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Computer visionary George Morrow dies
By John Markoff
Special to CNET News.com
May 9, 2003, 6:05 AM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1008-1000732.html

George Morrow, a mathematician and programmer who was a member of a group of 
unorthodox hobbyists who were instrumental in creating the personal computer 
industry, died at his home in San Mateo, Calif., on Wednesday.
He was 69 and had suffered from aplastic anemia for the last year, his wife 
said.

Mr. Morrow was born in Detroit. He dropped out of high school, but at the age 
of 28 decided to return to school and received a bachelor's degree in physics 
from Stanford University and a master's degree in mathematics from the 
University of Oklahoma. He entered a Ph.D. program in mathematics at the 
University of California at Berkeley, but was sidetracked by his passion for 
computers.

He started working as a programmer in the computer laboratory at Berkeley in 
the early 1970s and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, an 
informal group of engineers, programmers, experimenters and entrepreneurs that 
ultimately spun off dozens of companies that formed the core of the personal 
computer industry in the 1970s.

Forms Microstuf
Initially, most personal computers were sold as kits. Mr. Morrow formed 
Microstuf, a company in Berkeley, Calif., to sell expansion cards and other 
computer add-on products to the first generation of personal computer 
enthusiasts. He would later change the name of the company, first to Thinker 
Toys and later to Morrow Designs.

A self-taught computer designer, Mr. Morrow was involved in the efforts to 
create and standardize the S100 bus, a hardware design that made it possible 
for early PC makers to share expansion cards.

Morrow Designs thrived when the personal computer became an important tool for 
small businesses. The first machines ran the Digital Research CP/M operating 
system. Later, Mr. Morrow introduced a portable computer intended to compete 
head-to-head with the popular Osborne 1 computer. The Morrow machine matched 
the Osborne's $1,795 price but offered more bundled software.

Mr. Morrow was well-known for his enthusiasm and his sense of humor within the 
computer industry. Lee Felsenstein, who was one of the original members of the 
Homebrew club and the designer of the Osborne 1, recalled that Mr. Morrow was 
usually dressed in jeans and tennis shoes.

When IBM began to dominate the PC market, Mr. Morrow was forced to shift to the 
industry standard. In 1985, his company introduced a popular portable design 
known as the Pivot and sold the design to Zenith Data Systems. But with the 
industry becoming increasingly dominated by large electronics companies, Morrow 
Designs filed for bankruptcy in 1986.

In recent years, Mr. Morrow spent his time maintaining a collection of 70,000 
78rpm recordings, with much of the collection being dance and jazz music of the 
1920s and 1930s. He had developed an advanced electronic system for digitizing 
and remastering the recordings, and he was distributing them on compact disc on 
his own label, the Old Masters.

He is survived by his wife, Michiko Jean, of San Mateo; two sons, John, of San 
Mateo, and William, of New York; and a daughter, Kelly, of San Jose, Calif.


Entire contents, Copyright © 2003 The New York Times. All rights reserved


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