wargames2

(2-24-2010)Fischer-Freitas Company came into being with $800 (and a whole lot of faith) in October of 1978, established by my former IMSAI manufacturing Corporation co-worker (and sweetheart) Nancy SanSo Freitas and me. We started out in an old warehouse (910-81st. Avenue), next door to Mothers Cookies and across the street from Nabisco in a seedy south Oakland, California neighborhood. We established the company as an independent service organization for IMSAI computer products, floppy and hard disk repair, terminal, monitor service/sales, and other opportunities in the developing microcomputer market. In 1979, Nancy and I acquired the production rights, necessary fixtures and tooling to continue production of the legendary IMSAI line of computer products, now as a division of Fischer-Freitas Corporation.Our affiliation with “Wargames” began on May 4, 1982 when we received a call from Linda Fleischer of Mandy Films Inc. requesting literature and color photos of the IMSAI products for consideration as props on a film that was starting production. My Marketing Director Bob Walker sent off the requested materials along with a brief letter extolling the virtues of an IMSAI 8080 as a prop, and that we had many other related historical items, magazines, and equipment to sweeten the pot.On July 8,1982 Bob Walker briefed me regarding a call from Cliff McMullen of Unique Products, a major pioneering product placement company in the Los Angeles area. McMullen is the guy who got the candy/major food group “Reeses Pieces” placed in the Steven Spielberg movie “ET“. The firm wanted us to provide them an IMSAI 8080 and several other props for a new MGM Studios movie starring the then-unknown Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy.Being somewhat skeptical,