The Hartley story is a little-known tale of what might have been and, as this old t-shirt shows, I played a very tiny part in it when in 1980 I worked with Hartley Computers which was one of the first mini/PC computer vertical market successes in the world, with ultimately 250 staff and 3,000 sites in seven countries.
David Hartley became known as ‘the father of computer client account-ing’ when he and his team developed HAPAS (HArtley Professional Accountants’ System), the only software in Australia designed specifi-cally for small accounting practices. He also designed SHEILA (System by Hartley for Entirely Integrated Ledger Accounting) for large businesses.
The operating system was called RT86, a true pre-emptive multi-user multi-tasking operating system for the 8086 chip. It was launched in 1980, fifteen years before Windows PCs had that capability.
When IBM launched the IBM PC, it decided to use the Intel 8088 (an 8-bit external bus sister chip of the full 16-bit 8086 used by Hartley). Looking for someone to supply the operating system, they were introduced to Bill Gates, who did not even have any Intel chip-based software at the time. Bill rushed out to buy what became MS-DOS for $50,000. And so MS-DOS was inflicted upon the world – at a huge cost compared to what might have been with Hartley's far superior RT86.
I lived just around the corner in a rented flat at 66 Sherwood Road, Toowong
The success of HARTLEY Computers was not to last and its founder now lives in Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, not on some super-yacht drinking pina coladas but on a small pension and still dreaming of repeating his former successes. Here is his own version of where things went wrong:
To listen to part 1 of this podcast, click here
To listen to part 2 of this podcast, click here
I never saw the end: while with HARTLEY, a company on Bougainville Island, MORGAN EQUIPMENT, asked me to come back to Papua New Guinea to advise on their computer installation, an NCR mainframe.
Another what-might-have-been story for both David Hartley and myself.
