1981-1988: Software Publishing Corporation

After traveling through Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East with Nicole, and then working in France for Yann Cordelle at Cogelog, his software company just outside Paris, I finally returned to the United States in 1982, no longer with Nicole, prepared to settle down for awhile. 

First, I needed a place to stay.  My strategy was to answer advertisements in the local newspaper for "roommate seeking female roommate" - I didn't want to room with guys (guys are too messy, and they can's cook), and I didn't want to room with a female looking for a guy (I had split up with Nicole, and was not interested in getting romantically involved again - at least, not for awhile.  

Anyway, I got lucky.  In one call I recognized the woman as someone I had met some months ago, when I was home getting a visa permitting me to stay in France and marry Nicole (a so-called "Visa pour mariage".  I eventually got the visa, but we decided not to get married after all.).  While I was waiting to get the visa, I passed the time by giving slide shows of my travels in the homes of friends and friends of friends.  By happy coincidence, my good buddy Irv Brenner had set up such an evening of dinner and slides with the woman I called.  Bingo!  I had a place to stay.  (It turns out the woman was my future wife, Caren Kelman.)

But it gets better.  Caren worked at Hewlett Packard.  Her boss, Fred Gibbons, had just quit HP to start a software company, Software Publishing Corporation, and Caren persuaded him to hire me.  Double Bingo! 

I worked at SPC for eight years, first as the designer and developer of their word processor, pfs:Write (the pfs stands for Personal Filing System, the company's first product), then later as a manager.  pfs:Write was first released on the Apple II, and then on the IBM PC.  It became the world's best selling word processor, beating out Microsoft Word, among others, for several years in a row.  Pfs:Write was OEMed by IBM and renamed Writing Assistant.  IBM introduced it in an ad at Super Bowl XIX, held at Stanford Stadium on January 20, 1985.

It was also a great time to be working in Silicon Valley.  Business was booming, programmers were in demand, office parties and events were extravagant.  SPC once flew all of its employees to Las Vegas for a show. And closer to home, its three founders once rode into a party in the company's parking lot on elephants.  

1981- 1982: pfs:Write Design Notes

1983: pfs:Write User Manual

1983 - 1986: pfs:Write Rankings

1983 - 1986: Reviews

1983 - 1985: User Letters

1983: Byte Magazine article, Why is Software so Hard to Use?

1984: pfs:Proof Review