IBM PC, Meeting the Macintosh (and Steve)
I started Software Dynamics, Inc. (SDI) with a fraternity brother, Mike Nixon, developing custom software for the IBM PC. This was the earliest stages of bringing software to the desktop and SDI, as we were known, got our auspicious start developing accounting software for a customer that built burial vaults.
We initially focused on customizing around IBM core accounting software— basic accounts payable, general ledger, accounts receivable, invoicing. To say this was the earliest stages of PC is putting it lightly. This was green screen. Menu driven.
As we started putting ourselves out there as a company beyond our initial customer, we saw opportunities in vertical markets. One of the first that really worked for us was an accounting program for apartment manager owners. We called it The Supervisor.
Along the way we were starting to really see the value for people having their own computer. It’s unimaginable now, but customers and end-users were intimidated and not completely sold on the idea of a personal computer.
Where the Macintosh comes in.
We started building some little applications for the Apple 2e. Which actually was a pretty cool little computer for which we started running little applications.
Our applications for the 2e brought us to Apple's attention
It turns out they were building a computer that was going to be different from anything that we’d ever seen —the Macintosh.
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(Left) Apple's Mac team back in the day, from Fortune Magazine
We took off for Cupertino, gave them early feedback on prototypical machines—and the mouse — and had meetings with the Mac team as well as with a barefoot Steve Jobs. We had an immediate appreciation for the Mac, its GUI, and from our early customer experiences with IBM, knew just how fundamentally it was going to change personal computing.
Back in Illinois, we started Lisa development and began building ledger-based accounting software that followed Mac patterns and philosophy of what-you-see-is-what-you-get. We called it Zipper (think multiple integrated ledger systems) with a reporting system called XYZ (Examine Your Zipper.)
Some would say Zipper was the precursor to MYOB software that came out in 1986, but that’s another story.