About BitBuilt

Back in 1972 my father left the tool and die industry and struck out on his own by starting up The Typewriter Place. He had a little hole in the wall of a pump manufacturer's building in Ajax, Ontario (Canada). Some 3 years later and still at it he convinced me to throw my life savings at a 1968 VW station wagon (a type 363 for those who care) and get into business at the tender age of 17.

A couple of years later and having expanded our product line beyond typewriters the company was renamed to Durham Business Machines (after the regional municipality where Ajax is located). We carried adding machines, cash registers, those new fangled calculators and duplicators (miniature offset printing press). Having outgrown the hole-in-the-wall we relocated to a commercial/retail area at 124 Hunt street in Ajax. Ever expanding product lines (and a building fire) necessitated further expansion and ever expanding debt loads when we moved next door to 122.

Shortly after this the recession of the early 80's hit, forcing us to regroup and rethink our strategies. Around this time we also started marketing the Texas Instruments TI-99A personal computer. We moved to an industrial section of Pickering where the rent was cheap and the Nuclear power station was our neighbour. Battling back, we once again expanded and moved to our next locale at 1080 Brock rd in Pickering, right by highway 401. You know what they say, “Location, Location, Location!”. Having a retail exposure and lots of space we jumped into the computer business when a 286-12 was considered fast.

1990 came around and we experienced yet another recession. Coupled with our core business (typewriters) being eroded faster than we could compensate for the company split apart in 1992. Durham Cash Register was already a subsidiary of Durham Business Machines Inc. and it now became an independent concern. Durham Business Machines Inc. was dissolved later that year and remains a memory. Durham Cash Register ran successfully for the next 4 years, but yours truly was getting a bit burned out. In late 1996 Durham Cash Register was sold to Howell Data Systems except for the POS supply portion.

At that time Paper Trails was born to supply cash registers and credit card terminals with paper, ribbons and such. Short tenures with two other wholesale cash register suppliers and a taste of the Pizza business were also part of the picture for the next few years. Sometime in 1998 I bought a copy of Delphi 3 standard version. This was the beginning of my software development days.

I am currently employed full time in another field as being a freeware/shareware author typically doesn't pay very well. It can be a rewarding and productive hobby though. This hobby also includes maintaining a family of computers networked in our house. If you are really curious you can check out the home network topography here.

Andreas (Andy) Roddau