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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER 1995 ISSUE OF LIMA NEWSLETTER

 AN INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF TI'S ORIGINAL
COMMAND MODULE PROGRAMMERS, HANK MISHKOFF
by Charles Good
Lima Ohio User Group

Hank Mishkoff worked on a lot of projects for TI between 1978 and 1983 relating
to the 99/4, 99/4A and 99/8.  As an independent contractor he wrote the code
for some early TI education command modules, wrote the music for some modules
(he is a musician), and wrote some of the 99/8 documentation.  He also was an
employee of Tronics, which is a company that sold 99/4A coputers through
multiple layers of distributors much like Amway home care products are sold
today.  In addition Hank worked in 1983 for Looking Glass Software and was
involved in the creation of some of the never released ET command modules.
What follows is compiled from a telephone interview and (mostly) from a number
of separate internet email messages sent between Hank Mishkoff and Charles Good
in late September and early October 1995.  You certainly meet the most
interesting people on the internet!
---------
CG-- Tell me about some of the early work you did that relates to the TI Home
Computer

HM-- I worked for TI as a programmer on the 99/4 in 1978, and then again doing
documentation (and some programming) from 1980-1982. (Oh yeah, I'm also a
musician; a lot of the music on TI's programs -- especially the early ones --
was mine.) For about a year after that, I worked with a company called Tronics,
which sold the TI Home Computer on a multi-level basis. Following that, I did
contract work on various TI products for years. I'm not an engineer, so I may
not have the kind of info you're looking for; but I was involved with TI Home
Computer products for quite a while, and I'd be happy to share my reminiscences
with you any time you're interested.

CG-- The following is quoted from the June 1980 issue of FORTUNE magazine and
describes the situation at TI in 1979 as TI considered developing an advanced
version of the 99/4 to be called the 99/7.  Any comments on this?
     "Internal competition ultimately put the kibosh on the
 99/7.  TI's digital systems group, which is based in Austin
 and sells minicomputers to small businesses, argued that it
 should control development of the 99/7 because the machine
 was designed for small businesses.  Besides, the 99/7 was so
 powerful and inexpensive that it would have cannibalized the
 low end of the minicomputer line.  The squabble went all the
 way up to top management, which decided at the last minute
 to cancel the 99/7 introduction and transfer the project to
 Austin.  There, the "not invented here" syndrome took over.
 Austin engineers started questioning the new product's
 technical and economic feasibility, and within six months,
 most of the project staff had left for other jobs in TI.
 Looking back on all this, an allumnus concludes, "They threw
 away the two pieces of gold and kept the lump of coal.""

HM-- Wow, this section is incredibly accurate -- I remember quite well when all
of this happened.
---------
CG-- Did you have anything to do with the 99/8 project?

HM-- Wow, does *that* bring back memories. I wrote the manual for that sucker;
I didn't know that *any* of them were ever actually produced. I just went back
and dug up an old invoice dated 7/7/83, in which I billed TI for my expenses in
shipping them the final copy of the TI-99/8 manual counter-to-counter air
freight (they must have wanted it *real* fast). If I remember correctly, I had
worked on the manual all night (hey, I was a *lot* younger then), then drove to
D/FW Airport in the wee hours of the morning to ship the manual to Lubbock. I
seem to recall that the product was killed shortly after that; I doubt that the
manual was actually printed.
Another nostalgia note: My invoice says that I shipped the manual to
Monte Williams; Monte has since moved to Dallas, and now heads up
Micrografx' documentation group.

CG-- I have the 99/8 book you wrote! I have rough, not quite ready for
printing, "Final Draft 09/15/83" of the "TI-99/8, Book 2, Programmer's Guide
for the Computer 99/8".  Much of it looks it was printed on a line printer.
It's about 300 pages.  I can send it to you if you are interested, no charge.

HM-- I am definitely interested, thanks! That sounds like my book. It's
probably slightly revised, since my records show that I shipped them *my* final
draft in July.

