Silent Butler 80

[SamKorea]

I was the software engineer who programmed Silent Butler. The concept, user interface, check holder, etc., was all Ted's design. Originally Ted made the Silent Butler program for the IBM PC. When the IBM PC first came out, as Ted used to say, people were burning floppy disks with the software they wrote, putting it in plastic ziplock bags, and selling it to the ComputerLand and other computer stores because they were so desperate for any software. I don't recall if Ted ever sold the IBM PC version directly or not. But he wrote it (I believe mostly via a previous software engineer) in UCSD P-System, which was so horribly slow as to be almost unusable.

 

I first met Ted via answering an ad he put at my university, where I was an undergraduate computer software engineer student. I worked part-time for Ted, and told him the first thing that needed to be done was to forget P-System and write the program in assembler, which I did. The first version I made was for the Commodore 64. Ted personally dealt with Jack Tramiel while he was head at Commodore, and got them to carry the Silent Butler. Later, when Jack Tramiel formed Atari, Ted met him again and we made the Atari version, which wasn't difficult, being both the Commodore 64 and Atari computers were 6502-based. The Apple II was also 6502 based, and we made a version of that. But the company Ted contracted with to sell it I think never sold any, or only a very small handful, and the product was pulled. My memory is a bit hazy after all these years, especially regarding the marketing part, but I think Ted may have tried to convince Atari to sell the Apple II version as well as the Atari version, but I don't think it ever happened.

 

Ted was a real go-getter, though knew just enough software-wise to be dangerous. He even made a TV commercial pitching the Silent Butler program, which he tried to pitch to Jack Tramiel at Atari. That was back in the days when Alan Alda was Atari's spokesman. The TV commercial featured Anne Lockhart (June Lockhart's daughter), but as far as I know, the commercial never aired.

After the 6502 versions, both Atari and Commodore came out with their 68000-based computers, the ST and Amiga, respectively. I ported the Silent Butler to those machines, but as mentioned in this thread, the ST version was never released, and likewise with the Amiga version. 

 

Based on my experience with the Atari XL, Ted got a contract to develop a computerized teleprompter based on that computer, which I programmed. It was a bit more challenging, being in order to free up enough memory to hold a decent size script, I had to throw out the BIOS/OS in ROM and rewrite it in very compact form in RAM, due to the way the memory banking worked on the Atari XL. As a side note, I did all development on an IBM PC, then later an IBM XT, via cross compilers, and for the Atari XL, I designed a home-made cable/software going from the IBM PC parallel port to the Atari XL joystick port, in order to get a fast transfer into the machine. I wasn't a hardware engineer so just used straight wires, which occasionally burned out the joystick port on the XL, but it was way more productive than attempting to compile natively on the XL.

 

Anyways, Ted and I mostly parted ways soon after writing the teleprompter software, with me continuing that, and Ted going into sales, not computer related. I still kept in contact with Ted for a couple years, during the time he tried to complete the ST version of Silent Butler. My recollection is that it still had some issues though, and my heart wasn't in it to devote much time and not seeing any revenue.

 

Well, the last I heard from Ted was in the early 1990's, before I moved to South Korea. After moving to South Korea, I've been involved in software development for MCUs, DSPs, FPGAs, making consumer electronic devices and industrial electronic devices. I wondered what happened to Ted, which prompted me to search and found this thread as a result. I did find one bit of information, from his school classmate friend, Jerry Berg:
http://bhsclass67.blogspot.com/2009/03/jerry-berg-bhs-67-talks-about-music-man.html

In that link, Jerry says Ted was at that time (2009) living in or near Apple Valley, CA. Allan, Savetz, or anyone else, if you ever has a chance to contact Ted, tell him Sam says "hi". Ted would be in his mid 70's now.

 

I never imagined that after 40 years or so there would still be people interested in and talking about Silent Butler.
 

[_The Doctor__]

@SamKorea,

We are very interested in the tools, software, hardware, paperwork, and people who worked at every level within the Atari sphere. (this includes Amiga). Anything you can share about yourself, your works, et al. would be a great resource for not only today's aficionados, but tomorrows creators on these beloved machines.

