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IN MEMORIAM |
Janet Bickerstaff |
 Jim died in hospital in Toronto at the end of June after a long battle with cancer, leaving his wife, Vicki, and daughter, Susannah. We have many happy memories of Jim, not only from his many visits to England for computer shows, but also when we travelled to Canada in 1999 and spent some time with him. Jim’s first encounter with computers was in 1963 when he was working in the field of telecommunications and his first computer was a Collins C8401, programmed in assembly language. When microcomputers arrived in 1976 he had an advantage over most hobbyists and was in a good position to write and lecture about these devices. Most of his experience over the years was with Commodore computers and the 8-bit world. He said, ‘It was a fun time’. His first Commodore computer was the KIM-1 and before long he moved on to the PET; he was a founder member of TPUG - the Toronto PET User Group. Jim followed the progress of Commodore machines from the C64 and C128 through to the Amiga, and visited the UK most years to attend the Commodore Computer Shows in London. He gave a number of talks to members of ICPUG South East at Biggin Hill. He was a true Commodore Guru. Ed: - I would like to add my memories of Jim here. At those Commodore shows that Janet mentioned ICPUG used to run 'Question and Answer' sessions. When Jim visited he was always on the panel of experts. These sessions were packed out, such was the draw of Jim. The other enduring memory I have of Jim is listening to one of his early talks about the Commodore PET and, in particular, how to patch into the machine code to personalise it a little bit. It was a very amusing talk and the 'piece de resistance' was to change the standard Commodore PET prompt 'READY.' into something amusing. Jim illustrated his talk by showing how to change 'READY.' into 'BANANA'. This always got the audience laughing. Those were exciting, happy days and Jim was instrumental in the Computer Club movement on both sides of the Atlantic. He will be remembered by all those who were fortunate to be there and meet him. Update 15th July 2008 A more detailed biography of Jim has been set up, along with a wiki 'Memorial Book' for anyone to contribute their memories of Jim. The link ishttp://www.miketodd.net/jim |
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