On August 25 1974 (I remember, it was the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Paris), through my girlfriend of the time, I met Hamid Motarjemi, Iranian, who was a young electronic engineer living in Florida. We got the idea that, maybe, we could build a terminal (VT100 like) that would display farsi characters and present it to the Shah so that he would give us money (that was 1974!!).
Before moving to Iran, I wanted to know what the country looked like. In early 1975, I bought a brand new Volskwagen Kombi, empty.