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Vance Midnight and his Swinging Bodies - Rappy Halloween: Vance Midnight and his Swinging Bodies

from Phoenician Microsystems Presents: Spectacular Sounds of Halloween Vol. 6: Featuring Vance Midnight by Vance Midnight, etc.

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about

The year was 1984. Seeing the success of companies like IBM and Commodore, Vance Midnight (a former late night horror movie host) eagerly invested his savings into a young company called Phoenician Microsystems who were launching their first and only PC: The PM-1. Using his money as leverage, Vance convinced the company to include a free copy of this novelty rap 45 with the first 200 units to be sold. Vance not only hoped to cash in on the home computing craze, but planned to revive his brand by releasing a single in the style the “rap music” popular with youth.

The PM-1 was a complete flop - the company (and Vance) lost a lot of money. The PCs had a "turntable" drive which meant that you had to play a record to load a program. Consumers hated it - and rightfully so, as it took almost a full LP of static noise to load a simple calculator program. A simple tic-tac-toe game took 10 records to load (and it didn’t work). Since the free 45 was just an audio record, with no computer code, people who bought the system where understandably confused. Rushed to market, difficult to use, prone to malfunction, and labeled a fire hazard, the PM-1 was doomed to fail. And with it, more of Vance Midnight’s dreams.

credits

from Phoenician Microsystems Presents: Spectacular Sounds of Halloween Vol. 6: Featuring Vance Midnight, released October 28, 2022
Midnight/Igorstein

license

all rights reserved

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