Buy the book HERE

     

      Well, first off, I was born on a warm, sunny Florida afternoon, in a little town called . . . oh wait, that's a little too far back! Fast forward to the fifth grade and my first interaction with the world of computers. I wrote about this in one of my first articles, written for issue one, "Computer Trek." As the story goes, I went on a field trip with my fifth grade class in 1975. We visited the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville, my hometown. We were given a tour of their computer lab facility, but I don't remember actually seeing the computer itself. It was probably locked away in a secure, raised-floor room. The lab consisted mostly of tables where two people could sit in front of what looked like very large typewriters. These were terminals of course, printer terminals – they didn’t have displays (CRTs)! I remember clearly that they had the IBM Selectric balls. When typing out text, they spun around in the carriage in an almost hypnotic way. They printed out on that iconic "green bar" printer paper too! Our teacher and the lab workers got us all seated in twos at the terminals, and only a very low hum could be heard from all of the machines. Suddenly, they all came to life! It was amazing and almost magical how a dozen or so of these big typewriters were typing by themselves at the same time. If that wasn’t impressive enough, they started typing out "Welcome" in large letters by combining ASCII characters. Depending on how old you are, you might remember seeing mall vendors making calendars, t-shirts, and such with video capture photos the same way. I can't remember all of the details now and I don't know if my friend and I took turns typing in our names, but one of the most amazing things happened—the computer asked our names and then typed them out in even larger ASCII letters. It had learned our names! This thing had intelligence and could interact with us! Or so we thought. We spent the rest of our time using the university computer for what it was really meant for – playing Star Trek! It was a text only game, but it was still amazing. From that point on, I remember how significant I thought computers were and I knew, one day, I wanted a job in computer technology. Coincidentally, while growing up watching Star Trek in reruns, I knew that they were to become an integral part of our lives. Maybe one day, we would really talk to them too.

      I didn't grow up with a personal computer and didn’t get my first hands-on experience with one until college. That was in 1982, in one of the first college courses I selected. It was called "Introduction to Computer Concepts.” In the lab, I used an Apple ][+ with matching Apple monitor and disk drive. I learned to do some BASIC programming and also how to save / load programs to and from a diskette. It was shortly after this time that I first started thinking about buying a computer for myself. Being on my own by age 19 (in 1983) and essentially poor, I never had enough money to seriously shop for one. Around 1984, I had my sights set on the Commodore Plus/4 simply because I saw it advertised on TV for a clear-out price of $99. It wouldn't be until my 22nd birthday in 1986 that I received my first computer as a gift, purchased by a very considerate girlfriend. It was a Commodore C64. I loved that computer, even though it was all that I ever had (no monitor, cassette tape or disk drive, etc.). I just used it with my little 13" color TV. I would whip up a BASIC program and mess around for days on it, but I had to leave the computer on the entire time or lose my program!

     

      As a young adult, I always had roommates to save money, but in the middle of 1987, I decided to get my own one-bedroom apartment. All that I had for furnishings was my bed, a small table with chairs, my computer, and a TV. The apartment had glass sliding patio doors in the back and I still hadn't purchased blinds or curtains after living there about two weeks. I worked in a restaurant at night and, being young and naive, went to work one Friday night with both the TV and computer left on. They were both sitting out in the middle of the living room floor. I came home about midnight to find my glass doors smashed in and my TV and computer stolen. My neighbors were having a loud party, with people all over the place outside (I didn’t know any of them). Lesson learned, trust diminished, and I grew up a little bit more.

     

      Moving along, but back to 1986, it would be later in that year that I was introduced to the computer that has influenced my life the most – the Macintosh. I had moved to Frederick, Maryland, where I went to college part-time and worked at a computer store called Frederick Computer Products. I was so excited to get that job, as it was my first related to computers. I worked on the retail floor, but the company also had large corporate, government, and educational sales and support departments. It was a successful company, serving the greater Washington, DC and Baltimore areas. We sold IBM, HP, Compaq, Epson and Apple computers. This was my first introduction to the full range of personal computing (I was then unaware of the Commodore Amiga and Atari offerings). Though about 90% of all sales were PC / DOS-based computers, internally, we used Macs for just about everything. I was fascinated by the Mac and quickly learned how to use them for proposals, sales quotes, and business letters. I also learned to use a simple networked hard drive (fileserver) and printed documents on the networked Apple laser printer. There was something so friendly and intuitive about the Macintosh, and so I decided that I would never buy anything else. When I worked at the store, the Mac Plus was the top-of-the-line and later the Mac SE was introduced. I aimed for the low-end Mac 512 Enhanced – it was the cheapest model I hoped I might afford some day soon (I had not yet considered that without a hard drive or additional disk drive, the computer would be almost unusable). I purchased some of my first software there too (for my future Mac), including the game Suspended by Infocom, in the cool “folio” packaging with the disturbing-looking white face mask. Also while working there, I remember the introduction of the Apple IIGS and how impressed I was with its color graphics and sound, plus I saw the introduction of IBM’s PS/2 line (which were not so impressive to me).