CG-- I don't have a 99/8 but I know some people who do.  One friend has a hex
bus disk drive, an armadillo interface, and a whole bunch of special memory
expansion cards that only work with his 99/8.

HM-- Well, I'm more amazed all the time. The very concept that you would
personally know more than one person who has a 99/8 is stunning. Do you have
any idea of how they got them? (Or why they would want them?) Did they work for
TI?
---------
CG-- Did you do any work on the 99/2? I have one of these, complete with a
built in hexbus interface that can use all the little hexbus peripherals that
TI sold, and some they never sold.  I also have a "Wafertape digital tape
drive", serial number 0000007.  I can understand why TI never sold the things.
Mine doesn't work at all reliably.

HM-- I don't think so. Let me take a minute here and search through some old
invoices...
Nope, lots of charges for the 99/8, nothing for the 99/2. Did the 99/2
precede the 99/8? It seems to me that they provided me with a copy (possibly
a draft) of the 99/2 manual, and I used it as the basis for the 99/8 manual.
Maybe not.
---------
CG-- In the Spring 1988 Triton catalog NUMBER BOWLING is listed for $11.95 as
cartridge #1030.  It is one of the modules shown on the video tape I am sending
you.  Did you work on Number Bowling?

HM-- I think I might have written Number Bowling, but I wouldn't swear to it. I
worked on a few of the Scott Foresman programs, but I sure can't remember which
ones right now.
---------
CG-- On December 15, 1994 Thomas Hartsig left a message on the comp.sys.ti
internet newsgroup.  He was commenting on discussions of recent sales and
purchases by newsgroup readers of TI educational modules.  "I wrote Addition
and Subtraction 1 back in 1981.  I had no idea people were still using these
cartridges." Were you involved in that project?

HM-- I always thought that *I* "wrote" it, but I guess that depends on how you
define "wrote." Tom designed the module and "wrote" the specification; I
"wrote" every line of code that went into that module.

CG-- So why is Thomas Hartsig's name prominantly displayed on the title screen
of Addition & Subtraction 1 and your name is found nowhere, not even in the
documentation.  Why are you given no credit?

HM-- Here's a funny story for you (well, *I* think it's funny, anyway)...

All of the programmers were miffed when we saw that Scott Foresman wanted to
put Tom's name on the title page of Addition and Subtraction 1. Not that we
had anything against Tom (we had never met him, for one thing; and for
another, his contract with SF *required* that they give him onscreen
credit), but we had all been developing programs for the Home Computer for
years, and not once had any of us been given that kind of visibility. We
weren't angry, but we were annoyed.
When I had completed a first pass of the program, I flew up to Chicago to
show it to the folks at SF; I knew that Tom was going to be there also. (I
think that was the first -- and possibly the only -- time that I met him.)
Just as a joke -- and to exact some small measure of satisfaction -- I
changed the onscreen credit from Tom's name to mine, mostly to see how he
would react (and, I suppose, in some obscure way, to make a point).
So I'm in the room with Tom and two folks from SF (Bob and Dee), and I fire
up the program, and up pops the title screen with my name on it. I keep a
perfectly straight face, like nothing's going on. Bob looks real surprised
for a second, then he smiles, and I think he's going to laugh, but he covers
his face with his hand for a second, and then he's got a straight face, too.
And Tom, who is staring directly at the screen, doesn't react at all! I even
find some excuse to keep the title screen up there for a few extra seconds
to make sure he sees it, but there's no reaction. I figure that he's missed
it, maybe he's been looking at the esthetics and hasn't noticed the switch.
Bummer.
After a while, Bob and I leave to go talk about something else, leaving Tom
alone with Dee. Later, Dee tells me that the second I left the room, Tom
turned to her and said, worriedly, "I didn't know that *Hank's* name was
going to be on the title screen!" Dee, who had figured out what I was doing,
said something non-committal like, "I'll have to review that with Hank to see
what's going on."  I got a *tremendous* feeling of satisfaction after that; all
I had been trying to do was to tweak Tom a little bit, and it had worked. Life
is full of little victories!
---------
CG-- Did you do the music at the beginning of the Music Maker module? You can
hear this music near the end of the video I am sending you.  It is, I think, a
Beethoven sonata.

