The AMC Demise: An Insider's View            Embedded.com  (10/25/02, 13:58:34 PM EDT)
	 
 I read "Applied Microsystems Bails" with particular interest because I was a witness to the 
beginning of the end when left I left AMC 5 years ago after 17+ years of service. 

AMC was founded by two Engineers, Jim McElroy and Robin Knoke. I worked with Jim and Robin at 
a company named Automix Keyboards in the early '70s. They left AKI about 1974 to start a 
consulting company - AMC. At AMC Robin developed an emulator for the 8008 called the 
"Programmer's Panel." I was designing hardware at that time for the graphic arts industry. 
We switched from hardware-based state machines (some of which were pretty clever) to machines 
that were based on Intel's 8008. It was then that I began using Robin's "programmer's panel" 
to debug hardware. I quickly began to love the power (i.e. control and visibility) that came 
from using a programmable microprocessor. I began creating my own development/debug environment 
based on the product that I was designing at the time (a product then called "The Hawkeye"). 
This was an exciting time in my career. 

I liked firmware development so much that I went to Data I/O and started my career as an 
embedded systems programmer in 1976. Jim and Robin had consulted with Data I/O to develop 
the basic hardware that the Data I/O Programmers were based on. These early products 
(System 9 and System 19) were based on the Motorola 6800. 

In the fall of 1979 I visited Jim and Rob in Kirkland. I wanted to work with them again, 
but they were barely making a living in the consulting business. Fortunately they were 
about to get their first million in venture capitol with the assistance of Ralph Astengo, 
the founder of ATL. This money would fund a line of emulator products. At that time they 
had a product called the EM-184 which supported the Z-80 Microprocessor. 

 As soon as they had the venture capitol, I went to work for Jim and Robin. Ralph Astengo 
was the acting CEO at that time. I was the first engineer hired by the founders, and I designed 
several of the "keyboard" products. Each one was an improvement over the previous. I did 
the EM-188 (8080 and 8088), then the EM-180 (Z-80 without the limitations of the EM-184) 
and then the EM-189. In all of these products I had developed all the hardware and the 
firmware -- based on Robin's original EM-184 design, of course. Jim McElroy designed 
the power supply, based on a constant voltage transformer, but I did all the rest. Then 
we started the ES-1800 series. I designed the emulator boards, pods and the firmware for 
the emulator interface, which supported the Motorola 68000 product line. 

The ES-1800 was an exciting product for the early '80s. It had an L-R parser that Jim McElroy 
had developed and Eric McRae perfected. I did the Lexical Analyzer for that product. The heart 
of the ES-1800 was Motorola's 6809 Microprocessor. So we used our own Emulator, the EM-189, 
to debug code. 

To keep AMC growing, decisions were made to acquire further venture capitol. The 
"Sales and Marketing" types of folks (note: the strong bias of US vs. THEM) took over 
the direction of the company. Jim and Robin were pushed out. I suspect that if they had 
remained in control of AMC that it would now be the world leader in embedded development 
products. 

Robin recognized the importance of creating a complete development environment. He wanted to 
develop debugging tools that would utilize the PC. He wasn't able to persuade the company of 
the need for a complete solution to avoid dependence on 3rd party developers (who would be 
"eating our lunch" later on). 

In the early '90s Robin formed a division that developed the "Tap" products. However, the idea 
of "low cost" was anathema to the big Cheeses at AMC who only wanted to sell $20k to $30k boxes. 
His division, which had managed to achieve some autonomy (and was thereby successful), was 
re-absorbed into AMC. Robin left. 

From then on it was downhill for AMC. Or at least the handwriting on the wall was obvious to me. 


Tim Nelson 
