George
Morrow, a Personal Computer Visionary, Dies at 69
By JOHN MARKOFF
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 1970's 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 1970's.
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 I.B.M. 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
78-r.p.m. recordings,
with much of the collection being dance
and jazz music of the 1920's and 1930's. 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.
Copyright 2003 New York Times (Registration required)
12:42:34 AM 
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