HM-- It's possible; I'd have to hear it to be sure. Actually, the main reason
that TI hired me was because of my background as a musician; my programming
training and experience were pretty weak at the time. When I went to Lubbock
for my interview in early 1978, they were in a position where they were making
this revolutionary computer with three voices, and yet they had nobody on their
staff with any musical ability. I hadn't mentioned my muscial background on my
resume, because it didnd't seem relevent to a programming job. And TI couldn't
tell me anything about the product(or even admit that they were working on a
home computer) because the product hadn't been announced! Finally, in my very
last intreview of the day, someone asked my about the two-year hole in my
resume. When I mentioned that I had been playing in a band, his eyes lit up --
although I had no idea why, and he couldn't tell me. Weird.
When I first started on the job, my first assignment was the Home Budget
module; any experimenting with music was on my own time. I remember that I
programmed the Minute Waltz to play in less than a minute -- it sounded
terrible that fast, but it was a lot of fun. I also did a Bach two-part
invention that was one of my favorite piano pieces; that may be what they
later used on Music Maker. Then I started doing little bits and pieces for
the Grammar module, which everybody liked so much that they decided to
actually pay me for creating music (as long as I got my "real" work done on
time!).
The piece I'm most proud of is a three-part piece I wrote for the Demo
module. Unfortunatley, they chopped it up and only used pieces of it. I've
recently entered the entire piece into MIDI format; if you have some way to
play MIDI, I can send you the file as an attachment, if you're interested.

CG-- Sure, send me the Demo module music in MIDI format.

HM-- Ok, here is the demo module music.  I've attached three slightly different
arrangements. I would have only sent you the best one, but I'm not at home, and
I have no way to play them, and I can't remember which is which.
By the way, here's a funny story about that music, which was written for the
Demo module. I left TI before the computer hit the market, and I was real
excited when it finally began to show up in stores -- especially because a lot
of retailers, having no idea of what else to do with it, just left the Demo
module running in an "endless loop."
One day, I stopped into a computer store with some friends of mine, hoping
to show off the computer -- and my music. They had the Demo program running,
but the sound was turned off! I asked a salesman if they ever turned the
sound up. "Yeah," he said. "When we're bad salespeople, they turn the sound
on and make us stand next to the computer!" I had never realized that my
wonderful music could get on your nerves after you'd heard it maybe 500
times...
---------
HM-- Here's a long shot for you: When TI pulled the plug on Home Computer
division, I was in the middle of writing a program that I believe was planned
to be put into a "Command Module." I was writing the program as a
subcontractor; the contractor was a company named Looking Glass. The program
had to do with the adventures of ET; TI had licensed the character from
Speilberg. Looking Glass had contracted to create 2 or 3 ET adventures; I don't
remember the name of the one I was working on. I assume that, when the project
went under, TI would have had a current copy of the code, and someone could
have burned it into some EPROM's (the programs were pretty far along). Have you
ever seen or heard of any program that might fit that description?

CG-- Which ones? Of those I know about one was just called "ET" and was a
frogger like game where ET had to cross the highway, river, etc. to get to his
space ship at the top of the screen.

HM-- Nope, that one doesn't even sound familiar.

CG-- The other, and maybe the one you worked on, is called "ET at Sea".  It is
a world geography game.  ET has to move around a map of the world visiting
cities and getting clues to the location of his space ship.

HM-- Now we're getting somewhere -- but that still isn't mine. Mine was called
"ET's Adventures on Land" -- which I *never* would have remembered, not in a
zillion years, if you hadn't jogged my memory with the At Sea title. If my
memory is accurate after all these years, the "At Sea" program was created by a
programmer who worked for Looking Glass; his first name was Pete, but I can't
remember his last name. (I vaguely remember that it was some kind of long
Polish-sounding name.) His wife was also a programmer; she worked for a company
in Richardson (a Dallas suburb) that did a couple of TI games, including one
called HenHouse or something like that.

