{"id":312,"date":"2000-09-25T04:20:14","date_gmt":"2000-09-25T04:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulhuntre.com\/items\/date\/2000\/09\/25\/thirty-four-and-all-is\/"},"modified":"2000-09-25T04:20:14","modified_gmt":"2000-09-25T04:20:14","slug":"thirty-four-and-all-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/2000\/09\/25\/thirty-four-and-all-is\/","title":{"rendered":"thirty-four – and all is …"},"content":{"rendered":"

thirty-four<\/u><\/b> – and all is …<\/p>\n

Sunday was the end of my 34th year. As I sit in my ancestral home (that is
\nshorthand for ‘parents house’) with the debris of my current business venture
\naround me I cannot help but take a moment to reflect. <\/p>\n

first off<\/b><\/p>\n

Thank you to both Tatsumi<\/a>
\nand Kimiko<\/a> for
\nbeing with me on my birthday. It wouldn’t have seemed right without you two
\nhere. Every happy birthday I hear that ends in Daddy makes me smile in ways I
\nwill never be able to express. <\/p>\n

the assorted freaks<\/b><\/p>\n

Thanks to all my friends who called or dropped an email or a card. I
\nappreciate it! This includes family \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

this is what passes for introspective for me<\/b><\/p>\n

Since this tracks roughly in line with the computer industry, I am going to
\nfollow along for a while as I remember it by tracking the computers I was using.
\nThis is by no means a personal history, it is only meant to lead you to the
\nintroduction of four people.<\/p>\n

Some more information about the early days of the computer industry is easy
\nto find anyway[1<\/a>][2<\/a>][3<\/a>].
\nSo far the best books on the topic are "Hackers<\/a>"
\nand "The
\nSoul of a New Machine<\/a>".<\/p>\n

So, I got a call<\/b> from Raffi<\/a>
\nand that was all blown to hell. Raffi and I share a birthday and he started
\nasking me about some of the "old crowd". Because I sit in front of a
\n‘net connection all the time I started typing searches at high speed… this
\nblog is the result.<\/p>\n

I met Raffi a long time ago right as I was working as a management droid at The
\nElectronics Boutique<\/a> at a little hole in the wall known as the "Willowbrook
\nMall<\/a>". We don’t need to discuss how long I spent in retail, let’s just
\nsay I was really good at selling stuff to people. Mostly what I was selling was
\na dream. The dream was this – that those of us selling computers had any idea
\nwhat the next ‘big thing’ was going to be. If you listened to us, all would be
\nwell.<\/p>\n

The Radio Shack Color Computer<\/u><\/p>\n

I remember it well. I used one of these all through high
\nschool<\/a> till I graduated in 1984. A lot
\nhappened<\/a> in computers during this time.<\/p>\n

Some nifty things about my high school…<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They still have a dress
    \n code<\/a> that is a lot like the one I suffered<\/li>\n
  2. They still use this odd ‘phase<\/a>‘
    \n system for class difficulty<\/li>\n
  3. They have a cool new
    \n name<\/a> for detention<\/li>\n
  4. They have a webcam<\/a>,
    \n though it looks broken<\/li>\n
  5. Here are some cool
    \n images<\/a> of the computer lab<\/li>\n
  6. Pic of the
    \n week<\/a>!<\/li>\n
  7. A School
    \n Song<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    After high school I worked at  Radio
    \nShack<\/a>, home of my beloved TRS-80. This thing was a pretty happening box and
    \nstill enjoys a     large
    \nfollowing<\/a> and some emulators[    1<\/a>][2<\/a>].
    \nFeel free to read up on the     history<\/a> 
    \nof this thing. In any case, the CoCo had some distinct advantages over it’s
    \ncompetators[    1<\/a>][2<\/a>][3<\/a>]
    \nat the time but it is not worth going into. It did run a killer multi-user
    \nmulti-tasking OS known as     OS-9<\/a>.
    \nGo ahead… look at the pictures [    1<\/a>][2<\/a>].
    \nI wrote my first BBS on this thing.<\/p>\n

    During this time I also got working with a guy I met online… someone I knew
    \nas "    Sauron<\/a>".
    \nHe was a wizard     BBS<\/a>
    \nprogrammer and I started bugging him to learn some programming. I am pretty sure
    \nit was an odd scene – there were probably 8 or 9 of us "young gun"
    \nprogrammers all just waiting for the chance to show off how good we were –
    \nhoping we could impress him enough to get upgraded access on "The Dragons
    \nWeyr" and the Zeus-4. No bull, I think my drive to be good at what I did
    \nstarted there. It was clear that being a good programmer meant the world was
    \nyour oyster. (that’s person #1).<\/p>\n

