Correspondence: Phil Austin (April 17, 1991)

April 17, 1991

Greg;

So. Dude. I got back home and there were five thousand entertaining letters from you stacked up. What a rush. Never have I had more correspondence from someone other than a catayupalogue company. Through this considerable entertainment, I glimpse serious matter and I should reply to that without delay. (Delay I can always get to later).

Truth is, I haven’t contacted either gentleman at either mag yet, but I will tomorrow — and thanks for your offer. I’ve always wanted to get something in Rodent Track and my cat, Hilda, is quite interested too. Maybe she could meet some of the little devils, she suggests, purring serenely.

As to AIM (American Indigent Media) I have a long history with them dating back to my days with Stan Cornyn and The Record Group and I know of Voyager as a very reputable company. I am something of an expert on all this, and carried on negotiations with the folks at AIM for “Danger in Dreamland” which was the project to which you refer. I also did 99% of the programming design as well as the bulk of the writing on that project. The problem is not so much the lack of authoring tools as the lack of a market. This whole interactive consumer complex depends on having a player on the market and companies willing to put out some cash to get software authored. What AIM and others have been good at doing was getting hardware people to put out money for the development of authoring tools and therefore the actual software product is looked at only as a cheap way to demo the authoring tools. My favorite guy at AIM is named Frank Huttinger and I think he works in the Little Santa Monica office. See him, if you want. Mention my name. See if you can get something going if you want and include me as much as you want. I’m willing to bet little would come of it, but … Now that I think of it, in the endless discussions of possible product that Frank and I and others went through in the days before AIM existed, the subject of automobiles always excited interest. You might think about it, being rather uniquely qualified to bridge between the two technologies.

I particularly loved the All-Pro line piece, by the way, very surreal in its own way. And did you take the job in Orangutan County? Thanks again for all your help in breaking me into the auto mag field. I really appreciate it.

Yours,

[Phil]