Hammond maintained a keen interest in computers since the early 1970s, having taken a three-day course at Motorola to learn how to build a computer at the board level, but intended to keep Smoke Signal relevant to his interest in radio. Hammond, an enthusiast of radio who simultaneously worked as programming director at CBS Radio's KNX-FM station in Los Angeles, started the company as a consulting business for broadcast entities. The company was first headquartered in Hollywood, California. Ric Hammond, graduate of the Thacher School and UC Santa Barbara, founded Smoke Signal Broadcasting in 1976. Smoke Signal Chieftain at the Computer Closet 1976–1980: Foundation, expansions, and microcomputers Advertisement for Smoke Signal's BFD-68 floppy system, the M-16-A RAM board, and the P-38 EPROM board External image While later iterations of the Chieftain won praise for technical merit, the refusal to invest in a centralized source of software turned off some customers. Their floppy disk drive system expansion and accompanying DOS-68 operating system proved such a success that it spurred the development of the Chieftain, itself running DOS-68. According to Byte, Smoke Signal Broadcasting was the first third-party company to offer expansions for SWTPC. Hammond, an enthusiast of radio who worked at CBS as a programming director, founded the company to act as a consulting business for broadcast entities but quickly leaned into the computer industry. 1976–1980: Foundation, expansions, and microcomputers.Though it remains little-known, Smoke Signal was an early and important manufacturer of multi-user computer systems. It later manufactured its own line of computers, called the Chieftain. The company earned its reputation by offering expansions for the Southwestern Technical Products 6800 microcomputer. Smoke Signal Broadcasting ( SSB), later known as Smoke Signal, was an American computer company founded in 1976 by Frederic Jerome "Ric" Hammond of Hollywood, California.
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