Bruce Seals was a Vietnam War veteran and a true entrepreneur.  He started Seals Electronics out of the basement of his house by first marketing fence chargers and then memory circuit board kits.  The 8K -S100 memory board was a huge hit, and Bruce struggled to meet the demand.  However, his competition soon caught up and started offering a fully built and tested memory board for about the same price Bruce was selling his kits for.  Bruce then expanded his business, and in 1977 he moved Seals Electronics out of his basement and into a building in West Knoxville, Tennessee.

The business boomed, and in 1978 Seals Electronics began to market a personal computer nicknamed the “Seals Pup.”  The highlight of this period was an order from Germany for 13 computers.  Everyone worked night and day for two weeks until the last one was shipped.  The Seals Pup never really caught on.  There was a limited market for a computer that cost 3-4 thousand dollars and could only boot up into Basic.  The layoffs began in the Fall of 1978, and the company finally closed its doors around 1980.

This page was last modified on 07/15/2023