Frank Richard Farmer Memorial

2/23/1941 - 8/3/2004

Saturday, February 26, 2005

A Dialog: SPB, D&D, Software Development and Mr. F

For new readers of this blog, please read the first post before reading the rest.

Doug, Howie, Gordon, Dave, and Joe. Click for full size version.


The Farmer household during the late 70s was a special place to many people. There are several foci of shared interest that bound a small community together with our family (and left us with ties that are bound for a lifetime.) Some of these are: My sisters, SPB (a text-only space battle game I co-authored), Dungeons and Dragons, and the nascent software development industry. What follows is an email exchange between myself and Howard (Howie) Scheer one of the many lives touched by Frank Richard Farmer.

This dialog is in multiple parts, with each reply posted as comment, Click here to see the entire story on one page.


From: Howard Scheer
Date: 09-03-2004
Subject: Condolences
To: The Farmers


I was very sorry to hear about the passing of your Dad. He was a great guy, and held a very special place in my heart.

I have often looked back at my Life, and thankfully remarked that there were various eras that were very, very special. Of all the great eras I've been lucky enough to experience, without question, the best was the "SPB/D&D" era. And you and your family were instrumental in that era.

I often wonder where I'd be today if it wasn't for SPB and COM. Through those programs, I met some really great people. Not the least of which were you and your Dad.

Me and the guys - John and Dave - really took to your family, and took great pleasure in pulling pranks on you guys. But one of the key reasons we kept coming back was your Dad. No matter how funny any prank we pulled was, he would never laugh. We took this as a PERSONAL challenge, so each time he'd deny us the "ultimate pleasure", we were bound and determined to pull an EVEN BETTER prank so the NEXT TIME we'd make him laugh.

And then he wouldn't laugh at THAT one. So we'd plan one that was EVEN BETTER.

So it became a challenge: How can we make that old Bastard laugh? If we came over as Buddhist (complete with a gong) and he didn't laugh, well then the next time we'd come over with tape recorders at night and play sound effects. If that didn't make him laugh, then we'd come over as the Mafia and try to sell you guys insurance. When THAT didn't make him laugh, the NEXT time we camped on your front lawn as Boy Scouts.

We finally got him to laugh when Dave and I came over with our 9-foot monster costume.

I realize that you probably had a different perspective of him than I did. You were part of the family; I was an outsider. However, I wanted to tell you what I saw, just so maybe you could see another perspective of your Dad.

For me, your Dad was a combination of both a father figure and a good buddy. Someone who was like a Dad, but couldn't get you in trouble, or send you to your room, or make you clean the garage. Someone you could have fun with, but who had the additional wisdom and experience of additional years.

I can remember many times when John or Dave would piss me off, and I'd call your Dad and say I wanted to play SPB. He'd sense I was pissed, ask me what the problem was, and I'd say "Dave." He'd say, "Ah.... 'Nuf said. Let's play." And we'd play and I could forget about Life for a while.

Sometimes you can tell how well loved someone is by how many nicknames they had.

  • Mr. F
  • FRF2
  • Old Coot
  • The Geritol Kid
  • Harry Hobbit
  • I.R. Pershing
  • Dick Van Dyke (...we joked that Jim Curley just called him "Dick". HAHAHH!)

Sometimes you can tell by how much people imitate them.

  • Walking around your house here in Michigan limping by
    never letting our right heel touch the ground (the patented "Mr. F Limp")
  • Using phrases like "HI GUY", or "AAAYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!", or "U TURKEY", or "TEE HEE".
  • Speaking in three-syllable phrases and using horrible abbreviations for them when sending email, like "U TURKEY", "TIME 2 P", "NOW U DIE", "R U THERE?"


Or by how much you tease them.

  • Putting a "For Sale" sign on your front lawn.
  • Coming over as Buddhists.
  • The Antonionionio's (our Mafia hit).
  • Going up to Lakeside, near the skating rink, in July, getting some snow that they scraped off the rink, and coming over and attacking you guys with snowballs...in the middle of July. (Heh, heh....so you wouldn't have any ammo....)
  • The 1st Annual Boy Scout Labor Day Jamboree.
  • Playing sound effects outside your windows one night (When your Dad figured out it was us, he limped to the front door, calmly leaned out, non-chalantly said "ASSSSSSSSSS HOLESSSSSSSSSSSS!" in a deep, loud voice, and then simply went back inside and sat down.).
  • Tons of stuff we did over the computer to annoy and tease all of you guys....
  • Loading your cigarettes (boy....THAT ONE pissed your Dad off....).
  • Adding "items" to the shopping lists on the white board in your kitchen.
  • Stopping by your house, and unexpectedly taking your folks out to dinner one night ('cause they'd fed us so many times).
  • The 9-foot monster costume.
  • Dave took a D&D lead figure of a hobbit, and carved it and painted it to look like your Dad...complete with an SPB t-shirt, so he'd have a Harry Hobbit lead figure.
  • Dave and I driving from Sacramento to Novato unannounced, dressed as D&D players, and invading your folk's apartment (without knocking....you NEVER knocked when you went over the Farmers' house!) like we were exploring a dungeon.
  • When your Dad had his leg amputated, sending him a plaque with a Romulan ship on it with one engine missing and a wooden peg in it's place, which all the guys signed (...John wrote "Well, it never worked right anyway." - HAHAHAH!!).


