With all the joy and happiness the holidays tend to bring (just hear me out), the computing world lost two notable figures this month, both of which have had quite an impact on technology…
The first was Randy Suess on December 10th 2019. While the name may not be as well known as the next person, Randy Suess, together with Ward Christensen are known to have created the first privately-hosted BBS (Bulletin Board System) in 1978. While timesharing was a thing back then with large mainframes, these guys built their own system and made it available using whatever spare hardware they had laying around (an S-100 system), and writing software to run it. It seems Randy handled the hardware side of things while Ward programmed the software. They both had the idea but couldn’t find the time, until a blizzard hit Chicago and suddenly gave them the downtime they needed to make it happen.
Since then, thousands of BBSes were spun up by hobbyists and geeks in their spare time, using spare (maybe not so spare) computers and hardware, and while that boom may have busted in the 90s, BBSes are still very much alive and well, accessible via the internet for the world to continue to enjoy. RIP Randy, and thanks for making my teenage nerd years that much more enjoyable. To learn more about the history of BBSes, check out the BBS Documentary.
Here’s a link to an article about Randy: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/technology/randy-suess-dead.html
Next was Chuck Peddle, on December 15th, 2019. Chuck was part of the former-Motorola team that moved to MOS Technology in the 1970s, and invented the 6502 processor. This one hits particularly close to home for me, because, well, it literally happened about 10 minutes up the road, here on the East Coast in PA. While you would normally think of silicon valley when it comes to CPU manufacturing, MOS Technology was located in Norristown, PA and manufactured processors and other supporting chips. A new-ish web site launched in 2019 with a cool video that helps tell the story can be found at www.team6502.org.
One of the original buildings (now practically abandoned) is still there, and ironically on December 15th me and the nephews were coming back from attending the GiftsForGamers event in Oaks, when I took a quick turn and showed the nephews the building. I explained that without that building and MOS, most of the video games they saw at the show wouldn’t have existed, as the 6502 was used in both the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) as well as the Atari 2600, in addition to countless arcade games, the Apple II, several Commodore computers and many many other devices over the years. The 6502 is STILL used to this day, sometimes even in core/FPGA form. It was just interesting that we happened to check it out on that particular day. RIP Chuck – I’d turn on all the 6502 powered devices I have to honor you, but my house only has 200 amp service 🙂
Wikipedia Article for Chuck Peddle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Peddle
As time marches on, it becomes more important that we document and learn everything we can about the pioneers that shaped the technology we see as commonplace today, and teach the next generations about where it all came from.