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Bill Godbout, Early S-100 Bus Pioneer, Perished In the Camp Wildfire (vcfed.org)
evanak writes: Bill Godbout was one of the earliest and most influential supports of the S-100 bus in the mid-1970s. He passed away last week due to the Camp wildfire in Concow, California, according to a Vintage Computer Federation blog post. More than 50 other people also died in the fires, but chances are Mr. Godbout was the only one with a license to fly blimps. "Godbout was born October 2, 1939," the blog post reads. "He talked about his introduction to computing in an interview with InfoWorld magazine for their February 18, 1980 issue. 'My first job out of college was with IBM. I served a big-system apprenticeship there, but I think the thing that really triggered [my interest] was the introduction of the 8008 by Intel,' he said. 'I was fascinated that you could have that kind of capability in a little 18-pin package.'"
Godbout's family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to support their needs in this difficult time.
Godbout's family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to support their needs in this difficult time.
I only talked to Bill through mail when I was in University - I was building an S-100 Z-80 CPM system and needed some suggestions on how to architect the video driver. Bill pointed me to some reference drawings on the MOT 6845 (same as the original IBM PC) that I could use along with providing me with some software to go with it. The only thing he asked of me was that I pass along the information to anybody who asked.
We lost touch after I got my system working and I always wondered what happened to him.
RIP. He showed me the value of Open Source.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
... As usual, you should ignore Trump's attempts to somehow blame this on Democrats, saying they weren't "managing" the forests properly ...
Don't let your politics fool you. Science does in fact say we are mismanaging forest and brush lands. Trump may be an idiot but via the broken clock effect he is occasionally correct. In this case our hyper aggressive firefighting over many decades, overseen by both republicans and democrats, has let fuel accumulate. The result has been more and larger fires that are more difficult to contain.
There are many ways to f' up the environment. Some of them are industrial, some of them are well meaning and superficially pro-environment policies. Fires are a natural part of the environmental cycle in some regions. That needs to be recognized and fire suppression needs to start taking that into account.
I used to buy memory chips from him. Wonderful guy full of excitement concerning anything having to do with building your own computer. An information spreader. Serial Good Guy that would help anyone out with tips on DIY, and "where to get it" advice.