BRANFORD — When Nutmeg Typewriter Service opened on Montowese Street on April 1, 1977, the first rudimentary personal computers were just being
produced.

It would be another four years before the breakthrough IBM PC hit the market, and seven years before the blockbuster Apple Macintosh would revolutionize the industry.  Founder Ronald Rapacciuolo was a former IBM employee who wanted to sell and service office products, from typewriters to newfangled fax machines.

But when Rich Sgueglia joined the company in 1981 as co-owner, the landscape was changing dramatically. Electronic word processors had taken the market by storm starting in 1979, and IBM produced the first widely used personal computer in 1981. That year, Rapacciuolo and Sgueglia decided to change the company’s name to Advanced Office Systems Inc.

"We realized we were going into the electronic world, and ‘Nutmeg Typewriter Service’ just wasn’t cutting it," Sgueglia said. "The Apple computer catapulted us into the computer industry, and it challenged every assumption we had about storing and processing information. It changed the way we did business on every level."

Next month, Advanced Office Systems will celebrate 30 years in business, going back to its disco-era beginnings as a typewriter sales and service company with a handful of employees.

Today the company employs 47 people — 30 at its 296 E. Main St. headquarters and 17 at a Cromwell satellite office.

Sgueglia remains a co-owner and is executive vice president, and Rapacciuolo is still a co-owner, but now lives in Florida and is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations.

The company has long since added more sophisticated services to its menu, such as setting up computer security and networking systems along with service and support.

"Many small and medium-sized companies don’t need to have their own information technology person. We become the equivalent to the IT person," said Sgueglia.

However, the business has not forsaken its roots. "We still get typewriters in, mostly for state agencies and local businesses," Sgueglia said, noting that Yale University, the Knights of Columbus and area law offices still operate typewriters for various reasons, including making carbon copies and typing envelopes.

Sgueglia said Advanced Office Systems has survived against an onslaught of computer resellers by adapting the business constantly and offering premier customer service.

"Through all the years, as companies like Computer Factory and Computer City came up and faded away, not only did we sell equipment, we always maintained a very strong service role with the customer," he said. "We had the mentality, ‘What happens when the equipment breaks?’"

A few years ago, Apple Computer sent Advanced Office Systems a plaque commemorating its position as one of the three oldest surviving dealers from Apple’s early days — the company sold Apple’s primitive Apple I and Apple II models in the years before the Macintosh arrived in 1984.

In the mid-1980s, the company branched out and began selling IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq and later Dell computers, along with Apple models.

"Thirty years is amazing in this business. It’s been a roller coaster," Sgueglia said.