Wendy Nather40 years ago, my dad went viral on Usenet with this little gem: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
I found out recently (thanks @rmd1023) that there’s been a resurgence of interest and discussion of the story’s history, which I know would have tickled my dad immensely. https://www.metafilter.com/199386/40th-Anniversary-of-The-Story-of-Mel-Hacker-folklore
Even YouTube discussions: https://youtu.be/sB1lRnZVv30
Story of Mel - Computerphile
Trivia: my dad claimed that the version with his prose broken into free verse wasn’t his doing — but that’s exactly the way he wrote other prose prior to running it through nroff/troff. He broke up his sentences into phrases on separate lines because it made it easier to edit, and the formatter would get rid of all the line breaks afterwards anyway. So maybe he misremembered how he wrote it. 🤷🏻♀️
My dad hadn’t had any contact with Mel since the days depicted in the story, until sometime in 2013, when out of the blue he got an email that said, “So, I hear you’ve been talking about me on the Internet …”
At that point my dad was too debilitated from a stroke to be able to spend much time at his computer, but at least they were back in contact after all those years.
My dad passed away in 2014, but he would have loved to quibble and chat with all the folks dissecting this work now.
Nonya Bidniss 🥥🌴@wendynather Aside: I have that shirt and love wearing it here in AL 😏 I think our dads might have had a lot in common; he was a chemist and early programmer of NMR machines in the 60s and even after he retired decades later companies contracted him to figure out their ancient code.
@Nonya_Bidniss Totally! My dad started out with a BA in English, became a nuclear physicist, then an inventor, then a programmer, and spent the rest of his career as an astronomer, computerizing the telescopes in various locations. Some of his software is still in use today.
Michael Olsen@wendynather @Nonya_Bidniss this is an incredible story and legacy! You sound like a proud daughter
@corsairmo @Nonya_Bidniss He literally got me started in my career, by making me learn BASIC at the ripe old age of 12 😆