Seymour I. Rubinstein
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Seymour Ivan Rubinstein (born 1934) is a pioneer of the PC software industry. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and later moved to California. Programs developed partially or entirely under his direction include WordStar, HelpDesk, and Quattro Pro, among others. WordStar was the first truly successful program for the personal computer (in a commercial sense) and gave access to word processing to the general population for the first time. In some ways he might be called the typewriter killer.
Rubenstein began his involvement with microcomputers as director of marketing at IMSAI. Prior to this, he was a TV repairman.
He currently lives in Northern California.
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[edit] Business Ventures
Rubinstein founded MicroPro International Inc. in 1978. MicroPro was the maker of the WordStar word processor. Several IMSAI employees joined him there, including Rob Barnaby (creator of the first version of WordStar, known as "ned"), Bruce Van Natta, Joe Killian, Dianne Hajicek, and Glen Ewing.
In 1982, WordStar was ported to MS-DOS.
"So while WordMaster, SuperSort, and WordStar were developed on IMSAIs (I used mine til I got an IBM PC), few customers used them." -- Rob Barnaby in email to Mike Petrie 2 May 2000
In 1987, Rubinstein became involved with a spreadsheet called Surpass. This spreadsheet was later sold to Borland International. Borland International renamed it QuattroPro.
In 1990, Rubinstein was sued by IMSI regarding theft of trade secrets regarding WordStar. Rubinstein was successfully defended by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP [1].
In a Video History Interview with the David Allison of the Smithsonian Institute, Bill Gates referred to Rubinstein as starting one of the first software companies [2].
In the 1995, he founded a company called Prompt Software to investigate document management, internet research, and patent a series of discoveries regarding Content Discovery, this software connected to multiple search sites and used complex word algarithams to refine searches.
One of his most recent associations is with Intesoft Systems.
[edit] Stories About Rubinstein
According to the book The Silicon Jungle, Rubinstein, a science fiction fan, had once asked author Arthur C. Clarke about the possibility of a briefcase computer tapping into information from anywhere in the world. Of course, Clarke had already thought of this, and predicted in Profiles of the Future that businesses would need "only the equivalent of a telephone number". Around the time of this question, Rubinstein already knew that Epson was going to be marketing a lapsized machine with WordStar in ROM.
Arthur C. Clarke credited WordStar with bringing him out of the retirement that he announced in 1978.
Part of Rubenstein's legacy is the invention of the $495 selling price for PC software, a price level that ruled the desktop for over a decade. According to Rubenstein, he arrived at this price by walking down Fourth Street in San Rafael, going into businesses and asking them what they'd be willing to pay for word processing software with WordStar's capabilities.
[edit] Quotations
[edit] Improper Credit
Similar to many early pioneers in the software industry, Rubinstein is sometimes credited with actually writing the software that his companies have marketed. Some things Rubinstein is improperly credited with are:
- Development of a BASIC compiler [3]. The real BASIC compilers of the day were MBasic — Bill Gates' big success — and CBasic by Gordon Eubanks. Rubinstein never had any involvement with a BASIC compiler. He was a COBOL man at that time.
- Developing WordStar — The code was actually written by Rob Barnaby [4]. The base code was originally an IMSAI program called NuEdit, which was spiffed up and named WordMaster in San Rafael, California. The features that turned WordMaster (a programming editor, similar to vi in some ways) into WordStar — the common man's word processor — were mostly Rubinstein's.
"Seymour was the marketing brains - it was he that said we should address word processing to get a larger market. The defining change was to add margins and word wrap. Additional changes included getting rid of command mode and adding a print function. I was the technical brains - I figured out how to do it, and did it, and documented it. The product's success I think related both to it being the right product (Seymour) and to it being a fairly good implementation given the equipment (me)." -- Rob Barnaby in email to Mike Petrie 3 May 2000
- Developing Quattro Pro — The original Quattro Pro was a DOS program. The development environment — a Modula-2 compiler and a windowing system and a crude spreadsheet — were developed in Texas by a company started by Bob Warfield. Rubinstein bought that program and hired the developers and brought on Bob Richardson, former chief programmer at MicroPro to work on the compiler. Surpass (the program name) was developed in Novato, California by Bob Warfield, Dave Anderson, Weikuo Liaw, and Bob Richardson. Barnaby, from the WordStar days did a minor amount of work, as did Jim Fox. Surpass was developed by Surpass Software Systems and at one time was a major spreadsheet competitor as measured by P.C. Magazine. Quattro was developed by Borland and was a colossal flop. Surpass got great benchmarks and was popular, but due to a bad marketing division was never widely sold. Ingram was given an exclusive on the program but never sold it because Lotus was a major source of income for them. Surpass did not have the money to sue, so the entire operation was sold to Phillipe Kahn who moved the development entirely to Scott's Valley. When Surpass was converted to Windows it became Quattro Pro, an extremely popular program — although the features such as Hot Links were largely first implemented in Surpass. Quattro Pro retained the original Modula-2 compiler for a time.
- Developing WebSleuth — A widely unknown program. The actual code was written by Garnet R. Chaney and Bob Richardson (formerly of WordStar and Quattro Pro), with minor external help from Jon Hibbins and team with some of the interface design. This company suffered from a lack of funding. The marketing effort there was spearheaded by Penelope Lamars. The product is still being developed by a new company called Intesoft Systems. Rubinstein is a principal in the new company.
