Tales from back in the day (ICD & ASDG)

[trilobyte]

Great stories.  I worked for a former Commodore distributor, about two years after they stopped doing any Amiga business.  I got to watch them go down the tank too, selling video editing products for PCs and Macs.

Being from Rockford, hearing about ICD is always interesting for me.  I actually bought a Link II adapter from Tom himself in 1999/2000, just by walking into the complex on Rock St. and asking the security guy how to go about getting in contact with ICD.  Tom came down and we worked out a deal.  I may have purchased one of the last new ICD SCSI adapters around

Everybody was threatened with having to leave that big old complex eventually because the landlords stopped paying their utility bills.  It was big news in the local paper.  All tenants were "left in the dark."  I think there are some ICD customers/partners who would probably giggle at that...

- t

[trilobyte]

Which distributor was that btw? I recall one being down in Champaign-Urbana but I forget the name (I and one of our sales guys went down there once for a dog and pony show of the AdSpeed/IDE when it was first released).

Good memories, good memory.  Yeah, I worked for Micro-PACE in C-U.  There was another one there too, which splintered off from Micro-PACE and competed with them but didn't last as long, called American Software & Hardware Distributors or something.  By the time I worked for M-P, American had already folded and some of its staff come back to M-P...

Boy when this gets Google-ized I bet more memory-seekers are going to come out of the woodwork... M-P already has reunions, I wonder about ADSG (who never really 'folded', right, but instead got bought out?) and ICD (who merged/MorphPlus'ed into Rock River Internet or something similar).

So many cool software companies came out of Madison... ASDG, Sonic Foundry... wonder how many are still there?  Madison is one of my favorite places in the world.

- t

[trilobyte]

It's a shame how things work out sometimes.  And I just want to say that I totally 100% agree with you that the with the passing of these companies went an entire ecosystem.  I suppose that is what happens with consolidation of a fledgling industry like personal computers, but man.  You are totally right, and I can see how being there with it must have been very exciting.

[trilobyte]

I think a European must now own the site. Says last time I edited this post, was 1:44am. It's 7:50pm here in WI. lol

There you guys have it... part of the mystery solved? lol

I know there ain't that much of a time difference between here and OH or wherever Wayne lives...

I got your message, and yeah, I haven't been a regular visitor there since moving to central IL... but down here, we don't have music stores like you have up there, or nice sidewalk cafes, or natural bodies of water.  These are all reasons I appreciate Madtown...

-t

[trilobyte]

Trilobyte, what a fascinating pair of stories.

Not my stories!  Kinshi's stories!   Credit where credit is due!  I am just a responder.

- t