[+DjayBee]

Paging @Allan and @Savetz

[Bill Lange]

The phone book has a 73 y/o Ted Goldstone in Burbank: https://www.usphonebook.com/ted-a-goldstone/UyADOwMDM4czM3cTOyMjN4EDMy0yR

[luckybuck]

Hi SamKorea!

 

Incredible nice to read from you!!! :-)))))

 

For the AtariWiki, for example:

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=XEP80

 

we would like to make a site about Silent Butler. Do you may have still the software, source code etc. for this?

All credits go to you, of course.

 

Giga thanks in advance. 🙂

[SamKorea]

11 hours ago, Bill Lange said:

The phone book has a 73 y/o Ted Goldstone in Burbank: https://www.usphonebook.com/ted-a-goldstone/UyADOwMDM4czM3cTOyMjN4EDMy0yR

I can't open that link, likely due to not being located in the U.S. and the site blocks foreign accesses, but I assume that's his house on Alameda, which is where he lived at the time we developed the Silent Butler software. He worked from his home, and I had an apartment nearby. I also knew Jerry Berg I mentioned in my first post, and I assume when he said Ted was living in/near Apple Valley, that was correct, meaning Ted moved since I lost contact with him 30 years ago. And, apparently Jerry Berg moved to Arizona. If anyone really wants to contact him, Jerry Berg seems likely more easy to track down than Ted, and might be able to help. Searching for "Goldstone" and "Apple Valley" is of no help, due to it gets lots of hits for the Goldstone Radio Telescope located there. His mother lived next door to his house on Alameda, so if she's still alive and living there, she also might be a way to get in contact with him. And his sister was living at the time just a block away, but I've forgotten her name.

[SamKorea]

1 hour ago, luckybuck said:

Hi SamKorea!

 

Incredible nice to read from you!!! :-)))))

 

For the AtariWiki, for example:

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=XEP80

 

we would like to make a site about Silent Butler. Do you may have still the software, source code etc. for this?

All credits go to you, of course.

 

Giga thanks in advance. 🙂

I probably still have the source code on an old hard drive, but I've not accessed it for over 30 years now, so don't know if the data is still readable or not. Plus I made various backups to floppy disks. I couldn't release any of the source code to any third party though, unless I had Ted Goldstone's permission, being he's the owner of the copyright on it. Any of my old hard drives and other gear used for that project are in storage in California, and not readily accessible to me at the moment unless I make a trip there.

[andymanone]

Btw:

Here, there seems to be still a dealer who offers Silent Butler XL/XE complete as NOS for 9€!

 

Cheers,

andY

[luckybuck]

Thank you very much SamKorea, we will try to contact Ted.

 

All the best.

[luckybuck]

Just forgot:

 

Wade and I found out independent from each other:
"

Printing

I could not get any print routines to work either in emulation or with real hardware.
"

Source:

https://inverseatascii.info/2016/02/02/s2e07-atari-silent-butler/

 

Did you or Ted publish a fix for this?

 

Many thanks in advance from all SB users.

Edited January 4, 2023 by luckybuck

[SamKorea]

On 1/5/2023 at 5:38 AM, luckybuck said:

Just forgot:

 

Wade and I found out independent from each other:
"

Printing

I could not get any print routines to work either in emulation or with real hardware.
"

Source:

https://inverseatascii.info/2016/02/02/s2e07-atari-silent-butler/

 

Did you or Ted publish a fix for this?

 

Many thanks in advance from all SB users.

I don't recall any issues with printing. That was a major function of the program and I believe tested extensively. So I'm not sure why you're experiencing a problem. But without the source code or a system to test on with me, I can't really debug the issue. 

[_The Doctor__]

I don't remember printing issues either, but if you are using an XEP80 it might want to use the printer through it's printer port. I wouldn't try any speedy hacked XEP or Modified XEP80 clones first... make sure it works on the real thing before alt drivers or some XEP II type thingy

[luckybuck]

Good point, I tested just in an emulator with real ATX images and one disk for storing the personal data. I don't know whether Wade did the test on real hardware. Must ask him. But it was the normal version, not the XEP80 version.

 

Thank you both.

[luckybuck]

@SamKorea:

 

If anything(!) from here:

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Atari Silent Butler

is not o. k. for you, please let me know.