| __ ___ ___ | |
| /\ |\ | / ` | |__ |\ | | | |
| /~~\ | \| \__, | |___ | \| | | |
| __ ___ __ __ | |
| |__| | /__` | / \ |__) \ / | |
| | | | .__/ | \__/ | \ | | |
| So you're interested in learning more about me? I'm honoured. Not | |
| much to learn really. But since you came, I might as well spin you a | |
| short yarn. | |
| ______________________________________________________________________ | |
| The BBS Years: | |
| I used to be the sysop of a NY BBS called "Operation Shadowfire". | |
| It ran on an IBM XT with a TXM/10-II 8088 Main Board @ 10 MH. | |
| It was a waffle BBS running under IBM DOS 3.3. | |
| During that time I befriended a gent in a nearby town who shared my | |
| passion for BBSs (he ran the "Octothorpe BBS") and interactive | |
| fiction. | |
| He took this passion and became an archivist and film maker. His name | |
| is | |
| Jason Scott [Sadofsky] | |
| Jason has gone on to create great things like: | |
| textfiles.com | |
| The BBS Documentary (SDF is in it!) | |
| Get Lamp (A film about text adventures) | |
| If you haven't seen his work before you should absolutely investigate | |
| it. His films are amazing and evoke deep nostalgia in everyone. | |
| An interesting aside is that we both used to frequent the original SDF | |
| BBS. | |
| ______________________________________________________________________ | |
| The BITNET Years: | |
| When I was in college we didn't have access to ARPA's successor, | |
| NSFNet | |
| via | |
| NYSERNet | |
| simply because it wasn't around until just after I graduated. | |
| Instead I had access to | |
| BITNET | |
| And on BITNET I was a class four sysop on the | |
| RELAY Network | |
| In fact, I was the publisher of "Class Four Relay Magazine". RELAY | |
| predates IRC by a few years but with the demise of BITNET, RELAY is no | |
| more. I also ran the Emergency Services List (EMERG-L) and the | |
| Collegiate Emergency Services List (CEMS-L). These last two were | |
| merged into misc.emerg-services circa 1991. Google remembers some of | |
| my posts and I am embarrased reading them now. :-) | |
| It was during this time that I wrote a BBS system entirely in | |
| Fortran77 that ran on the MUSIC/SP system. | |
| MUSIC/SP | |
| Also during this time I was (as you might have already guessed) a | |
| firefighter and EMT. I was active both in my home town as well as | |
| re-founding the College's EMS. | |
| ______________________________________________________________________ | |
| The 90s: | |
| I spent most of the 90s working on mainframe systems using languages | |
| such as APL, PL1, C, REXX, and 370 Assembler. It makes me sound like | |
| an intelligent nerd I know but I really wasn't. I just did what had | |
| to be done. At the beginning of the 90s I also became a ham radio | |
| operator. Yes, I had to learn Morse Code. I'm still very involved | |
| with the local Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) team to this | |
| day. | |
| ARES | |
| Also during this time I did air and ground search and rescue. If | |
| you've ever seen the movie Cliff Hanger, that will give you an rough | |
| idea. | |
| ______________________________________________________________________ | |
| 2000 (or so) to present: | |
| I became a Unix convert. I ended up working for Canonical, the | |
| company that makes Ubuntu, for 10 years. | |
| I probably would have been a full convert in the 80s had I only had | |
| exposure to it. Instead I had what was available, IBM technology. | |
| This era has been punctuated by Project Management, Python, | |
| AppleScript, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Launchpad, IRC, and SDF. I got paid to | |
| work on FOSS and use Unix (Linux mostly). In my spare time I used to | |
| help build autonomous air and ground robots. These days I spend my | |
| time supporting a large mountain network of emergency repeaters and | |
| computers linked via gigahertz radio from Cheyenne, WY to Sandia, NM | |
| and into the Colorado mountains. For more information see: | |
| RMHAM | |
| In 2019 I left Canonical and joined Platform.sh. You can find more | |
| about my work history by visiting LinkedIn | |
| In February 2021 I moved off SDF.ORG over to Tilde.Team and I am very | |
| happy with the setup. | |
| In August 2022 I got my Ph.D. in Information Technology. | |
| ____________________________________________________________________________ | |
| Gophered by Gophernicus/3.0.1 on Ubuntu/22.04 x86_64 |