Sad indeed, and thanks for letting the group know. I had the honor of meeting with Ward last year at VCF. I was so excited in meeting with him, I forgot to ask and get a proper photo with him. But he did sign my Computer Lib book that I had with me - I bring it with me to VCFs just for that purpose, of a chance encounter with one of the living legends. I found a candid image later. He was helping teach soldering at the tables setup at VCF, very enjoyable to talk with him (I ran a BBS for about 5 years right around 1990, and never-ever imagined that I'd meet the guy who started it all). I wrote about my encounter with him here:
https://voidstar.blog/vcf-mw-midwest-2023/ Maybe VCF West and the great CHM might consider a kind of computing "hall of fame". It may be hard to decide who meets that threshold, but one criteria might be that of being humble enough to attend a VCF. If anyone is involved with Commander X16, we're in need of an xmodem implementation for one of the terminals in that system. I think we could pull it off in BASIC even. -Steve On Sun, Oct 13, 2024 at 8:20 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > I'm afraid time abides no one! It seems that the greats were of an earlier > time, no pun intended, but they were pioneers who made technology work for > them.Happy computing. Murray 🙂 > > On Sun, Oct 13, 2024 at 9:05 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > > 1945 - 2024 > > > > Found dead 10/11/24 in a "wellness check". > > > > Little or no other information yet. > > > > Ward Christensen created the first "BBS". > > Then, when he needed to transfer files, he created XMODEM. The XMODEM > > protocols became the de facto standard for transferring files. > > Later, there was some competition from Kermit, but, other than being > "FROM > > A > > UNIVERSITY!", it wasn't nearly as good. > > > > > > Not only are all of the greats dying off, but soon there won't be anybody > > around who even knew about them. > > > > -- > > Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com > > >