     

      By the fall of 1989, I still didn’t have my own computer and with more life changes and some additional moving around, I was now in Gainesville, Florida (where the University of Florida is located). I was still on-fire for the Mac and I got a job with an Apple dealer there called Mini Concepts. Selling them again only increased my desire, so after working there a while, I asked about buying a computer at a discount, but even with that, I couldn’t hope to afford one. One day a guy brought in his “Mac” to be serviced; it was odd looking and larger than a classic Macintosh. I looked it over on the workbench and asked our computer technician about it – it wasn’t a Mac at all, but an Apple Lisa. I looked through my MacUser and MacWorld magazines and noticed a regular ad from a company called Sun Remarketing. They were selling new, old-stock Lisas that were upgraded to run as Macs! Where it would have cost me about $1,600 (with discount) for the cheapest Mac system – a Mac Plus with an external 20MB hard drive, I could buy what was essentially a Mac Plus work-alike for $1,095! I financed that purchase and received my Lisa “new” in the box at the end of December, 1989. My first “real” computer (with a display, disk drive, and hard drive) – my first Mac! Unboxing it, setting it up, and running it for the first time was exciting and wonderful for me. You’ll also read more about this in my introduction to issue one (read for free HERE).

     

      My Apple Lisa was a key catalyst to my interest in computer history, as my passion for its history blossomed into my interest in the history of Apple Computer, then personal computers, and then computer history in general. Another key catalyst / event that furthered my growing interest happened while in Army training during February of 1991 (after basic training, 12/90 – 1/91). During my first two weeks at Fort Gordon, Georgia, I had to go to the Army Learning Center and watch five different training videos and successfully test-out on them. We had a choice of what to watch within the criteria of the different topics assigned. For technology, I chose a series on personal computing called Bits and Bytes (watch them HERE). It was produced by TVOntario in 1983, so it was already very outdated by 1991, but for me, it was a retro, computer history entertainment fiesta! I loved it so much that I went back later with my girlfriend (who I had met at Fort Gordon, was also in the Army, and would later marry me on June 1st of 1991) and watched it all again! She thought I was a little weird – but still liked me! I’ve posted the first episode of this great show on YouTube, and I plan to post them all soon. A third catalyst was a gift from my brother Michael. After my training at Fort Gordon, I was leaving for Germany, so I was visiting with him and other family members. We talked about my interests and it turned out that he had a copy of Steven Levy’s book Hackers (buy a copy HERE) from 1984. This classic explained the true, original meaning of “hacking.” I even started making certificates with The Hacker Ethic on them when I began publishing Historically Brewed:

The Hacker Ethic

     

Access to computers – and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!

All information should be free

Mistrust authority – promote decentralization

Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position

You can create art and beauty on a computer

Computers can change your life for the better

It’s a great book and I always recommend it. It has three main sections: The True Hackers, The Hardware Hackers, and The Game Hackers. It covers the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, Homebrew Computer Club, Altair computer, Apple I computer, Sierra On-Line, and more. Hackers really whet my appetite for the stories of old computers and opened my eyes to reading more about computer history. So, I began seeking out other books on the subject. Newly married, my wife and I were stationed in Darmstadt, Germany, where I found a copy of another great book in the Army library, Digital Deli (read it free HERE), by Steve Ditlea. Later, I discovered Fire in the Valley (buy a copy HERE) by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. These would be followed by many, many more.

My desk in our house in Germany.

