THE SHANGHAI STORY (con.)

I was there first and had a short wait before Brodie arrived, thank God. Finally we met, and I was able to make things right in a few minutes. I liked Brodie from the beginning, and we had a wonderful conversation for about an hour, talking mostly about learning (educational) software, and a few other things. But, it didn't look like we were going to be able to work together, at least not in the near future.

At the end of the conversation, I told him, "If you ever have an idea for an entertainment program, please give me a call first. I'd love to take a look at it, and maybe even publish it for you."

"I'll remember, thanks for the offer."

About six months later, December 17th, Brodie called.

"Brad, this is Brodie Lockard. Do you remember me?"

"How could I forget one of the few people I actually stood up. I still fell guilty about that whenever I think of it. What's up?"

"I've got a software program I want to show you. It's an entertainment program."

My first thought was, Oh no. Not another program, programmed at home in somebody's spare time. I had seen hundreds of these, and none so far that I wanted to take to market. In addition, I was very busy getting a record number of programs ready for the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the most important dealer show in our industry. Then I remembered my comment to Brodie, "...give me a call first. I'd love to take a look at it...." I was stuck, I was going to have to look at his program.

"The only free time I have until the middle of January is Christmas Eve morning. Is that going to be OK with you?"

"That's fine with me. How about 10:30?" he responded.

"That'll work fine. See you then...and don't worry, I won't forget this time."

On Christmas Eve morning I drove over to his house and was warmly received by Brodie and his mother, Dorothy.

"Do you know what these tiles are?" he asked me.

He was pointing to a stack of ivory tiles that were piled up in an unusual way.

"They're Mahjong tiles." I answered.

Mahjong tiles are about the same size and shape as Dominoes. They are most often made of ivory, and have very beautiful designs cut into and/or painted on them. They are used to play a four-player game called Mahjong, which is like a "rummy" card game. This game is very popular in the far east, and has also been popular here in America.

"What are they stacked up like that for?" I asked.

"That's the opening stack for an ancient solitaire game called The Turtle," Brodie said. "It was invented in China a couple of hundred years ago."

As he was speaking, I was imagining the original Chinese inventor, after having been stood up by his three opponents, looking for a way to play a solitaire game with the beautiful Mahjong tiles and ending up developing a game that came down through the ages. I wondered if he had any idea how long his game would last.

"The objective of the game is to remove all of the tiles from the stack, leaving an empty board," Brodie said. "You must remove the tiles according to a couple of simple rules. It's great fun, but setting up the stack each time you want to play can be a real hassle."

I nodded my head.

"I've programmed the game so it can be played on the Macintosh. In this way the computer builds the stack each time, and the player doesn't have to."

I waited a minute while he brought the game up on his Macintosh. The first thing I noticed was his graphics. "It's really pretty," I told him.

"That's why I choose the Macintosh. It really does nice graphics doesn't it?"

"Beautiful! But, I suspect you're the one who did the graphics."

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