For the ‘end user of the eight-bit world,’ interface is the only hope

About 80 people who live in what they call the “eight-bit world” and would like to stay there crowded into the community room of a bank in Van Nuys on Monday night to protest what they see as a decision to cut their world adrift.

It was the monthly meeting of TUG-NET, the Technical and User Groups Network. TUG-NET is a San Fernando Valley-based organization of computer users. It got started about six months ago. It quickly grew too big to meet in its members’ homes. Now it is getting too big for the community room.

On Monday its members filled the seats in the meeting room. When all the chairs in the room were taken, they stood against the wall. When they were shoulder to shoulder all around the room, they started sitting on the floor. Finally they spilled out into the hall.

The interest was generated by a speaker named Len Herbstman, who was representing Digital Research, a giant computer company.

Herbstman came to talk about CP/M, one of Digital’s most popular products.

CP/M is a computer operating system that became popular with small-business operators in the early days of personal computing. It was very efficient at organizing tedious and time-consuming chores, and it could be adapted to any kind of computer.

Herbstman thought he would be talking about the future of CP/M.

But it turned out most of the TUG-NET’s members wanted to talk about its past, where they have been trapped by taking a step into the future a little too soon.

In an oversimplification whose only virtue may be that it is intelligible, they have invested in home computers that speak a language in words made of eight bits of information.

The second wave of home computers, like IBMs, use 16 bits of information to make up each word. That means that they can say a lot more with a lot fewer words, so to speak.

Programming for the 16-bit computers has brought more powerful tools into the personal computer user’s hands with such innovations as windows on the computer screen allowing easy exchange between different types of programs, like word processing and spreadsheets. They also make possible more elaborate graphics displays.

TUG-NET’s members are unimpressed. They think their machines could do the same with newer generations of programming.

But they are afraid Digital is losing interest in its eight-bit CP/M to concentrate on products for the newer, 16-bit, computers.

Herbstman was frank about it. He told them they were right.

“For the end user of the eight-bit world, I will admit the support has been extremely poor,” Herbstman said. “We are reluctant to support you out of our local offices, frankly, because we simply don’t have the staff. To train the retail personnel on products they don’t think are going to sell out the door. . . . “ He shook his head. “I can’t tell you what that is like.”

TUG-NET’s founder and president, Mike Faith, shook his head too.

Faith was standing beside the lectern, pacing back and forth. He was dressed in a blue denims and a large brass belt buckle, a plaid cowboy shirt, cowboy boots and a leather vest.

Actually he is a biochemist, not a cowboy. He works for a company that does cancer research. He likes computing so much that he owns five computers and often stays up until 3 a.m. soaring in the world of languages like “C” and Turbo Pascal.

As have most of the members in his group, Faith has made a substantial investment of time and money in the eight-bit world.

He’s a little upset because Digital seems to be moving on.

At one point, he stepped in front of the lectern to tell Herbstman that, if Digital would put out a newer version of CP/M it would sell.

“There are probably 100,000 CP/M users like us,” he said. “That’s a respectable marketplace. We all bought 1.4. We went out and bought 2. Some of us tripped over 3.”

CP/M 3, he explained, was a hybrid version dropped by the company shortly after its issue.

“Give us 2.4 and I’ll sell a lot of them,” he said.

Herbstman looked uncomfortable.

Under pressure, he made a promise. He said he would try to set up a channel of communication between the group and high officials at Digital.

“Since it probably isn’t possible to have me interface with everyone in this room on a monthly basis, I’ll have Mike Faith interface with Digital,” he said.

Then he asked the group to indulge him on a journey into the future.

He said that is the world of CP/M 286, a new operating system written for the 16-bit computer. CP/M 286 is going to be one up on IBM, he said, because it is going to be portable. That didn’t mean it could be carried about. It meant it could be used on different brands of computers, just like the old CP/M. Herbstman explained how that was accomplished.

“You don’t write to physical parts of the hardware, you write to the logical parts,” he said.

That seemed to make a lot of sense to almost everyone.

But it was mystifying to an elderly man standing in the back.

He raised a black cane in the air to get attention.

“I’ve never seen a crazier meeting in my life,” he said. “I just made up my mind to buy a computer--16-bit, 8-bit, 12-bit, whatever. I had very nearly made a decision when I walked in here. Now I’m terribly confused. What would you recommend, in a word, that I buy?”

“It’s getting pretty hot up here,” Faith said.

He slid away from the area of the lectern, letting Herbstman field the question.

Herbstman said he should ask someone in TUG-NET for advice.