When he founded DDJ ("dr. dobb's journal Of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics
And Orthodontia : Running Light Without Overbyte"), they considered it to
be a reference, not a newspaper, and kept reprints of the old issues
available in bound form.
But, after Jim was gone, the title became merely "Dr. Dobb's Journal" with
subtitles that ranged from "Tools for professional programmers", "World Of
Software Development", etc. I think that it ended with "management
Information Systems"? Much as "Tinker-Toys" became "Morrow Designs",
"Kentucky Fried Computers" became "NorthStar", and "Intergalactic Digital
Research" became "Digital Research, Inc."
Jim used to roll around WCCF (1977 - 1983) on roller skates, which put his
head above the top of the crowd, and let him keep an eye on everything
going on. His assistant in those days was Nels Anderson. I'm not sure
that Jim needed the skates to be head and shoulders above most.
After WCCF had deteriorated badly under the new owners, he was the guest
of honor at S.O.G. ("Semi Official Gathering" put on in Bend Oregon, by
Dave Thompson of MicroCornucopia magazine). We presented him with a pair
of skates, and told him that it was time for him to put them back on, that
the world of computers needed him. I don't know who provided them; I was
the one who had suggested it to Dave Thompson.
I was tied for #1 for booth selection, even though I never had a booth
larger than 10x10 and hadn't exhibited at the first three Faires (SF, San
Jose, Los Angeles), when the suits discontinued the booth selection
priority list.
I think that it was Jim's "Journal Of Intelligent Machines", that
eventually decomposed into "Infoworld", or maybe "Silicon Gulch Gaqzette",
that had the subtitle of "machines who think", instead of the canonical
"machines that think". But, it might have been one of his other
periodicals; can anybody pin that down?
GOOGLE'ing people we knew tends to be very sad.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
