Fred Ford (left) of Toys for Bob talks about working on Japanese home computers, via email

I do receive a lot of correspondence from people with your surname, John, so it did take me a minute to pinpoint our past interactions. There aren't any great stories -- although this was my first programming job and I have fond memories. I was attending U.C. Berkeley at the time and, being the eighth out of nine kids, was responsible for paying my own way as my parents had long ago been sucked dry.

I somehow sensed that the promotion I was striving toward in my janitorial job was always going to remain beyond my capacities and so I answered a ‘Help Wanted’ add for a local software company, Unison World. I only had my work ethic to offer, having no prior experience, and when the interview ended with ‘Well, we're not hiring just yet, but we might call you in a month or two.’, I figured I was being let down easy.

But I did get a call in a couple of months. After spending a sleepless night, agonizing over what I was throwing away in the field of custodial engineering, I grudgingly accepted. And the crazy thing was that they let me do whatever I wanted, ruining me for later Silicon Valley corporate jobs where my bosses actually wanted to have some say about what I did. First I worked on some sort of Japanese monochrome handheld with a screen about 1cm by 4cm (maybe 16 pixels by 64 pixels). I did a bowling game, a first-person bi-plane game, and a top-down window on a find-the-other-tank game.

After that I moved onto the NEC, Fujitsu, and MSX. Sometime during this halcyon time, the two owners of Unison World had a falling out and one split off to form Magicsoft. Their agreement had all of the employees, including me of course, going to Magicsoft. Not too long after this, Erol Otus, would coincidentally go to work for Unison World although I did not meet him at the time.

Some of the games I did for those systems were: Pillbox, Sea Bomber, Ground Support, and some submarine game whose name escapes me. I was working on a game for the MSX (I still have the eight inch floppy) when Magicsoft ran out of money. This was just as I was finishing my degree at college and the timing seemed right for me to put away childish things and join the corporate world. Luckily, after six years lost in the corporate wilderness, my senses returned and I hooked up with Paul.

Perhaps the most memorable thing as a callow, introverted 20 year old were the hookers who would primp in front of the large, mirrored window that fronted our office on Adeline Street in Berkeley. Some things you cannot forget even if you want to.