ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER 1992 ISSUE OF LIMA NEWSLETTER THE TRONICS SALES CORPORATION: HOW TO MAKE REALLY BIG MONEY SELLING 99/4A COMPUTERS TO YOUR FRIENDS reported by Charles Good Lima Ohio User Group The TRONICS SALES CORPORATION (whose 1982 address and phone were 2563 East Loop 820 North, Fort Worth TX 76118, 817-595-1202) had a deal for you! At least they did in 1982. All you had to do was sell your friends and relatives 99/4A computer systems. If you sell only two systems a month and the value of each sale averages $450 (about the list price of a 99/4A console back then), and if you could talk your customers into selling two $450 99/4A systems a month to their friends, then your year's commission on all these sales will be $852082! This figure is generated by a TRONICS cassette program shown to all potential TRONICS 99/4A "distributors" (door to salespeople), and of course computers never lie! TRONICS was created by Mike Wilcox and Dave Guardanapo to sell 99/4A's using a pyramid system of distributors and subdistributors, similar to the way AMWAY home care products are sold today. TRONICS produced a set of cassette programs designed to show off the unique features of the 99/4A. These cassettes were part of a distributer's sales kit. They came packaged in a blue plastic hard case that when opened held all the cassettes upright with their titles clearly visible to the user. This blue case is larger then, but closely resembles some plastic hard 10 pack disk cases I have seen which open into a triangular shaped disk holder. One of the cassettes is an audio commentary on how to open the box of your new 99/4A and assemble the parts. Most of the software is written in TI BASIC. There is one XB demo and one program that uses TEII and speech. TRONICS cassette software includes a spelling game (vesions with and without speech), two graphic demos, an all text SALES program that explains how to earn the big bucks, and a TALKWARE tape. These are all dated in REM statements between 7/28/82 and 8/30/82. The SIGHTS AND SOUNDS program says "Copyright Texas Instruments and Tronics Sales Corp 1982", suggesting an official arrangemet between TI and TRONICS. Apparently TI knew about and approved of TRONICS pyramid sales scheme. The TALKWARE cassette is unique. One side contains a TI BASIC program called "Lets Get Technical". This MUST be loaded from cassette with the PE Box shut off and no module plugged into the console. CALL FILES(1) doesn't free up enough memory to allow loading this from disk. When loaded from cassette, you have only 160 bytes of free memory left! When you RUN the TALKWARE program, on screen text instructs you to turn the cassette over, rewind the cassette to the beginning of side two, press cassette PLAY, and then press when the cassette produces an audible beep. The program in the computer then begins to execute in synchrony with the audio commentary on side two of the tape. As computer graphics illustrate the various parts of a (side car) expanded 99/4A system, the voice tells you about what you are looking at. If you leave the tape recorder hooked up to the computer, the voice comes out of the computer's monitor speaker as if the computer and not the tape were generating the words. This sort of audio tape/computer synchronization is a neat idea, something I have not encountered before. As explained in the SALES tape's TI BASIC program, you earn commissions on the computer systems you sell and you earn commissions on sales of people in your "down line". If you talk A into selling TI Home Computer's, and A recruits B, and B gets C to sell then A, B, C are all part of your "down line". There is the theoretical possibility that such a "down line" can grow exponentially to a very large size. The real money is in the commissions earned based on the sales of one's "down line". An "Executive Distributor" earns 10 percent on his own sales, 3 percent on his 1st level "down line", and 2 percent on sales of the 3rd through 5th level "down line" sales. The screen dump from the SALES program reproduced below shows hypothetical data for 12 months if you have 5 levels of "down line" and each individual in your network including yourself makes two $450 sales each month. The computer says a total of 94448 computer systems would be sold, and your total commission for the year would be $852084. Only two sales per month-- this should be easy! So why arn't we all millionares? .NA .NF And as a Master Distributor you would recieve the following: BONUSES & LEVEL SALES COMMISSIONS ----- ----- ----------- Sales 24 $1080 1st 264 $3564 2nd 1760 $15840 3rd 7920 $71280 4th 25344 $228096 5th 59136 $532224 Total 94448 $852084 Bill Gaskill sent me a full color glossy bruchure titled TI HOME COMPUTER PROGRAM LIBRARY - TRONICS dated 11/82. The insides are basically identical to the TI brochure of the same name minus the "Tronics", but the last two pages have some interesting quotes: "Tronics was the first electronics marketing company of its kind. We specialize in distributing home electronics by using a proven direct sales plan. It's a system that has bee used successfully by many other companies for decades, but never for products like home computers. Already over 15000 Tronics distributors all over the country have joined us to help serve this fast growing market. "Tronics Sales Corporation has experienced phenomenal growth. Our business grew by 25% a month during the first year. In the first six months, we sold 405 computers; now we're selling over 1500 a month. Next year we expect to increase that tenfold. ...... It's predicted that by 1986 about 85% of the homes in America will have one or more home computers. "The relationship between Texas Instruments and Tronics Sales Corporation is solely that of an independent buyer and seller."