Break Into Chat

Break Into Chat

Josh Renaud’s blog about BBS history, retro computing and technology reminiscences.

  • Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 4: The artist and the community

    Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 4: The artist and the community

    This is the fourth part of a multi-part series. Steve Turnbull’s world couldn’t have been more different from that of Larry Mears, creator of “Instant Graphics and Sound.” Mears was a shipping clerk in the Deep South. Turnbull worked in showbiz and lived in sunny Laguna Beach, California, in a yellow beach cottage with turqouise…

  • Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 3: The adventure begins

    Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 3: The adventure begins

    This is the third part of a multi-part series. User groups were the lifeblood of any Atari community, bringing together hobbyists to have fun and help each other. Consider ST-JAUG, the “ST Jacksonville Atari Users Group,” a computer club full of active-duty and retired military in the Jacksonville, Florida, area. On May 21, 1988, many…

  • Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 2: Larry Mears

    Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 2: Larry Mears

    This is the second part of a multi-part series. Larry Mears prided himself on living in “Rocket City” — Huntsville, Alabama, the home of the Marshall Space Flight Center — but lamented that his high-tech town had no Atari dealers. Mears was an Atarian from way back. Excited by the promise of home computers, he…

  • Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 1: Introduction

    Instant Graphics and Sound, Part 1: Introduction

    This is the first part of a multi-part series. “My God, what a fantastic program you’ve written! It’s astounding! I’m very, VERY impressed! This will change BBSing in the Atari world forever.” These words, written in February 1990, kicked off a gushing fan letter — the kind of feedback every hobbyist software developer dreams of…

  • I’m heading to Atlanta — plus, Jack Tramiel’s phone numbers

    I’m heading to Atlanta — plus, Jack Tramiel’s phone numbers

    I’ve been remiss in sharing some fantastic news. In April, I was awarded a “Geffen and Lewyn Family Southern Jewish Collections Research Fellowship” from the Rose Library at Emory University! This fellowship will enable me to travel to Atlanta for a week or two and study materials at Emory related to several Jewish educational games…

  • The college basketball bracket … in ANSI

    The college basketball bracket … in ANSI

    Eleven years ago, when I worked as a designer of news and sports pages at a daily newspaper, I created a system to automate the production of our college basketball brackets in print. One year prior, data journalist Aaron Bycoffe pointed out on Twitter that NCAA.com was using a nice, clean JSON feed to power…

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