Although you may never have heard of George Morrow, at one time he was as
important to the personal computer industry as Bill Gates, if not more so, at
a time when the entire personal computer industry totalled only a few hundred
people. The S-100 bus that's mentioned in the article was the design
originally pioneered by MITS in their Altair microcomputer in 1975 -- and
almost immediately "adopted" by IMSAI. We, like a lot of other people, built
products that plugged into the S-100 bus, which virtually instantly became a
de facto standard, even though no one ever wrote the specifications (see:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/davies/mvaicyb.html ).

George Morrow helped write those specifications, which eventually became an
IEEE standard. But all of that effort came to nothing. At just about the same
time the IEEE specifications came into force, in the early 1980's, the IBM
personal computer came along and completely stole the market away from the
S-100-based systems. Nonetheless, for a few years it was a grand time, an
almost dream-like time when anything was possible.

George died on Wednesday. The NY Times reports the following:

=======================================

George Morrow, a Personal Computer Visionary, Dies at 69
By JOHN MARKOFF

George Morrow, a mathematician and programmer who was a member of a group of
unorthodox hobbyists who were instrumental in creating the personal computer
industry, died at his home in San Mateo, Calif., on Wednesday.

He was 69 and had suffered from aplastic anemia for the last year, his wife
said.

Mr. Morrow was born in Detroit. He dropped out of high school, but at the age
of 28 decided to return to school and received a bachelor's degree in physics
from Stanford University and a master's degree in mathematics from the
University of Oklahoma. He entered a Ph.D. program in mathematics at the
University of California at Berkeley, but was sidetracked by his passion for
computers.

He started working as a programmer in the computer laboratory at Berkeley in
the early 1970's and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club,
an informal group of engineers, programmers, experimenters and entrepreneurs
that ultimately spun off dozens of companies that formed the core of the
personal computer industry in the 1970's.

Initially, most personal computers were sold as kits. Mr. Morrow formed
Microstuf, a company in Berkeley, Calif., to sell expansion cards and other
computer add-on products to the first generation of personal computer
enthusiasts. He would later change the name of the company, first to Thinker
Toys and later to Morrow Designs.

A self-taught computer designer, Mr. Morrow was involved in the efforts to
create and standardize the S100 bus, a hardware design that made it possible
for early PC makers to share expansion cards.

Morrow Designs thrived when the personal computer became an important tool
for small businesses. The first machines ran the Digital Research CP/M
operating system. Later, Mr. Morrow introduced a portable computer intended
to compete head-to-head with the popular Osborne 1 computer. The Morrow
machine matched the Osborne's $1,795 price but offered more bundled software.

Mr. Morrow was well known for his enthusiasm and his sense of humor within
the computer industry. Lee Felsenstein, who was one of the original members
of the Homebrew club and the designer of the Osborne 1, recalled that Mr.
Morrow was usually dressed in jeans and tennis shoes.

When I.B.M. began to dominate the PC market, Mr. Morrow was forced to shift
to the industry standard. In 1985, his company introduced a popular portable
design known as the Pivot and sold the design to Zenith Data Systems. But
with the industry becoming increasingly dominated by large electronics
companies, Morrow Designs filed for bankruptcy in 1986.

In recent years, Mr. Morrow spent his time maintaining a collection of 70,000
78-r.p.m. recordings, with much of the collection being dance and jazz music
of the 1920's and 1930's. He had developed an advanced electronic system for
digitizing and remastering the recordings and he was distributing them on
compact disc on his own label, the Old Masters.

He is survived by his wife, Michiko Jean, of San Mateo; two sons, John, of
San Mateo, and William, of New York; and a daughter, Kelly, of San Jose,
Calif.

========================================

Wirt Atmar

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