Amateur Computerist Vol 11 No 1,  May 1, 2002

             Michael, Computers and the Net
                              by Jay Hauben
                              jrh@ais.org

For my whole family, it was wonderful that Michael was born on May
Day, May 1 1973 in Boston, Massachusetts.  He was one month early and
was born early in the morning as the sun began to rise.

Michael went to nursery school and kindergarten in Boston.  For his
5th birthday he surprised us by asking for a hand held calculator as
his birthday present.  We bought him one in the COOP at MIT nearby.  
Michael and I had great fun using that calculator to do iterations and
other math tricks.  Shortly after that we moved to Detroit.  There
Michael went to public school for one year.  He was the only first
grader with an exhibit in the school's Science Fair.  The school was a
rough place and the staff discouraged Michael from reading.  So Ronda
and I were his teachers for another year in what we called "home
school".

He first saw computers in the Toronto Science Center in 1980 when he
was 7 years old. There were hands-on computer exhibits and an exhibit
of computer controlled robots.  He was soon asking for his own
computer.  By 1983 he bought himself a Timex Sinclair 1000 computer
for $100 out of his birthday present money.  The TS 1000 had 3K of
memory.  We used a tape recorder as the storage device and our TV as a
monitor.  Michael subscribed to some computer magazines.  He typed in
some of the "TRY THIS" programs and learned a lot from them.  He and I
worked on a program that used only the 3K memory.  Using peeks and
pokes, we were able to get planes to drop bombs on moving ships!

We enrolled him in a TAG (Talented And Gifted) summer program for
junior high school kids (ages 12 and 13) in 1985.  The first day the
instructor (Mrs. Brown) took off the cover of an Apple II computer to
show that it was just wires and components.  She then showed some
simple BASIC commands.  That night Michael tried to write a BASIC
program.  Michael had us buy a book called The Applesoft Tutorial and
he read his way through that whole book.  He succeeded in getting a
graphic program to work.  He called it "BOO".  It was a skeleton that
blinked its eyes and made faces.  We took Michael once a week to the
Wayne County Education Center where he began to try Apple IIE, Texas
Instrument, Atari and Commodore computers.  Mostly he tried to figure
out what BASIC commands would work and asked questions about the
features and advantages of each.  Michael made friends with a
neighbor, Tom, who was three times his own age.  Tom used Commodore
computers.  When Tom bought a Commodore 64, Michael bought himself his
next Timex machine (Timex Sinclair 2068).  But Timex made a deal with
Commodore and stopped supporting the 2068.  Michael thought he had the
better computer but the deal made his obsolete.

Michael participated in computer clubs and programming competitions in
junior high school which must have been around 1986.  Ronda had won a
Compaq computer in 1985 in a drawing.  She asked for a modem with the
prize rather than a hard drive because she and Michael agreed that
communication was more important than storage.  Michael used the
computer and modem to participate in local BBSs.  His first handle was
"WizKid."  He was from then on an active participant in the BBS
communities in the Detroit area.  To begin with, he was one of their
youngest members.  Somehow he found out about an online time-sharing
system set up near the University of Michigan, called MNet.  He became
an active member of that community even though the other members were
college students or older.

At first I was opposed to Michael's being in discussions of how to
pick up women or things like that.  He realized my opposition and
wrote an essay about censorship in Nazi Germany that convinced me that
censoring him was wrong.  His argument was if the Nazi's had not been
censored by the previous government, Hitler could not have come to
power.  The German people would have been inoculated against Nazism by
the debate that would have occurred with it in the earlier days.

From MNET, Michael heard, in the late 1980s, about Usenet.  At some
point while still in Michigan, Michael felt he was no longer a kid and
changed his handle to "Sentinel".  After using his handle "Sentinel"
for a while, Michael found a thread on one of the BBSs where posters
were wondering whatever happened to "WizKid," the poster who made the
discussions more serious and important.  I think Michael was very
happy to see that thread and he posted that he was "WizKid," now
called "Sentinel."

When Michael was 13 or 14 years old he left word in some computer
stores that he was willing to help people who were unsure what to buy
and how to set up their computers.  A few people called him and I had
to drive him to his "jobs".  He did not know what to charge but
whatever he asked, his customers always gave him more.

In 1988, at age 15, Michael participated in the founding meetings of
the Amateur Computerist.  One discussion was what to name the new
newsletter. "Beginning Computerist" was suggested. Michael argued that
the newsletter would be for all lovers of computing not just
beginners.  Since an amateur does something for the love of it not for
financial gain, his suggestion of Amateur Computerist won the approval
of all.  Michael was also one of the most prolific contributors of
articles and editorial suggestions.

