RIP Jerry Pournelle

The writer that may have influenced me the most, is one whose books I have never read.

Jerry Pournelle has passed away at age 84. He authored countless sci-fi books. He is known for writing the first book using a computer; a computer that is now in the Smithsonian.

It was his column for Byte Magazine in the 80s that caught my interest.

In his monthly Chaos Manor column, he told his tales of woe for that month getting the computers in his home to work properly. He struggled with early networking, balky printers, buggy software and all the struggles those of us from that era knew all too well.

I recall some computer publication wag as saying Apple should send a copy of Chaos Manor to every one in the country. It showed just how much easier those early Macs were to the PCs of the day running Windows.

I still remember Pournelle's Law : check the cables first. Too often they are the culprit, but often the last thing we check. My cable tester is my best used tool.

When I wrote my own tech column for the newspapers of Prince William County, I strived to be like Jerry and tell stories of my own adventures but to try and make what I learned benefit the reader.

For more information about Jerry, see his website, Wikipedia and a list of his books on Amazon.

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