Senecom, What Wert Thou?

This is one of those ads that sounds suspiciously like a scam -- few details are provided beyond what sounds like an opportunity to make easy money.  They won't even tell us exactly what's on the three PDQ (Premium Disk Quality) diskettes they're sending us for our $9.95 (with free shipping!):

The only surviving information I can find about SENECOM is that it was registered as a trademark in 1984 by the Seneca Computer Company, Inc., via Pirson & Miller, for purposes of a business involving "COMPUTER SOFTWARE (EDUCATION, GAMES, UTILITIES AND BUSINESS), COMPUTER SUPPLIES (DISKETTES, PAPER, TAPE, DISK HOLDERS, DISK CLEANERS, COMPUTER CASES, COMPUTER COVERS, AND OTHER COMPUTER RELATED ITEMS) AND SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION (PRINTED MANUALS, PRINTED BROCHURES, PRINTED LABELS, AND ADVERTISING) FOR COMPUTER SOFTWARE AND COMPUTER SUPPLIES."

So it appears that the parent company was primarily a software publisher/office supply company, which leads me to believe purchasers of these disks were expected to achieve a "New Future" by pushing SENECOM's products in a multi-level marketing system.


But here's an alternative hypothesis -- the company also registered ProTrain as a trademark, for "A COMPUTER AIDED PROFESSIONAL TRAINING COURSE DESIGNED TO TEACH A COMPUTER LANGUAGE (BEGINNERS ALLPURPOSE SYMBOLIC INSTRUCTION CODE) AND DATA PROCESSING CONCEPTS IN THE FORM OF MAGNETIC DISKETTES, MAGNETIC CARTRIDGES AND PRINTED MANUALS."

So it's possible that the three disks contained sample career training course material, with the advertised "new future" derived from acquiring new skills.  This is, perhaps, still a money-making endeavor at heart, but one more in the time-honored tradition of the correspondence course than the pyramid scheme.

It seems neither business was very successful -- both trademarks lapsed soon after this magazine ad ran in 1984, with an abandoned petition to revive noted in the archives circa late 1986.

Too bad I can't think of anything fun to do with them.