I'm sorry to hear that Dan has passed. I had met him about 10 years ago and about 8 years ago we started working on our C64 8 Player internet game based on Artillery Duel Net. It was fun to work with him learning about 6502 assembly code and becoming friends with him. He was always helpful at VCF easts. I was glad that I was able to visit him two weeks ago and meet his family. He really enjoyed the visit and I thank Evan Koblentz for pushing me to go visit him sooner rather than later. He will be missed, but not forgotten. Such a great guy. Always working one project or another, never quite finishing one before moving onto another, but he has a wicked brilliant mind. Very smart. Loved that he made lots of comments in his code, as many programmers are very sloppy about that. Not him. I was glad that I could find an artist that could make a t-shirt design that would be him on his shirt. A fitting tribute to a such a great guy. On Sat, Sep 1, 2018 at 1:49 PM Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hey guys.
I'm very sorry to announce that my good friend Ragooman took his last breath this morning.
Dan was among the first wave of 10-15 people to join MARCH back in 2004-2005. AFAIK, in the many years since then, we never lost any core members until now.
Dan was one of those people who everyone liked being around. He was friendly to all, wickedly funny, and sharp as a knife. He was a US Air Force veteran, an electronics technician, a proud native of Long Island, and become a proud resident of Pittsburgh -- he even switched allegiances from the Jets to the Steelers. He lost his wife several years ago and took great care of his daughters Mindy and Katie. He put them both through college, and they both share his technical aptitude. He had a shirt that says, "Every great father teaches his children the ways of the Force." Here's a picture:
Dan loved all aspects of vintage computing. He was equally passionate about Apple IIs and Commodore 64s as he was about Star Trek and Star Wars. He loved his IMSAI and was a perpetual tinkerer. He drew most of the VCF East t-shirt designs especially in the MARCH era. He often suffered from feature creep .... he was so obsessed with making things better than he rarely got anything actually done. :) He also individually mentored Jeff Brace and I with a lot of programming subjects.
Dan got sick a year or two ago and fought the dreaded "C"-word bravely, but unfortunately there was only so much the doctors could do for him.
I miss him already.
Mindy will let me (and/or Dave McGuire) know soon about the arrangements.
At the very least, VCF will follow Dan's (private) wishes regarding his collection. I hope we can do far more to honor him. He knew about our 2018 t-shirt design and loved it.
In the past I've found it helpful to focus on happy memories of lost relatives/friends, rather than the sadness of their death.
So let's all do something: please reply to this list message and share your favorite Dan story! I can't wait to hear them.
I'll go first.
The last group event Dan was able to attend, due to his health, was VCF East XII (2017).
He arrived a day early to help set up. I didn't want to give him any real labor due to his condition. So I gave him busy work. I told him to go to the party store and get some helium balloons. We'd put them on the doors of the buildings being used for the show.
He did as asked, but I was so busy that I forgot to put up the balloons.
Dan wasn't amused, but he understood, so as pretend "revenge" he put the balloons on my car!
At first he denied it because he thought I was mad. Then I said, "No, it's funny." While never formally confessing, he replied, "Other people helped." (Looking at you, Brace!)
Here is a picture: http://snarc.net/dan_balloons.jpg
-- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation