind when you think of the personal computer revolution?

Many consider 1977, when Apple Computer unveiled its Apple II personal computer.

Others say it was in 1981, when the IBM Personal Computer Model 5150 was released.

Sept. 25, 1973, years before these two companies revolutionized the industry, Mers Kutt, president, CEO, and chairman of Micro Computer Machines Corp. based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, unveiled what many described as the world’s first portable personal computer.

Called the MCM-70, this 20-pound portable computer was designed and manufactured in Canada.

The MCM-70 outer case looked much like an Apple II personal computer, which didn’t come out until four years later.

Kutt included a note with each computer stating, “The simplicity of the MCM-70 and its associated computer language make personal computer use and ownership a reality. Enjoy the privilege of having your own personal computer.”

The MCM-70 included a keyboard, plasma screen, and two cassette tape drives to store and run programs. It could operate using AC or batteries.

The computer used an Intel 8008 processor (Intel released the 8008 in 1972), with a clocking speed of 200 kHz, available up to 800 kHz (kilohertz).

It included 16,000 bytes of core memory (expandable to 64,000) with a working memory of 102 kB (kilobytes).

The computer uses the APL microprogramming language.

APL was first used in 1966 and developed by Kenneth Iverson, a Canadian computer scientist.

Iverson authored the book, “A Programming Language,” hence the use of the APL acronym.

Kutt decided to use APL, as it was considered a do-it-yourself programming language that allowed almost anyone to operate the computer using instructions, which Kutt thought would help the MCM-70 “sell itself.”

“My sales manager took one home. Within 15 minutes his wife was using it to compare prices of several brands of powdered milk, and was showing her neighbor how to use it,” Kutt said in an Oct. 6, 1973 article appearing in The Financial Post, a Canadian newspaper.

The MCM-70 sold for $3,500 in 1973. In today’s dollars, it would equal $21,162, which put it out of reach for most folks.

Because of the price, Kutt focused on selling the computer to businesses and government agencies, and decided to market them as a salesperson would copier machines; by giving demonstrations of the MCM-70’s capabilities and uses.

Kutt also believed the independent professional and small businessperson wanted to have their very own computer.

He envisioned his computers inside schools years before Apple Computer placed its own there.

Schools and colleges in 1973, paid on average $25 per student hour of terminal access to mainframe computer time-sharing services.

Kutt priced the MCM-70 at the cost of 25 cents per student hour.

Hospitals and companies such as Chevron and Mutual Life Insurance and US government agencies, including NASA and US Army, purchased MCM-70 microcomputers. They used the computer mostly for complex mathematical calculations and evaluations.

In 1975, Mers Kutt had gone on to start a new company called All Computers Inc.

June 10, 1977, the Apple II personal computer went on sale to the public.

Apple took the lead in the personal computer market, outselling the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) and the Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80.

On a side note, another historic event took place in 1977.

Sept. 5, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 1 satellite. As of Tuesday, Voyager 1 is 14,008,806,651 miles from Earth and traveling through interstellar space. Four of its instruments are still functioning.

Voyager 1 is still sending telemetry data to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Deep Space Network, but I digress.

Aug. 12, 1981, IBM released its IBM Model 5150 personal computer using MS-DOS.

It was the early 1980s, and Micro Computer Machines Corp. was having trouble generating revenue from Canadian sales of the MCM/70.

By 1983, Micro Computer Machines in Kingston discontinued its operations.

By the end of 1993, Apple Computer manufactured a total of 6 million Apple II computers.

In September 2019, Mers Kutt filed a lawsuit in US District Court, alleging $350 billion in damages against more than 40 technology companies, telecom providers, and financial firms. Apple Computer and the US Government were included in this lawsuit.

Kutt claimed some 8 billion computers manufactured by the technology companies who are the defendants in this lawsuit, used his patented technology from US Patent No. 5,506,981 and US Patent No. 5,450,574.

It was said he accused most of the computer industry of patent infringement.

Two weeks ago, Kutt’s $350 billion lawsuit was dismissed because an opening brief with the court hadn’t been filed by the July 2 deadline.

I can only imagine how Kutt felt about that one.

“It’s going to revolutionize the computer market the way the pocket calculator revolutionized the office calculator business,” said Kutt of his MCM-70 in 1973.

And for a while, the MCM-70 did.

Mers Kutt was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and is 87 years old. He currently lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

See a photo of the MCM-70 computer at https://bit.ly/33RuSto.

Stay safe out there.

The MCM-70 computer

‘Will you enter and sign in, please?’

