Micro-Ware Limited

On April 1, 1977, Micro-Ware Limited was incorporated as an Ontario Corporation with one thousand dollars in share capital. No need for a lawyer, the forms were straightforward and the operation easily done by visiting the government offices in downtown Toronto. Articles of Incorporation were cribbed from a set of books at the library intended for use by lawyers. I wonder if it is still as easy to do.

Micro-Ware’s corporate headquarters were located in the back bedroom of 27 Firstbrooke Drive, Toronto. The eight by ten room had a great view of the back yard. The first purchases made by the corporation were a Skilsaw and enough lumber to build a desk and work table. With a swivel chair in the center, I had a U-shaped desk area with ample room for computers and work surface, all within reach without leaving the chair. There were many days during the summer of 1977 that I didn't leave that chair from early morning until late at night.

A logo was created for Micro-Ware which embodied the spirit of the high technology of the company. The letters M and W were made of paper tape. In 1977, all our products were available on paper tape for 6502 and 8080 machines.

The Kim-1 with expansion board and memory was my main computer at this time. As a development system, I began developing Micro-ADE, an Assembler, Disassembler and Editor system which ran in 4K on the Kim or any 6502 system. Dual cassette players were used for input and output. A Lear-Siegler ADM-3 dumb terminal was the user interface.