Talk:Prometheus Products

Beginnings of Prometheus Products

I worked at Mostek in San Jose from 1980 to 1982, alongside Dave Lautzenheiser and Bob Christianson. They first developed an co-processor card for Apple II and I think also a memory card. I left in June of 1982 but would run into one or the other of them from time to time. I was told they got the money to really expand the business from the sister of Bob's wife. Apparently the sister was getting a divorce and used the all the money from the couples' joint account to help Prometheus get started. This left the ex-hubby with pretty much nothing. My understanding at the time was that the sum was $30 K or so. Of course I have no hard data or references to support this. But there was a circle of people who all more-or-less knew one another, and this became common knowledge. I have no idea whether Dave made any substantial money from the deal but since he did not stay with the company I suspect not. Bob was a cleverl, crafty business person. Grenley (talk) 18:00, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the inside baseball! I was not able to find a source linking Lautzenheiser to Prometheus, but I was able to find quite a few linking Christiansen, which I have now added. The genesis for the company seems to be shrouded in near total mystery, so this was a useful tip. Do you know if Christiansen is the same person behind Quality Software? DigitalIceAge (talk) 22:58, 11 October 2026 (UTC)

I don't think Bob had anything to do with that other SW company. ~2026-55629-16 (talk) 15:09, 17 October 2026 (UTC)

As for Lautzenheiser being formally involved with Prometheus he may not have been. He and Bob were both at Mostek and Dave L was the engineering talent designing the cards. He probably made some amount of money but my guess is not much. Mostek was busy going bankrupt in 1982 so most of us left for greener pastures. Dave went to Xilinx. I went to Intel. Bob I guess went to Prometheus full time. ~2026-55629-16 (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2026 (UTC)