dreher.net

How exciting! More than 100 warm bodies have signed up for a CFFA card. I've been waiting since May. I can hardly wait....

-Warr
(former Beagle Bros tech support)

Warr,

Your post says that you used to do work for Beagle Brothers. That had to be cool! How long were you there? I always thought that they put out some of the best software utilities around. It was a shame that they had to close up shop.

Best Regards,
Steven

Sorry for the tardy reply.

In 1988 I was a college student at UC San Diego, and looking over the job board at the career center. Posted on the wall was a card for "Apple II Technical Support. Apple II experience required. Will train. Part time." I was already a die-hard 8-bit Apple II user for 3 years, and was shocked and astonished to learn that the company was Beagle Bros. I was already a huge fan, and my father had even corresponded with Bert Kersey after reading Bert was using the then-new laser printer with AppleWriter to typeset certain things in the Beagle Bros catalogs.

A month of interviews later, and I was hired for part-time technical support, meaning I answered the tech support phone 8 hours a day, two or three days a week. I also answered mail. We were responsible for the entire TimeOut series, as well as all the Classics, and the new BeagleWrite/Draw stuff. For a few years there, I was basicaly a walking encyclopedia of all things Apple II, hardware and software.

I was there for almost three years, outlasting two owners, three company presidents, and four immediate bosses. For a while I was the *only* part timer at the company. I was laid off just a few months before Beagle closed its doors in 1991, I believe.

My life really changed as a result of that job at Beagle Bros. Though I graduated with a degree in Political Science, my first job out of college was doing tech support for a modem software company, which I turned into a technical writing job before leaving. Now I'm a professional computer consultant, writer for PC Magazine and CPU magazine, and I do documentation for a major printer company.

I still have my original Apple //e I bought used 1987 to take to college, with money earned from fixing bikes for a summer job. The family still has our first //e purchased new in 1985. I booted it up last Christmas. It works fine.

-Warr

Wernst,

I just finished reading your account. I too am a Technical Writer, but I started out completely different. I was in the NAVY out in Long Beach, CA. in 1983 when my best friend brought an Apple IIc back to the house we were sharing and set it up in the spare room. He started playing games on it and at the time, I was amazed at this little machine. I bought my own a year later and was hooked on computers.

We both upgraded to 1Meg of memory (Wow) and used them for all kinds of things. But, I thought about all of the things I could do with Appleworks onboard ship. Lectures, Databases, Instructions, etc., and took it onboard and every duty station thereafter.

By this time My friend had built his first 286 PC and didn't use his IIc anymore, so I bought it from him for a spare. I built my first 386 PC on the kitchen table a year later. lol When I arrived at Assault Craft Unit Five (ACU5) at Camp Pendleton in 1992, They were using PC's, but I continued to use my IIc to write QA training lectures while I wrote work packages for the LCAC repair shops.

I had a chance to have my own Work Center, so I volunteered to be head of the command Autometed Data Processing Center (ADP). Now this is a bit strange, as I was a Gas Turbine Systems (Mechanical) Chief Petty Officer, and had no idea what I was getting into, but I learned. I had really fine folks working for me and they taught me the ropes. OJT is the best experience.

When I retired in 1995, I went to work for Gateway 2000 for a little over a year up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Then I started working back here on the East Coast as a technical writer and have been one ever since. Currently I'm working at the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, writing a software maintenance manual.