Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Automatic Elec-
tronic Systems
AES
-90. (Source:
Canada Science
and Technology
Museum, photo-
graph by Z.
Stachniak.)
At the time when Kutt was being outpowered and outman-
oeuvred by the guarantors, another president of a Canadian
electronics start-up company was going through the “Kutt scen-
ario,” fighting venture capitalists for control of his own exciting
new enterprise. In 1972, Stephen Dorsey's Automatic Electronic
Systems (
AES
), located in Montreal, introduced the world's first
all-in-one programmable word processor. The
AES
-90 proces-
sor not only had its own screen and a comfortable keyboard but
was also able to store texts on, and retrieve them from, magnetic
disks. Thanks to its programmability, the
AES
-90 word proces-
sor could be easily upgraded by just reprogramming some of
the machine's
ROM
chips. Just a few years after the
AES
-90's
introduction, the office equipment market would be flooded by
similar products from companies all over the world.
In his book, Thomas described the step-by-step process of a
venture capital group taking
AES
over.
AES
found a lease financier in a subsidiary of the Royal
Bank of Canada called RoyMarine Leasing … [While
orders for
AES
-90 processors were piling up] the Royal
Bank decided to nix the leasing deal … [T]he bank had
