Paul's "Moog"

[Paul Schreiber]

>Paul S.  designed the Radio Shack Moog!  I'll be damned.

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Since this pops up every now and then, and I'm taking a break bagging up
7,620 resistors, here is the "story".

Radio Shack has no engineering. Rather, that falls (er...'fell') under TSD
(Tandy Systems Design).
Also, twice a year Radio Shack holds a private version of COMDEX/CES, just
for them! Vendors
line up 50 deep and present their wares. Back then (early '80s) about 40% of
gear in a Radio Shack
was bought 'outside'. Most electronics was made in a Korean factory that
Tandy owned a majority share
called EnCal (EnCal made all of Pioneer's and Alpine's car stereos there).

So, during one of these mini-trade shows who is on the presentation list
(which TSD got in advance) but
a one 'Dr. D. Luce'. Well, when I saw Mr. PolyMoog on the list I had to see
this.
So sure enough here he wanders in with a hand-made small synth. He demos it.
Bernie Appel, the
#1 decision maker (er...the *ONLY* decision maker of what went in the store
or not) had this type
of conversation (I am giving not exact, but the general idea. It was 16-17
years ago!)

BA: What the fuck is that piece of shit? (BA enjoyed treating all new
vendors this way. This was his equivalent of "Hello.")
DDL: It's a music synthesizer prototype. [Proceeds on a 3 minute demo. You
had 5 minutes to present. Period!!]
BA: (interested, but certainly not going to show it to the Yankee geek) How
the hell do you plug it in?
DDL points out the 1/4" jack.
BA: Where in the holy hell, in my store (they were always referred to as "my
stores") does that thing go? Up my ass?

See, RS had not a single piece of gear that had 1/4" jacks! All RCA. BA knew
this.

DDL at this point looks like he's gonna puke. He's quivering & sweating like
a whore in church (sorry, that's another BA expression!)

BA: Play me a tune.
DDL one-fingers a classical thingy.

BA: That damn thing busted? What's with this 1 finger shit?
DDL explains about monophonic blah blah blah.

BA turns to me.

BA: You know what the hell he's talking about?
Me: (thinking this is a trick question) Err...yeah.
BA to DDL: We'll look at it. NEXT!!!!

So began the Luce/Schreiber effort. What he had was the boards out of a
Minimoog, no A440 osc, no noise, in a box. So, I got handed that,
designed the MG-1 version (added the organ stuff BECAUSE BA was convinced
that typical RS customers wanted more than
1 note). Added RCA jacks, ring mod do-dad. Then, had to specify parts that
Moog never had to use: cheapo pots. I'll admit it: CHEAPO.
They were ALPS and I think we paid (back then) about 23 cents apiece.

That is because the RS gross profit margin was an unheard of 63% (the
average of ALL the Forture 500 is like 8%) and lastly,
I spent about 3 weeks on just the panel layout and color scheme & wrote the
Owner's Manual along with, oddly enough, Steve
Leininger who designed the TRS-80. He played a Vox in a jazz band and BA
wanted his opinion as well.

Luce and I went back & forth about 5 months until they delivered the
"pre-production" units. Moog made them, Tandy supplied
most of the parts (we had a company in Japan that bought parts and resold
them to Tandy. One day I'll tell my funny modem capacitor
story.)

So, the story was:

a) Moog presented the original idea to RS
b) They dumped it on me. I had to make it "Radio Shack compliant". Which
meant a re-design. Used the 3046 + Tel Labs tempco
for the VCO. More Electronotes than Moog! Moog ladder filter, 3080 VCA.
Prototype had mod wheel; *PUNT!*. Cost like $3. Get real.
c) Moog built it.
d) Tandy had 18 months exclusive. Moog then made the Rogue which is my
design without the organ/ring mod, wheels back on.
e) No, I didn't get a free MG-1 or a Rogue.
f) No, I didn't get alot of money. At that time I was making about
$21,500/yr.

Final note: NO!!! I DID NOT pick that stupid black felt that lays over the
sliders, then turns to tar. That was Luce's deal.
But, I DID get Luce to send me *every* piece of Moog literature at the time:
still have it!

Paul Schreiber
Synthesis Technology