Video shows cops' bleeding edge IT, 1986 stylee

THE OTHER DAY, while looking for vintage computer stuff we found this video about a unique use of Tandy's Radio Shack TRS-80, Model 100 by the public service agencies of Sacramento, California.

We started asking Sacramento PC User Group (SPCUG) members about the project. One of them showed us a 1985 California Computer News article which helped us find the system's original designer.

Jay Lemmons was involved then in radio station engineering and is still thinking up bright ideas. Jay said this Model 100 based system, The Media Computer Network (MCN), ran uninterrupted for about eight years.

It was the conceptual forerunner to the Amber Alert system, although no connection has been made to it by current technology nor today's agencies. Lemmons’ then new ideas replaced Sacramento's old Telephone Hotline. Originally, information acquired on the scene by emergency services (sheriff, police, fire department, FBI, CHP) was first dictated over a pay phone to their headquarters.

Then, a summary of the incident was read by their PIO (Public Information Officer) to anyone who was on the Hotline tie-trunk which had voice-activated, reel-to-reel tape recorders located at each news media outlet. The audio-based system was plagued with transcription mistakes and misinterpretations which caused errors in reporting. (Errors, we've heard of those - Ed.)

Before the MCN system was mothballed, PoqetPC hand held computers were serial cabled to alpha-numeric, two-way pagers and used for text messaging from crime scenes – yesterday’s IM (instant messaging). Not much different than text messaging on today's mobile phones.

A retired TV news producer said a local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, a 125-year-old, printed word factory, wielded their power to replace The Media Computer Network with their own "free faxing" ideas. A SPCUG member said "The replacement lasted about six months before it broke down and their news department didn't have the extra money to fix it..."

We found a retired on-air radio news person who typed on their location's MCN Model 100. They said the REAL REASON SacBee tossed a spanner (monkey wrench in USA lingo) into the MCN system was they did not have control over 'getting the news first'. The old SPCUG member said "the first host computer was a Tandy 2000, a so-called IBM-clone which was such a loser that it didn't last 90 days. Tandy's BIOS didn't properly control the second comm port."

The Tandy 2000 was an 80186 based computer that was infamous for being a non-compatible IBM-compatible. Lemmons said their second DOS-based computer, a Compaq DeskPro 8086 with both comm ports working, was soon replaced by a white box 80386 host computer again using his proprietary BASIC software.

A four-port serial DigiBoard and four multi-baud modems were the brains of the egalitarian system that rotated the news delivery cycle. Each of the receiving news media outlets was rotated into their turn for being ‘the first’ on each send-message cycle. Lemmons supervised writing of the MCN Model 100's proprietary application.

Jay said: "it had to be easy to use because one of the PIO's threatened to pull out his 45 caliber pistol and blast away if he couldn't make it work for him." The Media Computer Network video shows how Model 100's delivered the news about crimes, fires, and successes by public safety folks. Sheriff's PIO using MCN Model 100 ...

... at 1986 crime scene.

In 1985, MCN Model 100's and their Okidata 9-pin printers broke the news about Theodore 'Ted' Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber, when he blew up Hugh Scrutton, a local Sacramento computer store owner. A retired undercover policeman said they could have released more pertinent news that very day about the Unabomber's description, but didn't. Another retired law enforcer from a nearby town said "The Fibbies didn't want it to get out to the public and cause a panic."

So Unabomber Kaczynski, after hanging around to see the results of his deadly deed, took a bus out of town.

The same old copper told us that, oddly, the official FBI magazine later published an article about the successes of Sacramento's MCN Model 100 based system. Could MCN's Model 100 based system have helped capture the Unabomber? You decide after watching the video. It shows how the public is a big help in capturing criminals and how 'Breaking News' can make a tremendous difference. It sure did in returning a kidnapped little girl in the video, a la Amber Alerts.

Lemmons said MCN's Model 100 based system was often first with local news mobilising agency help and community assistance. One example occurred in 1986 when in the middle of a rain soaked night a CHP officer radioed to CHP Dispatch Headquarters in Sacramento that the Olivehurst levee was breaking apart right under his Dodge patrol car. The CHP HQ's PIO started relaying facts direct from the scene of the levee break.

This was the second of three so-called 'once in a lifetime events' (1971, 1986, 1997) - all caused huge flooding by a levee break in the Olivehurst California area. Each time the floods came, within four hours homes and busi ne sses close to the levee break had over nine feet of water at their roof lines. Farm property twenty miles from the levee break had about 18 to 24 inches of water - A MUDDY MESS for all.

Then there was Dorothea Puente's Sacramento rooming house with her grizzly murders of seven elderly boarders all buried in her backyard garden. Lemmons said the police PIO sent nearly hourly updates from his MCN Model 100 about the victims' body parts as they were dug up. The Model 100 included an operating system personally written by Sir William Gates III. Gates told a SPCUG meeting that operating system was the last one he did all by himself.

The Model 100 came with word processing software, telecommunications software and a built-in 300 baud modem. Kyocera designed the Model 100 and licensed the same design to Tandy, Olivetti, and NEC who subsequently released almost identical computer models.

Model 100 specifications

The Media Computer Network also used Toshiba T-1100-Plus full-sized laptops attached to some of the first cellular modems - sending and receiving messages at 1200 and 2400 baud.

Yes, today's stuff is faster, but it all just goes to show ya there isn't a lot that’s really new in Computerdom.

More Model 100 info here. µ