      After settling into our house in Germany, and having my things shipped over, including my Lisa “Mac,” I decided to finally buy a printer (never had my own). I had taught myself desktop publishing at the Apple dealer and I wanted to start printing things. After buying HP’s first inkjet printer for the Mac, the DeskWriter, I found that I could not get it to work with the Lisa, though I had researched and read that it could. So, in early 1992, I purchased my first new Macintosh, the Mac Classic, for $999. As much as I liked the old stuff, I was, and still am, very active in the modern computing scene. I subscribed to both MacUser and MacWorld, plus started buying Computer Shopper regularly (loved Stan Veit’s column, “What Ever Happened to . . .”), and I was active in the local American Macintosh User Group (in Kaiserslautern, near Ramstein Air Force Base).

     

      Sometime later in 1992, I first started thinking about going “online.” I had read about BBSes for years and I wanted to check them out, but I was in Germany (I never did learn how to read or speak much German). I was surprised to find that I could use the American CompuServe service through my German phone with a local number. So I purchased my first modem, a Zoom 2400 baud (a deal at the time for $99 by mail-order), and I subscribed. I’ve been “online” continuously ever since. Being connected through CompuServe opened up a whole new world of online interaction to me. I was able to find some Apple HyperCard “stacks” (hyperlinked documents) about computer history, a forum where people discussed old computers, plus the classifieds. It was then that I decided when I returned to the states, I would start a computer club for people interested in computer history and collecting. I could then also start collecting old computers too. Through CompuServe, and while still in Germany, I acquired one of my first old computers. I looked through the classifieds regularly, so one day, I saw someone looking to give away a Commodore SX-64. They wanted it to go to a good home and to be well taken care of, as it had been a very cherished machine. I emailed the man and told him of my plans to start a club, and that I would do my best to preserve the machine in a collection and to show it off in presentations. A few days later he announced that he had chosen me! I was tremendously excited and I offered to at least pay him for the shipping costs, but he didn’t want any money. I had him ship it to my mother’s house in the states and I got it when we returned shortly after. A very nice touch was that he included a print out with all of the responses that he had received. I was the first one, but also I was the only one who specifically said that I would preserve it as a piece of history. I still have that computer, the print outs, and the letter from him. You can see the SX-64, and hear more of the story in my second video podcast at ClassicComputing.com (watch it HERE). I will post the letter and print outs to my blog someday soon too. I also acquired two of my other early collectibles while still in Germany: a TRS-80 Model 4P from my uncle and a 1975 Basic/Four minicomputer. The owner of the minicomputer came all the way down to Florida in a pick-up truck from Pennsylvania (I’m pretty sure that was the state) and dropped it off at my father’s house for me! He wanted it preserved. This was all arranged online, other than talking to my father by phone.

     

      Just before leaving Germany for our next duty station, I started making plans for the club and I named it the Historical Computer Society. I wanted it to be taken seriously and sound distinguished, as my intent was to one day grow it into a full non-profit organization and open a museum. I wrote a press release that I could use to try and get publicity for the club and I came up with the name of the newsletter, Historically Brewed. I named it as a play on words to the Homebrew club / movement. I had also been teaching myself HyperCard, so I created my own stack and gave it out at the last Mac user group meeting that I attended in Germany. It was a Macintosh history stack and it became the basis of my main article for the first issue, “The GUI: Where Did its History Really Begin?” By early April of 1993, my wife and I were settled in El Paso, Texas (Fort Bliss) and she was pregnant with our first child. I started posting the press release about the club and newsletter regularly on CompuServe forums and in the classifieds. HB was to be published every other month – what turned out to be a highly ambitious schedule. A subscription to HB was $15 a year for six postage-paid issues and with that, you became a member of HCS. At some point in the future, HCS would grow to become a non-profit organization and HB would become a professional magazine as its voice. My first “member” and subscriber was Stan Veit (read my memorial article HERE), from Computer Shopper magazine. He was active in the computer history forum on CompuServe and I was so honored and surprised when he sent me a nice letter of support, with a check for $15, and a proof copy of his upcoming book! He had opened the second computer store in the world, in 1975 in New York City. The book is one of my favorites and I’m slowly reading it into an audiobook podcast. I received his permission to do so in 2006, before his death in 2010. Within a couple of weeks of regularly posting the press release, I was getting replies of interest about the club and newsletter. I also signed up for AOL (America On-Line) and started posting there too. It was exciting to come home each day from work and answer three, four or more emails of interest. Soon, some other checks and letters started to arrive.

