(re: re: re: Games for the TI 99) Bryan:
Here’s another piece of the story –
The President of Imagic was a gentleman named Bruce Davis. When Sierra went through their problems, Bruce was hired by our venture capitalists to “evaluate” what to do about Sierra.
Bruce’s goal was to advise the venture capitalists as to whether the company should be shut down, sold or ??? The venture capitalists decided to sell us, and I had to meet with several other companies who were considering to buy us.
There was a VERY famous meeting (or, at least famous at my house) where the VCs (venture capitalists) were trying to sell us to a company called Spinnaker. We had a board meeting in San Francisco, where the Spinnaker management presented their rationale for why the two companies should merge. Roberta disliked (a mild word) the idea, and decided to revolt. She came to the board meeting VERY late, dressed VERY casual (blue jeans and a t-shirt) and asked “So, what are we discussing today?” Her goal was to send a message to everyone that Sierra wasn’t in panic mode, and didn’t need to be sold. She was trying to tell the VCs: “Relax, and leave us alone. We have the situation under control. We certainly don’t need sold to these guys”.
Roberta carried the day. We were also helped by Bruce, who after studying Sierra, said “This is a good company, and worth backing”. I spoke with Bruce about working for Sierra, but he was hired by Activation as their CEO, and then immediately made his own effort to acquire Sierra- for $1 million!
I was so depressed by having to do all the layoffs, I was ready to take the deal – but, Roberta said “no way!” The VCs figured that we were in such bad shape that their investment was gone one way or the other, so they left the decision to Roberta and I. We did do a deal under which they loaned the company a small amount of money for a big piece of the company. Within a few months we turned it around, and repaid the loan. However, we had permanently lost a BIG chunk of the company, and the VCs made a huge amount of money on that short-term loan. And after that, the rest is history….
Anyway … there was a bit of a relationship between Sierra and Imagic around that time. Perhaps Imagic did the conversions???
You are right – I should have, or, someone should have, tried to hang onto at least one of each cartridge we produced. I don’t have any of them.
-Ken W
PS Feel free to post here any pictures you want, and to repeat what I’ve said on other sites. I just wish I had better memory about this topic….
