Back in the late seventies, I was down in Carmel Valley, California, writing IBM System/3 software for a company that marketed the original Flasher, also known as the Uncle Sherman doll.
Yes, that doll.
The one made famous by Johnny Carson.
And yes, the doll was anatomically equipped.
That was the kind of world I was moving through then. Strange little companies, oddball products, serious computers, beautiful California coastlines, and the feeling that the future was being written in small rooms by people who may or may not have known they were making history.
While I was there, I met Dawn, who became a major woman in my life. We were together for years and she eventually left me and became a cloistered Catholic nun.
I also met Beryl, who became one of my best friends. She now lives in Hawaii.
Beryl went on to work for Digital Research in Pacific Grove. And if you don’t know Carmel Valley or Pacific Grove, think Monterey, California. Ocean air. Cypress trees. Money, fog, coffee, code, and the smell of the Pacific hanging over everything.
Digital Research was not just another software company.
They marketed CP/M, the operating system that ran on many pre-PC computers before the IBM PC changed the world. CP/M was created by Gary Kildall, one of the true giants of early personal computing.
And then came one of the great “what if” stories in computer history.
IBM came looking for an operating system for their new machine. The story, as it has been told for years, is that Gary was not available when IBM showed up, and the meeting went sideways over a nondisclosure agreement. IBM left unhappy, flew up to Seattle, and ended up making a deal with Bill Gates.
That road became DOS.
That road became Microsoft.
That road helped create the personal computer world most people came to know.
And I was right there in the neighborhood.
Not in the boardroom. Not signing the papers. Not holding the keys to the kingdom.
But close enough to feel the heat from the fire.
I used to hang out and party with people from Digital Research right around that time. These were not characters in a documentary to me. They were people in the room. People at parties. People with stories, arguments, jokes, ambition, and too much to drink.
I was young, talented, wild, and already deep into IBM systems.
If things had gone a little differently, who knows?
Maybe I would have ended up inside Digital Research.
Maybe I would have been part of the company that held the operating system crown.
Maybe the whole damn computer industry would still have taken the same path anyway, because history has a way of pretending it was inevitable after it happens.
But when you are living it, nothing feels inevitable.
It feels like chance.
It feels like timing.
It feels like one conversation, one missed meeting, one unsigned paper, one plane ride to Seattle.
I went on to become a major IBM PC software developer in my own right. I had a wild ride. I made my mark. I lived inside the computer revolution from another direction, and I am proud of that.
But every now and then, I think back to Carmel Valley, to Beryl, to Digital Research, to Gary Kildall, to CP/M, to that beautiful stretch of California coast where the future was quietly deciding what it wanted to become.
And I think:
Damn.
I was close.
Not close enough to change history, maybe.
But close enough to know that history is not made by marble statues and clean timelines.
It is made by flawed people, strange companies, lucky breaks, missed chances, brilliant minds, unsigned agreements, late nights, old friends, and the occasional anatomically correct doll made famous by Johnny Carson.
That was my world.
And what a wild, beautiful, impossible world it was.
As to this photo, this was the DR crew, back when CP/M still had the crown, DOS was just around the corner, and none of us knew exactly which way history was about to jump.
This shared post is read-only. Sign in as owner to comment.