CG-- I have a video tape of these two modules, and other never released
official 99/4A module software that I will be glad to copy and send you.

HM-- I would *love* to see that! The memory overload might prove to be fatal,
but it would be worth it!

CG-- I have heard of "ET and his adventures on land" and always thought it was
the frogger type game I described.  Nobody that I have ever heard of has seen
the "adventures on land" software.

HM-- I don't believe I was as far along on it as Pete was on the Sea module
when work was discontinued. As I recall, I had programmed in all the little
animals and animated them and given them paths to walk on, but the game didn't
actually *do* anything when it was abondoned. You could move the animals
around, but that was it. My guess is that nobody saved it because it was so
incomplete.
Looking Glass Software (the company that had the contract for the ET games) was
run by Gary and Mary Schenck (since then, they've been divorced, remarried, and
divorced again), with whom I still speak every once in a while; if I remember,
I'll ask them if they still have a copy of ET/Land, such as it was. Gary lives
in KC (he's an art director for Hallmark), and I'm going to be visiting a
client next week who has an office just down the street from his house; I think
I'll give him a call.

STOP THE PRESSES!!!!
I was right in the middle of writing this note, thinking about what the
chances were that Gary might have any idea where any of my old work might
be, when it hit me that I might have some old stuff lying around -- and
guess what I found??? I opened up one of my old diskette cases (this is
starting to sound like the discovery of King Tut's tomb), and the diskette on
top was labelled (in my handwriting) "E/A," which I assume means
Editor/Assembler. The only project in which I ever used the Editor Assembler
was the ET game, so I figured that I might have hit paydirt -- although I did
work on the manual for that product, so the diskette might contain
documentation, rather than code...
But here's what the labels on the other disks say:
   ET LAND ("GROM7" crossed out) CODE FILES
   ET LAND ROM
   ET LAND ROM2
   ET LAND GROM3
   ET LAND GROM4
   ET LAND GROM5
   ET LAND ("GROM7" crossed out) CODEFILES BACKUP
   ET LAND ROM BACKUP
   ET LAND ROM2 BACKUP
   ET LAND GROM3 BACKUP
   ET LAND GROM4 BACKUP
   ET LAND GROM5 BACKUP
Also, there's a sheet of paper with what looks like some coding equates for
animals, homes, and food (12 of each); I'm thinking that maybe you were
supposed to get each animal to its home and feed it (?).
Anyway, I'd like to mail this stuff to you, if you're interested and if you
think you might be able to make some sense out of it (and if you think
there's half a chance that the diskettes are still readable). Would you
promise me to let me know what's on it before you make it public and let me
"withdraw" some of the stuff if it turns out not to have anything to do with
the Home Computer (like if I included a list of my ex-girlfriends and their
phone #s...)?
---------
(Charles Good's added note:-- Hank did indeed mail these disks to me, along
with the "ET and his Adventures on Land" programming notebook containg original
graph paper drawings and notes of all the graphics in the game, as well as
extensive dated notes concerning the conception and development of all the
Looking Glass Software ET series of command modules.  There were three planned
modules called Land, Sea, and Air.  The notebook contains little information on
the Air game beyond its general concept.  The Sea game exists in the Lima
software library as GROM files that can be run with a gram device, as well as a
slightly buggy version that works from extended basic.  None of these three ET
games are the same as the frogger type ET command module game, which was not a
Looking Glass Software project.
The disks are TI DOS in SSSD format and contain lots of GPL source and object
code for the Land game.  There are no phone numbers of girl friends.  The code
is incomplete and the game is not functional.  At Hank's request, I copied the
disks (some were duplicates) and made a xerox copy of the development notebook,
then returned all the originals to him.)
---------
CG-- Do I have your permission to give copies of your disks and notebook to
others interested in the 99/4A?

