Newspaper article reprint from the Traverse City Record-Eagle
TC Men develop Ultra-thin personal computers, expect to start producing them in 2 weeks.
03 February 1998 Article Reprint By Steve Kellman, Traverse City Record-Eagle staff writer
TRAVERSE CITY - If Gerald Milatz and Michael Dickinson have their way, the Grand Traverse area will be known for high-tech computers as well as cherries. Dickinson and Milatz, partners at CRT & Associates in Traverse City, have designed an ultra-thin personal computer as narrow as a Danielle Steele novel, crammed with the latest technology and boasting a low sticker price.
The steel-gray machine takes up a fraction of the space of a standard PC, and can stand upright on a desk or be strapped underneath. The partners developed the computer over two years at the request of an amusement company with over 100 sites that needed tiny PCs for use in their cramped cash booths. When people stopping by the partners' Hastings Street offices spotted the prototypes, they were intrigued, which got the partners thinking of the broader marketing possibilities.
"We've had so many people coming into the office and saying 'Wow, what's that?'," Dickinson said.
Though they insist that their machines are not laptop computers, the two say they were inspired in part by the computing power and compact size of laptops. "There are a lot of people carrying around notebook computers that are more powerful than their desktop computers, and I don't think anybody's stopped to ask why," Milatz said.
While their models borrow the disk drives used in some laptops, the machines also use high-end computer chips including the Intel Pentium MMX for high-speed operations. By leaving off the expensive screens that boost the price of laptops, they were able to hold down the cost.
They achieved the small size by rethinking two basic tenets of computer design. One was anticipating what people would want in a computer and putting everything in at the start, rather than leaving lots of room inside for add-ons. Another was designing a way to cool the computer's innards so its processing chips would not fry without using a bulky fan or leaving lots of open space for air flow.
The result is a gray steel case with rounded edges and a row of ports in the back. For comparison, about 12 of the larger computers or 18 of the smaller ones can fit inside the space taken up by a typical tower computer with similar processing power.
"They're essentially loaded," Milatz said. "The concept was 'Don't leave anything out,' so nobody needs to add anything."
The most expensive model is slightly larger and has a high-speed CD-ROM port and modem built in. One version hooks up to a standard computer screen or directly to a television set, allowing the user to view and videotape directly from the TV. Retail price should be just under $1,300. A smaller model without the built-in CD-ROM, modem or TV jack should retail for just under $1,000.
The computers are powerful enough and have enough built-in hardware to run small business networks. Milatz anticipates interest from home users intrigued by their size, price and ability to hook directly to a TV.
The partners hope to begin marketing the computers and producing them through an Asian manufacturing firm in two weeks, once they receive approval from the Federal Communications Commission. The computers will be sold wholesale and directly to clients looking for large orders at first, though the partners anticipate selling them through local stores eventually. "I think if anybody picked up a PC magazine or computer shopper guide, they wouldn't be able to find anything comparable," Dickinson said. "At least not for the next two weeks."
Milatz and partner Douglas Hamar, fresh out of Michigan Technological University, formed CRT & Associates as a computer consulting firm in 1984. The company, based in the Upper Peninsula, opened a Traverse City office in 1988 and now considers Traverse City its major operations site. CRT bought a local Internet service provider last September and is now researching the possibility of satellite linkups for personal computers.
Reprinted with permission.
###