Our first apartment in El Paso.     

      My next step was to start writing the stories for issue one and then to find contributors for issue two. I ended up having to go out into the “field” for two weeks (training away from the base in Army conditions – tents, etc.) and I wrote the Star Trek article there. Since I was a radio repairer and you need electricity to repair electronics, we worked in a semi-trailer truck and pulled a gas powered generator. I wrote that article on the SX-64 and then printed it to a small Okidata Okimate 10 printer. When I got home, I scanned the article into my Macintosh (I had a Performa 400 color Mac by then) and used OCR software to convert it! At the beginning of the summer of 1993, I was ready to start printing issue one (by literally “pasting-up” the printed pages from my computer printer onto master pages and then copying each of them at a Mail Boxes Etc.). I would sometimes be at the copying machine until late at night, manually copying onto each side of the 11” x 17” sheets. If I remember correctly, I had about 30 paid subscribers and sold a dozen or so single copies of the Aug/Sept 1993 issue (one). Just before that issue hit the “press,” our first child was born, Addy, who is now 18.

     

Working in my office, in our house in El Paso.

      Letters and checks continued to arrive and the subscription base grew steadily during that first year of publication. I was able to line-up other writers from our readership, as well as from the computer history forums. After issue one, I never wrote an entire issue again. I mostly stayed on schedule, but was always a little late. I pushed back issue four a month, so future issues would not cross over years (issue three was for Dec/Jan). By mid-1994, my wife Tamara was pregnant again and she decided to leave the Army early (they gave her that option). I decided to not reenlist as well and left the Army in September. We both felt that the job market was too limited in El Paso as we were not bilingual, so we moved to Jacksonville, Florida (Tamara is also from Florida - St. Petersburg). In the little less than two years of living in El Paso and in pursuing my hobby, I had published six issues of HB and had acquired about three dozen or so computers. I also had an office filled with many books, magazines, software and other ephemera. I had been featured in a few articles, with one being a really nice magazine spot in Texas Monthly (see my blog). Wired magazine selected HB as one of the “Top Ten Tech Zines” for the year 1994 and I was even featured on two local television news channels in El Paso. HB was regularly listed in Factsheet Five, a magazine that reviewed and covered the zine revolution (the publisher contacted me and was a fan of my work!). It was being sold at the Smithsonian’s gift shop in Washington DC, at the Computer History Museum in Boston, Massachusetts (now in Mountain View, California), and at the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, Montana. There were about 500 subscribers at that time, with many from other countries! The future looked really bright for HB, which was improving cosmetically and starting to look even more like a real magazine.

     

Texas Monthly magazine for July 1994.

      After exiting the Army and moving, we assumed that since my wife had become pregnant while I was still in active service, that the Army would cover the pregnancy and childbirth costs. That was not the case. The Army did not cover us, my wife could not work, and so I worked as much as I could, but we were now poor. Even if we could have afforded insurance, it would have been impossible to cover her anyway, as a pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition. Life got a lot harder. I don’t remember now how long it took to get issue seven out, but it took even longer than it had for issue six. Issue eight was released a good bit after our son Andrew was born on March 20th, 1995. One of the other things that I did after moving to Jacksonville was to self-publish a book containing the first six issues of HB. So there was an HB book that predates this one, and you’ll see some ads for it in the later issues. My intent was for it to open up a larger audience for the magazine and to help pay the costs of also printing issue seven. I used a credit card to finance the printing of 200 copies. It sold slowly, and it certainly didn’t help us financially (taking a few years to sell them all). We were struggling to just make ends meet, and my dream of making HB into a mainstream magazine, or even a future career, was diminishing. Issue nine came out sometime in early 1996 and I didn’t even do a “From the Publisher” column, or put a date on the cover. I didn’t want to draw attention to how late it was, or have to make excuses. It was a time of anxiety for me, both personally and about the magazine. I still think issue nine was one of the best issues I ever did, highlighted by a personal interview I conducted with the creator of the MITS Altair, Ed Roberts (hear that interview HERE). He had sold his business in 1977 and moved to a small town in Georgia, where he became a doctor and opened his own general practice. It was about a five hour drive from Jacksonville to go and interview him – a very special experience for me as a young, amateur computer history journalist. Read the interview in issue nine, and you can also listen to it and read more about his life on my blog. Unfortunately, Ed Roberts died last year (read my memorial article HERE), in April, 2010. With issue nine, the run of Historically Brewed would stop.

