June 1999 Troubleshooting Professional Magazine: More Heroes, and a Trip to Linux Expo

Copyright (C) 1999 by Steve Litt. All rights reserved. Materials from guest authors copyrighted by them and licensed for perpetual use to Troubleshooting Professional Magazine. All rights reserved to the copyright holder, except for items specifically marked otherwise (certain free software source code, GNU/GPL, etc.). All material herein provided "As-Is". User assumes all risk and responsibility for any outcome.

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Letters to the Editor

[Editors Note: There were multitudes of letters, but these were the only two giving me permission to publish.]

Tim

Steve,
     Your review of article of "Heroes" of the computer age was nice
overall, however in discussing the internet, or in reality the WWW, credit
should be given to Tim Berners-Lee.  He was a physcist/programmer at the
CERN particle accelerator facility in Switzerland.  He was the main
developer of the original concept of having a graphical, hypertext like
interface to the internet, including HTML.  He is presently working at MIT.
Performing a web search on his name returns a multitude of hits with more
information.

Herb Ruf

P.S. I hereby grant perpetual permission for the publication of these
comments.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
 

Jay

I know you are probably getting deluged with responses from people
saying that you forgot their personal hero. Perhaps John Ousterhout, or
Dennis Ritchie, or Jean Ichbiah, etc. But I still feel that there is one
very important individual who needs to be recognized. In particular, I
was saddened by the omission of Jay Miner, father of the Atari 800 and
Amiga computers. Both of these systems and their legendary gaming
abilities are what got me my start in computers and programming, and
kept me excited about the possibilities of computing for 10 straight
years. I now support a growing family and make a very good living at
doing something I absolutely love. Frankly, I believe I owe everything
to Jay.

On June 20, 1994, when the web was in it infancy, Jay Miner died of
kidney failure. When word reached usenet, I was moved to post a 100-line
blank message in the Amiga group entitled "A message of silence for Jay
Miner". Within an hour there were about 50 blank responses from all over
the world. By the end of the thread the tally was nearly a thousand. In
a medium normally awash in flame and noise, it was the most moving
outpouring of emotion I have ever witnessed.

Unfortunately this was in the days before Dejanews, so the "silence"
thread is lost forever. My Atari 800 is gone, and my Amiga 1000 is
resigned to the attic, the inside of its case still bearing Jay's
signature (as all Amiga 1000's do). A scan of Dejanews shows that Jay
has not been forgotten. The Jay Miner Society ( http://www.jms.org/ )
has been formed to continue his vision. There was even a move to put him
up for Time's "Man of the Century". Tapes of his user group appearances
are selling for $15.
 

Permission is hereby granted to troubleshooters.com to use this message
in perpetuity.

--
T.E.D.

[Editors note: I don't know how I could have forgotten the Atari and Commodore machines. They were far ahead of their times. I even discussed them in the April 1998 Troubleshooting Professional Magazine (Corporationally Incorrect). T.E.D, thanks for letting me know they were designed by the same person. He truly was a hero.]
 
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