© Mark Ollig

CBS broadcast the original “What’s My Line?” (WML) Sunday nights from Feb. 2, 1950, until Sept. 3, 1967.

I recall as a youngster, watching WML with my mom, dad, and siblings.

The opening theme to WML was cartoonish, which, as a child, immediately caught my attention.

The regular WML panel members varied over the years; Dorothy Kilgallen, Steve Allen, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, and Fred Allen were among my favorites.

John Charles Daly was the panel moderator of WML.

Trivia: Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, John Charles Daly, who was then a CBS radio news reporter, interrupted a music program to report that the naval and air forces of Japan had attacked a US base at Pearl Harbor.

“The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all naval and military activities on the principal island of Oahu,” Daly said. The audio file is https://bit.ly/2H17X7p.

As panel moderator for WML, Daly would have a new player/contestant come out on stage and sign their name on a chalkboard by announcing, “Will you enter and sign in, please?”

The show’s premise was to have the panelists ask contestant questions to reveal their occupation or “line.”

The contestant, sitting next to Daly, could only give a yes or no answer.

Only the audience, the panel moderator, and those watching on TV knew what the contestant’s occupation was.

Famed comedian Groucho Marx has appeared twice on WML as a panelist.

In one of my favorite WML episodes, he brought the house down (including John Charles Daly) in complete and utter laughter as a panel member Sept. 20, 1959.

This episode had two contestants; a Nikita Khrushchev look-alike whose occupation was a jail warden, and a professional wrestler named Judy Grable.

The mystery celebrity guest was actor Claudette Colbert.

If you enjoy the humor and wit of Groucho Marx, watch this episode at https://bit.ly/2ZzR3mL.

The WML panel members were always blindfolded whenever a mystery celebrity guest was on.

Marx also appeared as the celebrity mystery guest Oct. 13, 1953.

Questioning of the mystery guest, Groucho Marx, began with Bennett Cerf.

“Do you ever make after dinner speeches in the course of your operations?” asked Cerf.

“Yeah, only before dinner!” Groucho wisecracked back to a smiling Cerf, while Daly, the audience, and the other panelists roared with laughter.

I found out one was not going to limit Groucho Marx to just a yes or no answer.

Groucho Marx had everyone on stage and in the audience laughing in stitches with his witty answers to the panelist’s questions.

Arlene Francis finally revealed Groucho Marx as the mystery guest, and the panel members took off their blindfolds and laughed.

I recently watched this episode and had a feeling the minute he spoke his first sentence in a half-heartedly disguised German accent, that the whole panel knew it was Groucho, but they kept the game going to keep Groucho on.

Groucho was also puffing away on his traditional cigar, so one would think the panelists would have smelled it.

“It’s exhilarating to have Groucho show up on a program that you’re supposed to be running, because you stop running it the minute he gets in,” moderator Daly quipped, while the audience laughed.

Groucho listened while holding a cigar in his right hand; he was smiling, with his head slightly tilted while looking toward Daly.

WML had become so popular on TV during the 1950s and ‘60s that celebrities would jump at the chance to be on the program, mostly when they wanted to plug their Broadway play, movie, or television show.

It was the golden age of television.

The number of Hollywood stars, authors, industrialists, political and sports figures, military persons, inventors, and folks with unusual occupations who appeared on WML made for an impressive list.

One year, after the original “What’s My Line?” ended, a new syndicated daily version was started in 1968, and ran until 1975.

John Charles Daly did not moderate the new WML game show; however, Arlene Francis returned in her regular role as a panelist.

During one syndicated broadcast, Bennett Cerf made a surprise appearance as the mystery guest and spoke of how he missed being on WML and the camaraderie with John Charles Daly.

After this appearance, Cerf would re-appear occasionally as a panelist, until he passed away in 1971.

One of the things which makes the original WML so interesting for me is the comical, playful bantering between the panelists and their interactions with the guests, audience, and Daly.

I enjoy watching John Charles Daly, pontificating with his prodigious vocabulary, humorously expounding explanations to questions, and his father-like conduct with the panelists.

The “What’s My Line?” YouTube channel features 758 episodes (including original commercials on many) of the classic/original game show, plus dozens of videos featuring WML cast regulars.

Check out the WML YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/3bVho3q.

Be safe out there.

Satellite broadcast of the Elvis Hawaiian concert

© Mark Ollig

Monday, I attended the funeral of my aunt, who lived in Silver Lake.

She was as much a fan of Elvis Presley as I have been, and when we got together, we would talk Elvis concerts and the songs he performed.

