Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
1
There Were Two
In the fall of 1971 in Toronto, Merslau (Mers) Kutt, a well-
known Canadian entrepreneur, met Gordon Ramer, a software
engineer and the assistant director of the York University Com-
puter Centre, to chat about computer technology.
The two had briefly met three years earlier, at Queen's Uni-
versity in Kingston, Ontario, where Kutt was the director of
the university's computer centre. It was a brief and apparently
inconsequential meeting following a lecture, organized by
Queen's, that had attracted Ramer strongly enough to make
the 260-kilometre trip from York University, on the outskirts
of Toronto. By the fall of 1971, things were entirely different. A
project that Ramer had completed recently at York was of great
interest to Kutt. For some time, Kutt had been nursing an inven-
tion in his mind that, when developed and properly marketed,
might have a profound effect on the computer industry and the
social status of computing. But Kutt didn't have all the essential
aspects of his invention solved. He thought Ramer's expertise
could be just what he needed.
In the early 1970s, the consumer electronics market was going
through one of the hottest periods in its history. Advancements
in microelectronics, especially in integrated circuit technologies,
had made it possible to offer inexpensive desktop and, soon
