In researching the different BASICs on the original 1977 Trinity personal computers, I became curious about a BASIC interpreter programmer who seemed to have disappeared from the scene. We all know Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak who programmed BASIC interpreters, but there were lots of other BASICs and programmers of skill.
Robert Uiterwyk (third from the left, with his son to his right) came out of nowhere offering a BASIC interpreter for the SWTPC (see Robert Uiterwyk’s BASIC). He had purchased the computer for his son for Christmas, but became disillusioned because SWTPC’s own BASIC was still not available. So taking inspiration from Tiny BASIC, he wrote his own. And then followed up with a floating point BASIC sold by SWTPC.
Steve Leininger, the architect of the TRS-80 contracted Robert to write the initial BASIC for the TRS-80, but Robert went AWOL and he ended up having to write it himself, also using Tiny BASIC as an inspiration (see Floppy Days Podcast #142).
But who was Robert Uiterwyk? I’ve not seen anything about where he came from and what happened to him when he stopped returning Steve Leininger’s phone calls?
Using clues in a few contemporaneous magazines and a summary of an interview of Robert Uiterwyk in October 2005 by Michael Holley at the above link, I realized that Robert Uiterwyk was an executive in his family’s shipping business in Tampa, Florida. He was a technology enthusiast at heart though. He was a member of the Science and Radio Clubs at his school, and was accepted to MIT. I can imagine that his passion wasn’t in helping run the family business, and so he took the time to dabble in things he felt more called to, like programming and technology.
Here he is, standing, having helped start the new Microcomputer Society of Florida, in this article in the Tampa Bay Tribune in 1976.
So what happened? Why did he ghost Steve Leininger and not end up producing the BASIC interpreter for the TRS-80? There is nothing from Robert that I could find, but his family’s shipping company started running into trouble as tensions mounted in the Middle East in the late 1970’s. The revolution in Iran especially ended up causing the Uiterwyk Shipping Company to declare bankruptcy, but I would imagine there were many things to contend with before that. Perhaps Robert’s “side project” simply started taking too much time away from his duties as an officer of his family’s company. We all have had to deal with competing priorities. There are the things we want to do, and the things we have to do. And I’m sure it wouldn’t have been easy for him to leave the family business, where his Dad and two brothers worked.
After the bankruptcy and winding down of the business, he did end up working in technology, doing database work as far as I can tell. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him, but I’d love to learn more about his story of creating BASIC for the SWTPC, and his side of the story of creating the BASIC for the TRS-80.
There will be more in my upcoming video.
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