TELECOMPUTING-^? - Bombjack.org

"FISCAL INFORMATION was
ofiviousig not The ma and pa
operation tnat I had first
expected to find."
To find an operating sgstem
tnat would let the computer
and tne drive operate
together was not an easu task
■JUliM-
I first heard about the hard drive for the C64
when I was invited to a local users group
demonstration in Daytona Beach, FL. This
demonstration was presented by Roy Southwoick and
Lloyd Sponenburgh of Fiscal Information Inc. This
was such a major event that Run magazine send
Margaret Ptorabito, Commodore send Pete Baczor,
and even Jim Butterfield came down from Toronto,
Canada.
The demo presented that evening was so impressive
that I spoke with Roy Southwick and asked if I
could do a review far Info 64 magazine.
Arrangements were made and, just after the
holidays, I traveled to Daytona to the company
headquarters of Fiscal Information, Inc. I must
admit that I was not prepared for the company
itself. I don't know what I expected, but when I
stepped out of the elevator onto the 3rd floor,
the first thing I saw was an architects drawing
of the new company headquarters. Later in the
day, I learned that the entire company would be
moving into this 17,000 square foot building in
March of this year. Fiscal Information was
obviously not the ma and pa operation that I had
first expected to find. In fact, Fiscal
Information is a large company with over 100
employees and offices in 3 states.
The company was started by Bill Walter in 1971.
Bill had been a professor at the University of
Florida when he designed a complete software
package for a few physician friends. From there,
the company quickly grew to providing complete
turn key computer systems for doctors offices,
clinics, and hospitals across the country. These
systems range from a mere $30,000 to a quarter of
a million dollars for a large hospital.
Roy Southwick was the first employee of the
company and is now Uice-President of Systems
Engineering. Lloyd Sponenburgh was the 3rd
employee and is now Director of Hardware
Development. With their background in large
computer systems, designing both software and
hardware, they were able to bring to the hard
drive idea experience as well as strong company
support.
The idea of a hard drive started because Roy had
bought a C64 for his children. As he began to
personally use his Commodore, he was impressed
with its power yet dismayed by the slow 1541.
After all, he was used to a hard drive system.
What began as a simple question "can we interface
a hard drive to the C54 has resulted in hundreds
of man hours, and thousands of trial and error
programs to make that connection that even
Commodore gave up on.
With his friend Lloyd, Roy began looking at the
inner workings of the Commodore to find an
operating system that would let the computer and
the drive operate together. This was not an easy
task.