From his contacts on MNet Michael was able for most of his high school
years to work at the University of Detroit. He was well loved for the
care with which he set up computers and taught people how to use them.  
Michael went on to earn his Columbia College work-study income by
doing computer support work in the student labs there.

When Michael first dialed into to MNet in the mid 80s he was actually
using the Internet.  He first explored Usenet and took full advantage
of e-mail when he started as a freshman at Columbia in Sept. 1991.  
He helped initiate the alt.amateur-comp newsgroup on the U.S. Labor
Day in 1992.  And, as he has written, that is when he started his
research about the value of the net to people (See the "Preface: What
is a Netizen", pages ix-xi in Netizens; article [13] in this issue).

In 1992, Michael started an independent study at Columbia College of
Columbia University.  He wanted to know if the net made a difference
in people's lives.  He posted a series of questions which are in the
appendix to chapter one of his book Netizens (pages 29 to 34 in the
hard back edition).  From the responses, he discovered there were
Netizens, people who saw that the newly emerging net held the promise
of a fuller more interesting life for everyone who could get
connected.  Michael became very enthusiastic about the Net. It gave
him a renewed personal hope much the way the fall of the Berlin Wall
had done three years earlier.  Michael shared his enthusiasm with his
professor at Columbia.  The professor told Michael he would fail the
course if he did not rework his data and analysis.  The professor did
not realize the importance of what Michael had done.  But Michael also
shared his enthusiasm with the online world.  He gathered the
documentation to prove his scientific discovery was valid.  His work
inspired especially Ronda and that was the genesis of the Netizen book
originally called "Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net".

In 1994, Michael and Ronda were excited to put their first draft of
their book Netizens online. They did a book reading on Jan 10, 1994
and were happily surprised when Michael's old friend Tom attended.
They also both spoke at Columbia University about netizens. 

After Michael received his BA in Computer Science in 1995, he was, for
one year, a Columbia e-mail postmaster. He went on to earn a Masters
degree from Teachers College in Technology and Communications in 1997.
Michael considered it an honor to speak at conferences in Japan,
Canada, and Greece. He took joy in seeing his work appear in journals
and books and in a hard cover edition of Netizens.

A Netizens mailing list grew out of Michael's invitation to speak
about netizens in Japan.  One Japanese student reasoned that if there
are netizens there must be a netizens association that was
international.  The student asked to join the Netizens Association.  
Michael answered that one did not exist.  He and the student talked
about starting such an association.  Michael suggested that a first
step would be a Netizens Association mailing list.  The student's name
is Hiroyuki Takahashi and the story of the origin of the Netizens
mailing list is at: 
     http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/text/netizen-a-call.html.

The privatization and commercialization of the net was very painful to
Michael.  He was overjoyed that the Internet keeps spreading but was
disappointed that most users of the net didn't see the net he had
envisioned.  He was still trying to use the net for the purposes he
thought were its essence.  He was on and contributed to many mailing
lists, especially those having to do with music and the efforts of
young people to form communities around their common interests in
different music genre.  On these lists Michael reviewed music
performances, analyzed trends in the youth music culture and sent out
pointers to upcoming events.  He also participated actively in the
events so his online life was coupled with his off line life.  He was
however disappointed when some people off line did not live up to the
expectations he had from his online contact with them.

Perhaps his biggest disappointment came when he never found or was
accepted at a graduate program he could afford that would have allowed
him to continue his pioneering research that he did as an
undergraduate.  But still regularly for the last 8 or 9 years Michael
received inquires and requests for help. Perhaps averaging one every
two weeks, they were from people all over the world who knew of
Michael's work from online sources and felt he was the expert or the
best source of the help they needed.

Even during his bouts of depression, Michael watched with interest the
spread all over the world of the concept of net citizens, his
Netizens. Michael is given credit for its origin in new dictionaries
that are appearing. The latest one may be a Hebrew dictionary still in
preparation. Michael spoke in the last few months of his life of his
hope and plans for a paperback edition of the book Netizens. He gave
thought to a new introduction or epilogue which would begin, "It is
now the beginning of the 21st Century. . ." and would take up to make
a frank and scientific analysis of what parts of his original vision
still seem accurate and what if anything has been derailed or needs to
be altered. It would be his fond wish that the details of Internet
technology be popularized and that the fight for universal free or low
cost access to Usenet, e-mail, chat groups and all the other wonders
of the net be continued.