24 Oct
2024
24 Oct
'24
4:38 a.m.
Associated Press has a deaths wire where they put up
obits of people of interest. I’d assume that’s how NYT even knew about Ward. It’s
interesting to me that they bothered to put up his obit as he is mildly famous even to
tech folks. They might have seen the chatter about him and decided based upon that. 10
days might be because that’s when they had enough space in the newspaper or maybe they
wanted it to run in the science or technology page which is not run every day.
Actually I posted the ArsTechnica article in one of the New York Times
internal chat channels on Oct 16th, I was hoping someone would pick
this up. I did the same when Chuck Peddle died.
I work for the Times and there are a few people here who appreciate
old technology. I don't have any pull, but some of the writers are
serious techies.
As for the article, this is the New York Times and not ArsTechnica.
The readers are different and the writers have to find ways to relate.
Depending on your perspective, BBSes were the social systems of the
time. I can see the link between them.
I thought it was well written and regardless of what you think of the
Times, it is nice to see Ward Christensen remembered with a proper
obituary.
On Wed, Oct 23, 2024 at 10:55 PM Wayne S via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> Fred, probably there was no death file for Ward so the writer had to start from
scratch.
Associated Press has a deaths wire where they put up
obits of people of interest. I’d assume that’s how NYT even knew about Ward. It’s
interesting to me that they bothered to put up his obit as he is mildly famous even to
tech folks. They might have seen the chatter about him and decided based upon that. 10
days might be because that’s when they had enough space in the newspaper or maybe they
wanted it to run in the science or technology page which is not run every day.
>
I wouldn’t be asked because i’m not a source for anything.
> I only knew about Edwins passing from other people on the Classic Computer discord.
> Death files have fact checked items and a summary obituary written usually for
someone older like both Clintons, George Bush, Donald Trump, Jack Nicholson, Cher, etc.
They are updated from time to time with new items.
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Oct 23, 2024, at 15:10, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
> >
> > for the "unwashed masses", cbbs was like a blog, and revolutionary.
and something they can relate to
> >
> > people send photos on emails, but file transfer with xmodem was only meaningful
for computer nerds. business did file transfer more like faxing. specialized devices
called each other, maybe even manually answered, and used dedicated protocols for those
devices.
> >
> > <pre>--Carey</pre>