Barren Realms Elite and the Golden Age of BBS Door Games
Trade Wars, Legend of the Red Dragon, Barren Realms Elite - BBS door games created the template for online gaming....
I Solved Spam in the 90s (Nobody Cared)
In the 1990s, I built RUM (Real User Mail) - a challenge-response system to fight spam. It worked. I never released it. Years later, the industry reinvented it....
What BBS Culture Taught Us That Silicon Valley Forgot
1980s BBS culture created authentic communities through sysop relationships and local control. Taiwan's PTT still has 1.5M active users....
The Day Netscape Changed Everything
Netscape's IPO established the template for modern startup culture: growth over profit, massive early valuations, and boom-bust rhythms....
Why ICQ Died: Lessons From the First Instant Messenger
ICQ invented instant messaging and reached 100 million users. Then it died through corporate neglect, software bloat, and missed mobile transition....
Shareware: The $25 Honor System That Built An Industry
Andrew Fluegelman shipped PC-Talk in 1982 and asked users to mail $25 if they liked it. Doom, WinZip, and id Software grew from the same honor system....
Programming Before Google: When You Read Manuals
Programming in the pre-internet era meant libraries, magazines, and BBSs....
How 'Piracy' Actually Helped Technology Move Forward
Software piracy in the 80s and 90s built the networks, protocols, and communities that became legitimate tech infrastructure....
My First Computer
1977 was the year everything started. The Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET created personal computing....
Debugging Before Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow launched in 2008. For the first thirty years of my career, 'Google the error message' wasn't an option....
What Prodigy Taught Me About Walled Gardens
Prodigy invested $1 billion building walls that collapsed when the open internet arrived. The pattern has repeated with every major walled garden since....