    The Amiga Years at EB<\/u><\/p>\n

    I left Radio Shack and went to work at ‘EB<\/a>‘
    \nbasically specifically to be able to sell Amiga’s[    1<\/a>][2<\/a>][3<\/a>][4<\/a>][5<\/a>]. 
    \nThe Amiga was a serious step forward, multi-tasking and fast it also managed to
    \ntrounce it’s paltry competitors[    1<\/a>][2<\/a>][3<\/a>][4<\/a>]
    \n– at least in the minds of those of us who loved it. You can     experience<\/a>
    \nit for yourself if you want to.<\/p>\n

    You have to understand, this was important! We were battling for the future
    \nof the world here. Would it belong to     IBM<\/a>?
    \n    Atari<\/a>? Apple<\/a>?
    \n    Commodore<\/a>? No one knew –
    \nand it was possible to change it all right there and then in the stores. If we
    \nsold enough of our favorite     boxen<\/a>
    \nthen we could relax and enjoy the future… failure meant death. There were
    \nbasically no computer user groups – the store you bought your computer from was
    \nyour lifeline.<\/p>\n

    During this time, while I was fighting for Amiga’s everywhere I ran across
    \nChristopher when we started working together. Christopher is far to odd a duck
    \nto discuss in so short a format – suffice to say he and I still work together in
    \nvarious ventures. (that’s #2)<\/p>\n

    I also ran across Raffi<\/a>
    \nthere for a short time, but we didn’t really get together till…<\/p>\n

    The Amiga Years at ‘Family Computing’<\/u><\/p>\n

    Raffi and I wound up working together at a place called "Family
    \nComputing" or something like that. I was immediately struck by a few
    \nthings…<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Like me, Raffi had memorized the names of every centerfold<\/a>
      \n model he had ever seen<\/li>\n
    2. He had the amazing ability to get women to trust him enough to
      \n (eventually)       pose
      \n nude<\/a> for him<\/li>\n
    3. He was a good programmer<\/li>\n
    4. He was a better "Mule<\/a>"[1<\/a>][2<\/a>]
      \n player than me<\/li>\n
    5. He didn’t care about making a commission any more than I did<\/li>\n
    6. He is more talented than me. He can draw, paint and photograph. I suck.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In any case, Raffi and I spent a lot of time working on our own projects,
      \nwriting code and drawing. We sold a lot of Amigas and sadly, sold a lot of
      \nsomething called "      The
      \nFinal Cartridge<\/a>"[      1<\/a>]
      \nfor the C64. I’ll tell some of those stories another time (that’s #3!).<\/p>\n

      The PC Years<\/u><\/p>\n

      It’s late and I am tired, so this is going to get a bit faster. When it
      \nbecame clear that the Amiga was lost, I joined the dark Side and purchased a       PC
      \nXT<\/a> used and used a product called MultiLink to split it into a multi-user
      \nbox, running multiple copies of the BBS software Sauron had built. I changed
      \njobs somewhere along the line I think – though I don’t remember what to. <\/p>\n

      I came across a guy named Marty Shannon on the various BBS and he really
      \nhelped me get a handle on       Unix<\/a>
      \non the 386, teaching me SysVr3.2 and holding my had during my rise to Unix
      \nwizardry. This experience specifically helped me land my later work at       AT&T<\/a>
      \nand       Bell Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      Sadly, my efforts to get in touch with Marty didn’t fare so well tonight. His
      \ntrail runs cold in 1999, with him being an employee at       marchFIRST<\/a>
      \n– who knows, I might call him in the morning.<\/p>\n

      And that’s it. Those four. Ron, Christopher, Raffi, Marty. Important figures
      \nin shaping my technical future… and just some of the people that Raffi’s call
      \nbrought back to mind.<\/p>\n

      Happy birthday guys, and thanks for the help \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      thirty-four – and all is … Sunday was the end of my 34th year. As I sit in my ancestral home (that is shorthand for ‘parents house’) with the debris of my current business venture around me I cannot help but take a moment to reflect.  first off Thank you to both Tatsumi and Kimiko […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}