Classic Computer Scams: World Power Systems, Inc.

In 1979 an outfit calling itself "World Power Systems, Inc." appeared on the scene with an amazing assortment of microcomputer peripherals, mostly for TRS-80 and S-100 systems.

Alas, they were scam artists, taking people's money and sending nothing in return. A hint of this is visible in a photograph of their 3S+P Interface Card, shown in one of their advertisments. Although it appears that the board has suitable compoments for three serial ports and a parallel port, careful examination shows that the PC board does not have anywhere near enough traces to interconnect the components.

Another suspicious product is their "Serial Parallel I/O Module" which purported to offer eight serial and eight parallel ports in one small box. Each of the eight serial ports supposedly had dip-switch selectable baud rates, etc., and each port could be configured for RS-232 or current loop operation. All for the amazingly low price of only $129.95 (kit) or $149.94 (assembled).

Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

I've scanned images of their ads from the April 1979 issue of Byte magazine:

Page 68, describing the company, with photos of the proprietor (or should I say perpetrator) Perry Pollock and his wife Korrine
Page 69, advertising the 3S+P
Page 78, advertising the Master Control Console, EPROM Programmer+3, and Serial Parallel I/O Module
Page 79, advertising the TRS-80 to S-100 Bus Cable Adapter, TRS-80 to S-100 Bus, and S-100 EPROM Programmer+3

NOTE: the World Power Systems, Inc. described above is not related to a current organization of the same name.

Presumably Perry and Korrine were not the real names of the people involved. They're probably no relation to Perry Pollock, the Chicago-based artist, or to anyone else of that name.

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Last updated December 20, 1998

eric@brouhaha.com

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