A Brief Summary

I bought my first computer, a Kaypro II, in 1983. What a machine! Dual floppy drives that used single sided 5.25 floppies holding an astounding 180KB of data. The modem I added ran at 300 baud. I could actually connect to Compuserve. I could also use a spreadsheet, PerfectCalc, I think, and "crunch numbers". The wordprocessor was PerfectWriter, though I also had a weird program called Wordstar as well, that I never used.

This "system" served me well from 1983 until I retired from the Air Force in 1985. When I settled in the Verde Valley, in Arizona, it began having "issues" and I upgraded to a Kaypro 16 computer which used MS DOS instead of CP/M. The store that sold this system was for sale, so being of less than sound mind, I bought it.

Thus I became a Computer Professional!

The computer company/store that I bought was Computer and Terminal Services, located in Sedona, Arizona. We were Kaypro dealers, selling both CP/M and DOS computers. For a short time, we even dabbled with Atari, which actually made a desktop unit in those days--1985-1989. At some point, I don't remember when, we added Zenith to our product line. As with the rest of the world, we had migrated to DOS and left CP/M behind.

In 1987, we opened a store in Prescott, AZ. That company was Prescott Computer Systems, Inc., the company that we still maintain.

In 1989, Computer and Terminal Services--CTS--closed. Prescott Computer Systems--PCS--continued in operation. PCS was eventually moved to Cottonwood, AZ, took a dba name of Professional Computer Services--still PCS--and continues to serve the Verde Valley in Northern Arizona. The rest of this diary will relate the evolution of the computer industry as it has related to PCS.