Motorola CPA - An Idea Ahead of Its Time

CPA, yes it was a Couch Potato Assistant – a mid-‘90’s idea from a bunch of engineers. They wanted to use their laptop as a second screen at home to look up and share information about the program they were watching. I kid you not!

We needed an in-home wireless network to connect the laptop at the couch to the ‘broadband’ (dial-up modem) network to the home. These shark fins were the first version of ‘home WiFi’ for the masses. I remember sitting in the conference room with engineers and my boss listening to new tech ideas being proposed. They described how they were using a long cable to connect to their modem and keep track of Football stats as they were watching college games. We had to stop them and rewind the idea.

Somewhere I have the story book we created with Pentagram and Robert Brunner to tell the solution story. When I find them I will add to the article.

Sadly, it got killed in budget cuts, too early for its time.

Shout out to Dave Baum, Jon Whalen, Bob Albrecht, Rod Zurcher, Jerry Upton all who were part of this idea.