We sang his songs whenever we heard them playing.

She liked how I could sing like Elvis, and told me (more than once), “At my funeral, I want you to sing “How Great Thou Art.”

Monday, I sang “How Great Thou Art” at her funeral.

Many people at her funeral talked about her love for Elvis music and his concerts.

Recorded Elvis gospel songs played in the background during her wake.

My personal favorite Elvis concert was the 1973 NBC-TV broadcast of the “Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii – Via Satellite” concert special.

The Honolulu International Center Arena in Honolulu, HI, would be the venue for this concert.

All the concert proceeds and donations went to the Kui Lee Cancer Fund.

Kuiokalani “Kui” Lee was born July 31, 1932. He was a popular Hawaiian singer-songwriter, and achieved international fame when Don Ho began performing and recording his arrangements.

Ho began promoting Lee as the songwriter for a new generation of Hawaiian music.

Lee died of lymph gland cancer Dec. 6, 1966, at the age of 34.

The total donation to the Kui Lee Cancer Fund from the 1973 Elvis Concert in Hawaii amounted to $75,000.

The concert was historically significant, as it was the first time a live concert show was beamed to countries worldwide via satellite.

The concert took place Jan. 14, 1973, at 12:30 a.m. Hawaiian time, and was watched by an estimated 1.5 billion people.

Of course, today, it is common for satellites to broadcast music and sporting events, but 47 years ago, it was uncommon.

Elvis was so insistent on having a great concert; he did a practice concert in front of a live audience the night before the satellite broadcast.

“How could one satellite beam its signal to every part of the planet?” I thought.

A live broadcast to all parts of the planet would require the broadcast signal to be relayed among many other geostationary orbiting satellites transmitting the signal to satellite receiving stations on the ground.

The satellite for the Elvis Hawaii concert broadcast was the Globecam Intelsat IV F-4 geostationary communications satellite.

Intelsat stands for International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium.

The Intelsat IV F-4 satellite launched Jan. 23, 1972, from Cape Canaveral, FL.

According to NASA, the Intelsat IV F-4 “served as a Pacific link.”

Details on the Intelsat IV F-4 from the NASA website:

• Launch vehicle: Atlas-Centaur.

• Weight: 3,058 pounds.

• Shape: cylindrical with an antenna mounted on one end.

• Height: 17 feet, 7 inches.

• Diameter: 7 feet, 9 inches.

• Power source: solar cells and nickel-cadmium batteries.

The satellite provided a commercial communications support from synchronous orbit above the Pacific equator, capable of 3,000 to 9,000 telephone circuits or 12 color TV channels, or a combination of telephone, TV, data, and other forms of communications.

The Intelsat IV F-4 was located over the Pacific Ocean and transmitted the Elvis concert live to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, The Philippines, South Vietnam, and other countries.

Elvis’s Hawaiian performance was recorded on videotape and seen by 30 other countries the same day of the concert.

The concert aired in the United States Wednesday, April 4, 1973, with 51 percent of the television viewing audience watching.

An edited version (including some extra songs Elvis performed on stage after the concert) broadcast on NBC-TV. I vividly recall watching this concert with my mom and dad, and a few of my siblings.

I recall my mom enjoyed watching Elvis at the peak of his stardom singing on the stage that Wednesday evening.

My dad, noticing how attentively my mother was watching the younger Elvis sing, didn’t seem too interested in the concert.

Elvis did have a powerful presence on stage when singing each song.

I liked how he would jokingly interact directly with the audience, and while singing, Elvis would generate excitement by throwing scarves to the many outstretched hands of the audience. From that day, I became an Elvis fan.

During the last songs, Elvis threw his American Eagle belt and cape out into the audience, which generated a frenzy.

One of Elvis’s songs during the 1973 Hawaiian concert, “I’ll Remember You,” was written by Kui Lee.

Aunt Susie, I’ll remember you.

Be safe out there.

The ‘Early Bird’ is still the word

© Mark Ollig

In October 1945, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke foretold using space satellites, in an article titled “Extra-Terrestrial Relays – Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?”

He described the idea of using Earth-orbiting “space stations” equipped with receivers and transmitters to relay radio communications between any two geographic locations beneath them.

Clarke wrote the space stations would be 26,000 miles above the Earth.

“The development of rockets sufficiently powerful to reach orbital, and even escape velocity is now only a matter of years,” Clarke prophetically wrote in his article printed in the magazine, Wireless World.

He may have been thinking of the long-range guided ballistic V-2 missile developed by Werner von Braun and used during World War II.

