Optigan

When Miner Industries (Opsonar) began to start running into legal troubles of all sorts, there came a point when they decided to try to consolidate their businesses as much as possible, and this plan included moving the disc-making works from the West Coast back to the East Coast. Mike, however, refused to leave California, and Miner responded by simply saying "Well, we’ll ship the equipment out here, pay you to set it up and show us how to use it, and then we’ll go our separate ways." Mike Ledoux knew that all of this was MUCH easier said than done, because by then he had developed Optigan-disc-making to an art, and realistically he was the only guy suitable for the job. However, at the insistence of the Miner brass, he put together a photo essay on the step-by-step process of creating an Optigan disc and took it to the East Coast to show them exactly what they were in for. This is an html version of that photo essay, complete with the original verbatim comments that Mike made in the margins.

As it turned out, Miner’s problems only got worse, and they shut down completely before any further attempt to ship the equipment was made. They still owned the disc-making equipment, though, and Mike worked out a deal with them where he would personally store the equipment in his garage for a monthly rate until the Miner brass deemed it feasible to reclaim the equipment and liquidate it. Of course, Miner never actually came through on their end of this deal, and to this day Mike still has much of the equipment, for which Miner technically owes him about $20,000 for 25 years of storage fees!