The Interact computer had a very short life in USA. It had only just got in production when the Interact Co. of Ann Arbor MI, went bankrupt. Several thousand machines were produced though. Some of them were sold by Protecto Enterprizes of Barrington, IL, the liquidator, but the main part was sold by MicroVideo, also of Ann Arbor. Protecto bought lots of back-of-the-magazine ads for years, always printed with "WE LOVE OUR CUSTOMERS".
The Interact shipped with 2 joysticks, a built-in tape recorder, a TV RF modulator and 2 KB of ROM. Everything, including BASIC, must be loaded from tape. A little trivia: The tape unit did include an erase head, but it was not connected! Tapes had to be erased on a regular cassette recorder before being reused. Another surprising feature is that the "1" key is after the "0" key at the far right of the keyboard. Thus the row is starting from 2 and finishing by 1... See explanation in the "Read more" page.
MicroVideo supported the machine for two years, 1979-80, making some hardware expansions (32K RAM card and stringy floppy drive), replacing the original minimalist EDU-BASIC language with a Microsoft 8K graphic version, and even publishing 3 issues of 'Interaction', a newsletter of the Detroit Interact Group.
The Interact computer finally vanished from the US market in late 1980. However, a French company bought the rights of the machine and started to sell the Interact under Victor Lambda name in French market. See the rest of the story here.
For five years, several improved sequels of the Interact, called Hector, were launched in France. The last version, the Hector MX, featured high resolution graphics and 4 built-in languages!
Special thanks to dan A. O'Dale who donated us this computer !
I bought an Interact Model R from Protecto Enterprises, I believe. It was so long ago. I added a few upgrades back then, including the Microsoft Basic and a chess program. I don't know if this memory is accurate or not... I had a problem with the tape loading on the Microsoft Basic program and called the company (at that time, an unknown). I believe I spoke with a guy named Bill. Could it have been Gates? I just don't know. I also got the RAM upgrade and installed it, myself. I had a lot of fun with my first computer. And, it seemed so much more advanced than the Altair... with it's RF modulator and all...
Sunday 14th January 2007
Cliff Chism (USA)
The Interact was my first computer, living down the road from Ann Arbor I visited the office several times to get another tape drive and software. I just got a MINT Interact on Ebay with many tapes. I am looking for a copy of MicroVideo Basic if anyone has one. Also do you archive your tapes, if so what is the best kind of cassettee to use?
thnks in advance
Friday 1st December 2006
Billy Radius (Canton, MI)
Like many others here, the Interact was my first home computer. I purchased mine from a "Protecto Enterprizes" ad in the back of a Popular Science magazine around 1980, and used the machine to teach myself first BASIC and then Machine Language/Assembly Language programming.
In fact the first piece of software that I actually got paid for developing was written first on the Interact in BASIC, then ported over to an Apple II. My first experience in using online commerce was ordering stuff through Compuserve's store using my Interact and a 300-baud acoustic modem. 25+ years later I'm still working in the computer industry, so you can definitely say the Interact "changed my life!"
My original Interact still works, and has the keyboard upgrade, 32K RAM upgrade, and serial port from Micro Video. I have quite a few tapes. They are mostly games, but also some utilities and even the Forth programming language. I did manage to lose my Level II BASIC tape somewhere along the way.
I also have a second Interact inherited from a friend who passed away years ago, that one is a stock 16K system with chicklet keyboard. (It unfortunately does not work, just displays garbage on the screen when powered up. Probably bad RAM chips.)
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