In the early 1960s, von Braun designed the 363-foot-tall, 6,400,000-pound Saturn V rocket used by NASA to send astronauts to the moon.

Clarke’s prediction became a reality April 6, 1965, when NASA launched the IntelSat 1 F-1 satellite, nicknamed “Early Bird.”

The name, Early Bird, comes from the saying, “The early bird catches the worm.”

Early Bird was the world’s first commercial communications satellite.

The Space and Communications Group of the Hughes Aircraft Company constructed Early Bird’s cylindrical shape for the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT).

Inside the 85-pound satellite, the electronic components performed the switching magic for up to 240 concurrent transatlantic telephone calls. It also transmitted telegraph signals and facsimile communications between North America and Europe.

The Early Bird satellite used one channel for broadcasting television programs between the two continents.

The satellite could not simultaneously perform all these switching operations, so commercial companies vied for obtaining time slots to use specific satellite services.

Early Bird’s payload included two 6-watt transponders and operated on an allocated frequency bandwidth of 50 MHz (megahertz).

Its outer surface included 6,000 silicon-coated solar cells used for converting energy from the sun into electricity to power the internal electronic components, as the satellite itself did not contain any batteries.

NASA used a Thrust Augmented Delta D rocket to place the Early Bird into a synchronous equatorial orbit above the Atlantic Ocean, along the Earth’s equator, at an altitude of 22,300 miles.

Early Bird’s orbital speed will circle and match the Earth’s orbiting speed and position itself in a specific location above its surface.

The satellite appeared to be suspended and motionless above the planet.

Ground satellite stations can then focus their antenna toward a fixed location in the sky, ensuring a direct-line-of-sight to the satellite; thus, allowing the uninterrupted sending and receiving of signaling data.

The Early Bird satellite orbited over the same location between North America and Europe.

The satellite provided transmission for television splashdown coverage of the Gemini 6 spacecraft Dec. 16, 1965.

Gemini 6 failed on its first launch attempt Dec. 12; however, it launched three days later without incident.

Surprisingly, I first became curious about the Early Bird satellite while watching a YouTube video of heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali fighting Cleveland Williams Nov. 14, 1966.

“I’d like at this time to compliment the thousands of people in the United Kingdom, who, where it is nearly four-o’clock, are jamming the theaters over there to see our telecast via the Early Bird satellite,” announced boxing commentator Don Dunphy.

The success of Early Bird proved the practicality for using synchronous orbiting space satellites for commercial communications.

Early Bird ceased operation in January 1969; however, it was reactivated in July, when a communications satellite assigned to the Apollo 11 moon mission failed.

In August 1969, the satellite became deactivated.

NASA activated Early Bird for a brief period in celebration of the 25th anniversary of its launch.

According to NASA, as of today, “Early Bird is currently inactive.”

Intelsat (the first commercial satellite services provider) uploaded the video of Early Bird’s April 6, 1965, launch from Cape Canaveral, FL, to its YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/y4uvqn2s.

In the video, look for two famous Minnesotans; Hubert Humphrey, vice president of the United States, and Senator Walter Mondale applauding during the launch.

Real-time satellite tracking website, http://N2YO.com, is currently monitoring 21,300 objects in the sky. To locate a satellite, search by using its International Designator Code, name, space command ID, or launch date.

The 55-year-old Early Bird satellite still orbits above the Earth. Its International Designator Code is 1965-028A.

To see Early Bird’s current location, go to https://bit.ly/3gLNTSB.

The oldest US satellite still orbiting the Earth is the Vanguard 1, launched March 17, 1958.

It was a small satellite designed to test the space environment’s effects on a satellite and its operating systems while in Earth orbit.

Vanguard 1’s internal battery-powered transmitter stopped operating in June 1958. Its solar-powered transmitter functioned until May 1964.

The Vanguard 1 satellite will continue orbiting our planet until the year 2198.

Its International Designator Code is 1958-002B.

No word has been released for when the Early Bird satellite might re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

A May 7, 1965, LIFE magazine article about the satellite is cleverly titled, “The Early Bird Gets the Word.”

In 1965, the word was the Early Bird, which reminds me of the Minneapolis garage band The Trashman’s 1963 hit “Surfin’ Bird.”

“A-well-a don’t you know about the bird? Well, everybody knows that the bird is a word.”

Be safe out there, and remember; the early bird catches the worm. 

                             Intelsat-I Engineers working on the Early Bird satellite

Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and MN Senator Walter Mondale 

                        watching the launch of Early Bird.