     

      In 1997, I decided that I would try and get the magazine up and running again. I had a good job and I worked extra on the side in order to make ends meet – our household was reasonably stable. I decided to change the name of the magazine so that it could be recognized for its content right away. I thought this could only help its exposure when it sat on bookstore shelves one day. I chose the name “Classic Computing.” It was simple, direct and catchy – perfect! I gathered articles for the new issue and began work. I designed a new cover layout too, and made it look more like a mainstream magazine. I created my first full color covers and set it up to print in what is called a four-color-separation. I had however estimated for the cost of the two-color covers that I had previously been printing since issue five. I had the covers printed first, and when it came time to start printing the inside pages, the cost of the covers had already devoured the entire budget run for the whole magazine! They looked great, but I was stymied with the situation. The issue was not completed and as more time went by, more personal financial problems came. Classic Computing issue one would never be and the printed covers remained boxed-up, between my closet and the garage, for years afterward. In mid-1998, I purchased the domain name “classiccomputing.com,” but I didn't really know much about creating web pages. Slowly, I learned how to create a basic web presence, but CC issue one still never materialized. With the year 2003, a new child arrived, Jonah, and my computer history hobby seemingly stopped completely.

ClassicComputing.com in 2001.

      Over the years, my computer collection has expanded and contracted, depending on circumstances, especially around times when we moved (six more times because of work). Nevertheless, my interest in old computers, their history, and the people never waned. I would give the occasional computer history presentation at a Mac user group meeting, and I occasionally found old computers at thrift stores or on eBay. I sometimes still bought and sold old computers on eBay too. I did teach myself some basic web design by way of Claris Home Page software for the Macintosh, but I was just never that good with it. My efforts to keep a web page going never really panned out. I had a lot to share, but I couldn't find a direction. That changed in the summer of 2006 when I discovered podcasts through the iTunes Store. On a whim, I did a search for "computer history" and found The Retrobits Podcast by Earl Evans, who had been producing episodes for almost a year. I enjoyed listening to the current episode so much that I went back and started listening from the beginning! I soon discovered 1MHz, The Apple ][ Podcast by Carrington Vanston, and the Boring Beige Box podcast by Matt Wilson. A little later in 2006 came the RetroMacCast podcast with James and John. Carrington and Earl are now my regular co-hosts on the Retro Computing Roundtable, and Matt, James and John have also all been on the show. So podcasts and podcasting really sparked and renewed my creativity in the hobby again. I love podcasts and podcasting, so check it out!

Working on the Retro Computing Roundtable.     

      It’s still hard to get some of my projects out on time, as my current life is filled with my busy family. I have two teens in high school and one halfway through elementary school. I am however very optimistic about the future of my hobby and my activities in it.

      I co-host and produce the regular Retro Computing Roundtable podcast (every three weeks), which has essentially become the modern incarnation of Historically Brewed. With the completion of this book, I am back to producing chapters of Stan Veit’s wonderful audiobook podcast, and I’ll do an occasional video podcast (called Classic Computing). I am working on ideas to make Classic Computing into a three minute package for news programs. Last year, I started up the Historical Computer Society again as a regional club / user group. It had a couple of misfires, but now it’s a stable and growing organization. We have a core group of dedicated members, plus a regular meeting place. We discussed and voted on the name, which is now the Atlanta Historical Computing Society – a nice nod to the original. Its goals are to grow and evolve into a stand-alone, self-governing, non-profit, and educational organization. Maybe one day we can even host an expo for the southeast (I hope)!

      So, that’s enough about me, but I hope it gives you a good feel for my past, especially the times surrounding the creation of Historically Brewed. These were great issues and contain still-relevant histories of the computers, people and times of our computing past. These stories belong in a quality book, to be held, read and cherished. You’re now holding that and I couldn’t be more proud! Enjoy it in good health, and please, contact me sometime and let me know what you think about it.

Photo taken for Texas Monthly article.

Photo taken for Historically Brewed. That’s a yellow Mystery Science Theater 3000 certificate on the wall near me.

Buy the book HERE