HM-- Absolutely, although I must tell you that I have no idea whether or not I
have any legal right to give you that permission. I suspect that Looking Glass
(which doesn't exist any more) or TI may own the rights to the material.
Practically speaking, however, I have a hard time imagining that anyone would
care, at this late date, as I can't see that any of that stuff could possibly
have even the slightest commercial value.
---------
CG-- The Looking Glass notebook you sent me has several pages that are headed
"Conceptual development for TI/SDA education modules.."  What does "SDA" stand
for?  I have a never released TI module that says "Music SDA" on its title
screen.  It is the regular Music Maker module with extra code that allows you
to get printouts of assembly source code, GPL source code, and Basic CALL SOUND
statements that will produce the music you enter into the module.  I have
always wondered about the meaning of "SDA" in this module's title screen.

HM-- I don't have a clue what SDA means -- although you'd think I'd know,
seeing as how it's in my notebook. I've forwarded your question to Paul
Urbanus, the creator of Parsec, who's the only one of the TI Home Computer
programmers that I keep in touch with; I'll let you know if his memory is any
better than mine.
---------
CG-- I am today mailing book rate a VHS video tape with 6 hours of viewing.
Included are many of the never released modules such as the ET stuff, a bunch
of Bill Cosby commercials and pep talks designed for 99/4 and /4A retailers,
and the official TI Retail Training video.  There is lots of footage of the
99/4 (no A).

HM-- That sounds great. I remember seeing Cosby at a CES show in Chacago; TI
had rented a ballroom as a hospitality suite, and he was posing for pictures
with retailers. There was quite a long line, as I recall, of people waiting to
be in some pix with Cos.
---------
CG-- I have a Tronics cassette tape set.

HM-- Which one? Do you mean audiocassette or program cassette? I was involved
in both projects, so you may have some of my work after all.

CG-- Both audio and program cassettes.  The audio tape has your voice on it!
It was apparently made in 1982 and features you introducing yourself by name.
The "Sights and Sounds" program tape credits you as one of the authors of this
TI BASIC software

CG-- From a newsletter article I wrote a couple of years ago:
"TRONICS was created by Mike Wilcox and Dave Guardanapo to sell 99/4A's using a
pyramid system of distributors and subdistributors, similar to the way AMWAY
home care products are sold today."
Any comments?

HM-- Actually, Tronics was the brainchild of Jody Black, who was a Braniff
pilot (a captain, actually) at the time. Pilots make a lot of money (he was
pulling in 6 figures at the time, as I recall) and have a lot of free time on
their hands (since they work only one out of every three days). Like firemen
(who are in a similar situation, but with less money), pilots tend to get into
other businesses on the side. And since he traveled so widely (and worked with
a lot of other people who travelled a lot, too), Tronics spread quickly all
around the country. I knew Dave, and Mike's name sounds familiar, and they may
have been successful Tronic distributors (for a while, anyway), but they were
*not* involved in its founding.
Tronics always had trouble acquiring enough credit.  Thus they had trouble
keeping inventory and were very slow in delivering product to their
distributors.  This trouble delivering goods that had been paid for doomed the
project.  Eventually Tronics was sold. It went through several sets of owners.
The last guys to own the company milked it dry, taking all incoming cash and
delivering nothing.  I had some involvement in advising a bankruptcy judge on
the distribution of the company's remaining assets.

CG-- From my newsletter article: "Apparently TI knew about and approved of
TRONICS pyramid sales scheme."

HM-- They knew about it, but were always a little leery of it. Actually,
Tronics was an offical TI distributor; they couldn't have done what they did
withough being able to purchase products at distributor prices. It took Jody a
long time to convince TI to let him do what he did; many people were surprised
that TI went for it at all. And Tronics was a "multi-level" company, not a
pyramid scheme -- the differences are many and can be subtle, the main one
being that pyramids are generally illegal.

   Hank Mishkoff
internet web address: http://www.webfeats.com/
internet email address: [e-mail]
US mail address: WebFeats 17610 Midway Road, #134-135 Dallas, TX 75287
Telephone [phone] voice, [phone] Fax

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