CP/M Review Interviewed William Godbout, Founder of CompuPro (1984)

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CP/M Review Interviewed William Godbout, Founder of CompuPro (1984)<br>Jul 31, 2026

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From the January/February 1984 issue of CP/M Review magazine<br>Conversation with a Pioneer

by Mike Prezbindowski

William Godbout is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the CompuPro Corporation. CompuPro is one of the oldest computer companies in our uncertain industry, and Bill relates to us some of his background and business philosophy that has enabled them to survive, in fact flourish since 1973. CompuPro evolved from some Godbout companies that manufactured kits and S-100 components to a corporation that offers an impressive line of complete computer systems. They haven’t abandoned S100 or board products, in fact they are offering STD Bus products and are considering new bus products. A large segment of their market is industrial based and they have large OEM accounts in the United States and Europe. You may be using some CompuPro products and not know it. While not an overnight giant, they have been continually building a strong base of support and have consistently offered products known for their reliability. Mr. Godbout has been a force in the development of the microcomputer industry.<br>CP/M REVIEW: Bill why did you start your own company?<br>Godbout: I had to have a job! Something to keep me off the streets and out of jails. Actually, I have been involved with computers in one way or another since college.<br>CP/M REVIEW: What did you do after college?<br>Godbout: I was recruited by IBM while in undergraduate school at MIT. At IBM I participated in the development of such machines as the 704’s, 705’s and 709’s and worked on the team that did the “90” and the “STRETCH” machine. (The “STRETCH” was so named because it stretched the capability and technology of their company.) I was then recalled to active duty with the Army diming the Berlin crisis.<br>CP/M REVIEW: Since you’re from the East Coast, why did you start your company in the Bay Area?<br>Godbout: I had been to San Francisco several times and it looked like a nice place to spend a couple of years. Also, the opportunity arose to take over a foundering company as a crisis manager for a period of 24 months. I started as manager of systems development and left 13 months later as general manager.<br>CP/M REVIEW: Then you have had business training also?<br>Godbout: I don’t want to say I’m just an engineer, I’m not just a “technocrat.” While at IBM I had extensive management training. When you go to work for IBM, your management training starts the day before you go to work for them, when you are selected for employment and accept their offer. You get, directly and indirectly, a good orientation. IBM is a very well managed company. If I were to work for someone else, my first choice would be IBM.<br>CP/M REVIEW: IBM seems to be a very conservative company. Only in the past 2 years have they increased their presence with the marketing of the Personal Computer. In the small computer market CompuPro seems to be a bit more conservative than other companies. Is this because of your IBM background?<br>Godbout: IBM is not as conservative as you think, they have gone out on a limb many times while pursuing various market segments. The “STRETCH” machine, like many of the products they brought out, was great for its day and even today would be no slouch. Many of the things we take for granted were way out in the ozone back then; interrupts, memory management, multi-programming, dual CPU’s, all came from that project. The IBM 7030 (a 72-bit 200 nanosecond machine) for its day, was a marvel; it was a bigger leap forward for technology than a “STRETCH” to a CRAY-1 is today. It was the first of IBM’s second generation computers. They started the project in 1955. It was re-designed in ’58 and got out the door in late 1960. 1 think they built six of them. Everything was being done with dual triode tubes and IBM had to design and manufacture its own transistors in order to build this machine, there was semiconductor core memory with interleaved memory cycles because the cycle time was only 2.2 microseconds. But they brought it down to 2.0 and finally 1.8 microseconds. The same memory boxes were used later on the 7090. All of the packaging concepts for the 7000 series came out of the “STRETCH” project.<br>Then RCA announced they had 5 billion dollars to commit to the computer business from the monstrous sale of TV sets in the mid to late fifties. RCA had this big cash bubble and the computer business looked like the way to go. At the time RCA announced its intent to throw this amount of money into computing, IBM had I not even had a billion dollar year. That takes guts and entrepreneurial spirit. It takes real management to pull off something like that. I admire IBM and think highly of them as an employer, an entity, and as a competitor. Because at some point we are going to come head...