history

Early Years

Starting in March of 1984, Digital Vision operated from two rooms in a small office building (actually, a converted house) in Needham, MA. Dave's desk and "lab space" occupied one office, and the other was the realm of Employee #2, a young woman hired to assist with ... everything! Dana answered the phone, booked orders, printed invoices, packed and shipped, handled accounts payable and receivable ... and literally soldered together the first 100 ComputerEyes units at her desk in between phone calls. As the company grew, Dana grew with it, capably taking on increasing responsibilities as Office Manager, and stayed with the company from start to finish.

Things were slow at first, until the ads placed in the various Apple magazines began to have their effect, and within a few months sales were starting to take off. We unburdened Dana from product assembly and started using an outside electronics fabrication company to build our products.

Around this time, Dave's brother John offered to move to MA and help the company along, so we took more space in the building (took over the basement, actually). John did everything too — he tested the products, did some much-needed marketing, handled pre-sales and tech support phone calls, created our early product literature, and on and on.

Meanwhile, product development continued. The original Apple II ComputerEyes was upgraded to scan with 8 shades of gray (woo-hoo!). A version for the Commodore 64/128 was developed, followed by one for the Atari 800. All three were similar in basic design, the differences being in how they hooked to the various computers and (of course) in the software.

The new products meant that the company was growing even faster, so we hired a technician to help build and test prototypes and to take over product repairs. Also added to the staff was a person whose main role was product testing and packaging. And then we added ...

Dave's wife Vivian. Vivian had a math degree plus an MBA from MIT Sloan, and significant software management experience, but was looking for a change. Which she got at Digital Vision, where she became the company's CFO in addition to taking on sales and marketing responsibilities. Things were on a roll!

Which meant that we were outgrowing our cramped space in Needham. It was time to move, and so ...