1981: A Year to Remember

Where were you and what were you doing the year SSCS was born?

How about those 80’s ?! Can’t beat ‘em, right? Shoulder pads and leg warmers. Madonna and Michael. The 49ers and the Cowboys. Drum machines and cheesy synths. Big mobile phones that look like walkie-talkies. And they found the Titanic, too!

Fun stuff (well, for some), but the decade was full of substance, too. The end of the Cold War. The introduction of the Macintosh. Heart-liver transplant surgery. The design for the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial. And one-of-a-kind innovation like this:

Highlighting the best of the entire decade of the Eighties is quite a lot for one blog post, though, so let’s concentrate on one year: 1981. It’s an appropriate choice, for a number of reasons, including one that’s near and dear to SSCS.

No, we’re not talking about MTV, but its debut in 1981 definitely qualifies as an impactful development; it changed the music business forever. We’re not talking paintball, either, although the first official game was played in Henniker, New Hampshire that year. We’re not even talking about Princess Diana getting hitched, but you know people loved that.

What we are talking about is technology. Nineteen eighty-one was definitely a year for software and hardware coming into their own. IBM introduced the first personal computer, ushering in what people called, “The Age of Information” (without knowing the half of it). These computers had a brand new operating system to run on, too—a little something called PC-DOS.

It’s safe to say it caught on.

That wasn’t the only technological milestone taking place in 1981, though. In Salinas, California, a multi-site retail petroleum operator was frustrated. There were no practical technology solutions for his growing operation. Certain that automation would key maximized profits in his increasingly complex c-store/gas station enterprise, he designed and created his own solution with the help of a handful of key programmers and employees.

It caught on, too.

That company was SSCS; the software, as it is known today, the Computerized Daily Book (CDB). Over 40 years later, SSCS continues to deliver technological solutions with the same integral knowledge of the retail petroleum industry, honed by continuing conversations with customers each and every day, where the basics and the nuances of their businesses are discussed.

Actually, touching on SSCS’s beginnings around the Fourth of July makes a certain kind of sense (even if July 4, 1981, has little to recommend it except John McEnroe coming back on Björn Borg at Wimbledon). That’s because Independence Day is a time to appreciate the best of America, and entrepreneurial spirit is at the top of the list. SSCS and the industry it serves are born out of it and are driven forward by it. And that’s not going to end anytime soon, which sets up an interesting and exciting business journey as we move toward 2081 . . . and beyond.