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I'll send you an e-mail. I'm just cleaning up after some flooding so have been pretty busy but it looks like most of the material made it through OK. Some of the original manuals I'm drying. It looks like OTI was reselling BTI systems in cooperation with CTI (California Time Sharing I believe) and that is why I seem to have a number of sales related material.

Paul -- when you submit your comment, I have no idea how to contact you. I'm very interested in getting a copy of your slides. Please contact me: jim@thebattles.net

Thanks

Huh, Interesting! I was cleaning the basement tonight and thought I had found some misplaced family photos but it turns out to be two slide cases of BTI architecture slides. For example, color charts of BTI 8000 Variable Resource Architecture (32-bit, 67 nanosecond bus), pictures of "1970s - 1 machine - many programs - many users, BTI Innovation Strategy, etc. color charts, graphs...

I'm guessing this is the predecessor of the "Powerpoint" presentation perhaps shown to potential customers. It probably doesn't cover any specs not already on the BTI8000 page but it is in color with graphics. Maybe I can fire up the old slide scanner and put the slideshow into a PDF file or something.

Very happy to see the entry by my old boss, Lou Yurek, and I'm curious to hear what happened to him after he left for Ireland.

I will dig through the attic and see what I have to donate.

We ran a BTI computer for our 3 store retail furniture operation in Dallas, TX in the mid 80's. Accounting and Inventory Management Software package was written by two former EDS employees. We had to enroll in Basic X computer language courses at the local technical college so we could help keep the system running.

The secret passwords to reset date and other CPU maintenance and other hardware issues put the machine out of use, once the BTI shop was now longer available for tech support. As I understand it, BTI was instrumental in helping to bring database management into the public arena.

Concerning the comment by Paul Roberts concerning the OKIDATA hard drives; Several others we knew, at the time that were using the BTI system were converting to the newer compact PC type hard drives.

Glad to find the BTI history website. This brings back a lot of memories. Must add that converting from old paper based inventory and accounting systems was a big task and I learned that acquiring a computer was like adopting a newborn baby. They can require a lot of attention and can get cranky at times.

I am still an IBM PC clone user currently using Windows 7 & XP Pro, since AutoCAD and most of the available wood engineering applications run on Windows. However as I contemplate the passing of Steve Jobs, I very much appreciate his and Steve Wozniak for humanizing the computer and for developing the GUI. My son is a dedicated Mac pro user.

I have a BTI 5000 in the basement. I believe it was what would have been 'Oregon Timeshare Incorporated'. I used it briefly before the hard drive threw a belt. Try to ask any modern computer supply store where you can get a belt for an Okidata hard drive --Two most popular responses are "A belt?" and "Okidata makes hard drives?" I tried to repair it but I think the front-panel code looked up as 'drive not up to speed'.

At one point I called BTI support to ask about the maintenance password so I could play a bit more through the maintenance port instead of the 'basicx' user accounts (as I recall). To my surprise I was told they couldn't provide that because there were still a number of auto dealers actually using that model. I think support was a bit surprised there was a 5000 not in a data center too.

In the early 80s, it became apparent that my timesharing users were going to migrate to their own computers, and at the time my impression was that they would pay from 15 to 20 thousand for such a system that would run their applications, which were built on my DBMS.

(Since I had no imagination at the time, someone at BTI named it "MINDS")

IIRC, at the time the BTI 5000 in a minimum configuration was about $25,000., simply too much
for the market here.

At the same time, computer memory was rapidly getting denser and cheaper, so that the system wouldn't need disk-based swap tracks, and the user space
of about 12 KB could be expanded at minimal cost.

I brought these subjects up with BTI marketing, but didn't find much interest. It was obvious that all the resources were going to the 8000 program, and I can't honestly say that the 8000 wasn't the best bet at the time for BTI, but with some new small-end product, my shop would have turned into a systems house, and maybe some others out there, and this might have merged into the PC
stream and kept BTI alive.

Coulda, woulda, shouda.

As long as we're throwing stones, my own big error was not translating MINDS into Microsoft Basic. There never was a shortage of DBMS software for small systems, but we'll never know how many chips were left on the table.

I worked on the travel team for 4 years or so. Some of the gang was, Jack Vanmeel, Bill Dollahite, Dennis Pramstaller, Mike Hoffer, Rodney Hofner, Eric Minoski, John Diehl, Bert Briggs, and lots of others I will try to remember more names and list as the old brain allows.

Great to see the site. Brings back some very fun memories.

Thanks for sharing.

It was neat to find your BTI-8000 website this evening. I was having a conversation with a friend this last weekend and my years of working on the BTI-8000 came up. I wanted to look up and find out what happened to the company. I thought it was a great computer in it's day. I'm glad I found your website.

I went to Southwestern Adventist College (SAC) in Keene, Texas from 1979-1983. Some time during that time the college bought a BTI-8000. The computer center was run by Steve Sowder (he may have actually been responsible for purchasing it) and during my last couple of year there took Basic, Pascal, and COBOL. From what I understood, there were only 2 BTI-8000's in the state of Texas at the time. The other one was at Old American County Mutual Fire Insurance Co, in Dallas, TX. Old American was looking for entry level programmers so where better to go to find one than 1 hour away at SAC. Steve recommended me for the job which I took and started around Jan 1983. I worked there for 3 years before moving on to IBM mainframe shops. I had never heard of BTI since then so it was good to read about the history on your website.

Thanks for sharing...