Original publication date: January 1992 Heurikon Historical Highlights A series of articles for The Horizon Cue-Nique Micro-Logic Manufacturing, Ltd. For a few years, we were in the point-of-sale business. Our customer was Jerry Briesath, the owner-operator of Cue-Nique Billiards, “Home of The Pool-School,” right here in Madison. Jerry wanted to build and resell computer systems that would keep track of information about parlor patrons and show the status of each table at a glance. When a billiard-player customer comes to the checkout counter to pay his or her bill, the table usage time and bar tabs have to be tallied. Sometimes players have changed tables or are leaving before the other people at their table are done playing. Rates vary by time-of-day, and there are lower rates for groups or special occasions. Check-out can be complicated, so it is easy for employees to make mistakes and ring up incorrect charges. When he came to us, Jerry was desperate to get his idea to market, but he was a bit apprehensive because he had already spent some of his money and had received nothing useful in return. Jerry showed us the previous attempt somebody had made to build his system. It was an unfinished “Box-o-Parts & Wires” — it didn’t come close to working correctly. Could microcomputers really do the job? Heurikon Comes To The Rescue! Yes. We designed a sleek point-of-sale terminal for Jerry — the prototype used our MLP-8080 microcomputer board (what a workhorse!). We built a front panel circuit board that included table status LEDs, a small keyboard, and numerous seven-segment data displays so the operator and customer could see table usage times and the dollar amounts owed.
The system also controlled an external relay box that was connected to the lights above each billiard table — whenever a table was “in use” the appropriate table lights automatically came on. Later, we added bowling alley capabilities that kept track of shoe rental charges and counted frame pulses from the pin-setters. After building 15 prototypes, we redesigned the system to reduce costs and to eliminate the need for a fan (which usually sucked in more street dirt than cool air). We put all of the electronics on a single PCB and incorporated a high-tech, new-tech switching power supply. We learned a lot more than we had anticipated about the high levels of electrical noise that switching power supplies could produce; sometimes the 8080 processor would go berserk for no apparent reason and send gobbledegook to the display instead of table data. Lessons In Conceptualization Working with Jerry was a lot of fun. He knew what he needed, but he was usually vague on the details. He came to us with general concepts of how the machine should operate, then we made a few specific implementation suggestions, to which Jerry would say: “Yeah, that sounds pretty good — make it work something like that.” After a few days, Jerry would often call back and ask if we could add another feature or two, “but only if it wasn’t too much work.” It was a very loose style, but it suited us, too. Dennis Paton joined us as we began production of the Cue-Nique units, and we kept him very busy testing and debugging the assemblies. Then, as now, Dennis always kept a beautifully neat work area — in a pinch, we could always find a needle-nose pliers and wire cutters neatly stored in his top drawer. When we moved out of the West Badger Road basement, I recall seeing Dennis’s heel dents and footprints on the wall where his bench had been located — the dents are probably still there.
We later found out one reason why the other guys were able to quote so much lower than we for an identical product. Many of the components they used were low quality. Some of the capacitors, for example, had a shelf-life of only a few years. Later, the computers started to fail and Jerry had to replace those parts. Despite those setbacks, Jerry’s computers have been a big hit — he currently has hundreds of them out in the field. Some of them might even be part of the 65 we built (Jerry isn’t sure). Jerry’s Dream Lives On Today, Jerry is developing a modern version of his system, one that runs on an IBM-PC with an attached cash drawer. Using this new approach, Jerry can sell software packages world-wide. The fellow doing his programming, Chris Madsen, worked for us back when we were building the first Cue-Nique systems. By the way, Jerry is a world-renowned billiard player and instructor. It’s a real treat to see him run the balls and perform trick shots. He worked as a technical advisor on Whoopi Goldberg’s made-for-TV movie, Kiss Shot. Next time you’re in town near State and Gorham streets, stop in at Cue-Nique Billiards and ask for Jerry. Say “ ‘Hello’ from Heurikon” — maybe you can hustle a free coke. MARCH: We sing the Teletype blues.
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