Or how many stories people tell about them.

Is there any question on the number of stories?!

Do you have any idea how many people you guys never met that know of "The Farmers"? HA! You'd be amazed.... Every prank I listed above has been told and retold countless times. There are many, many people who know of this phantom character with a salt-and-pepper beard, vaguely looking like Dick Van Dyke, wearing cut-off blue-jean shorts and an SPB t-shirt, who walks with a exaggerated limp, and says "AAAYYEEEEEEEE!!!!!", or "ASSSSSSS HOLESSSSSSSSS!!!!" a lot.

If the length of the lists above are any indication, you Dad was genuinely loved.

Time moves on, regardless of how much we try not to notice.

Things change.

Eras end. It's a fact of Life, and a sad one. We often try to cling to the good times of the past, and can do so by reminiscing with the
people we spent those time with.

Sadly, one special link to that wonderful past is now gone.

Anyway, the bottom line is there are a number of people who, like me, really miss your Dad, and have you and your sisters and your Mom in our thoughts and prayers.

Howie
---
All contact lost with I.R. Pershing.
(sad sigh......)


[The dialog continues in the comments section.]

3 Comments:

Blogger F. Randall Farmer said...

From: F. Randall Farmer
To: Howard Scheer
Subject: Re:Condolences

Command - CL
Cloaking screens lowered!
Power to shields? [3000] - 0

Howie,

That is a wonderful tribute. Please share it with the Guys,
Liz, and Deb.

I also found the following heartwarming text the other day [on a now defunct TI/99A fan site]--- Begin excerpt
Rather than let us to just vegetate, [my CS teacher] called over to the MISD and talked to Dr. Thomas Hartsig, the Director of their Computer Based Instruction area, and asked him if there was anyone at the MISD that could come over a tutor us on the TRS-80's once a week. Dr. Hartsig sent over a young guy named Frank "Randy" Farmer.

Randy was an interesting character. He was a year older than us - a senior at another high school in the county - who worked at the 'ISD after school. He was pretty talented at writing software, but one of his real assets was his ability to dream, and to "market" his dream to other people. Randy taught us about the TRS-80s, sure, but the most important thing he did was introduce us to two computer programs he had written: COM, a fully-functional email program (...imagine: A full-fledged email program running in 1978!); and SPB, a multi-player, 3-dimensional, real-time, text-based Star Trek space battle simulation. Randy had built a wonderful little "empire", where kids from 5 or 6 different school districts all logged in, communicated with each other, and played SPB together.

While COM became an integral part of me and my buddies lives...sending email back and forth with other kids in 5 or 6 other school districts, SPB became an absolute obsession, especially with me. To this day, 24 years later, it is STILL the best game I've ever played. It's amazing how much I still think about it....a "silly little game".

Because we used COM and SPB so much, and these programs gave us links to many students in other school districts, we made a lot of new friends. The strange aspect was we often "knew" these people for 6 months or more before we ever met them face-to-face! After we met face-to-face, we often laughed at the misconceptions we had about each other. Two of the key guys I met were Doug Dragin (who co-wrote SPB with Randy), and Joe Simko. Randy and Doug were both Class of '79, and Joe was class of '82, all from the same high school.

In the summer of '79, my Dad and I were coming home from Boy Scout summer camp in '79. We pulled up in my parent's driveway, and I had barely gotten out of the car when Randy pulled in behind me. He got out and told me that I had a job interview at the 'ISD with Dr. Hartsig in two days."
--- end excerpt

I read this and was flattered and amazed. During those years (and for many years after) I'd always thought that my best skills were as a programmer. Only in the last ten years or so have I come to understand about myself that which you saw so clearly back then: Somehow, my father's salesmanship had integrated with my love of programming to produce an early version of what we now call a 'software evangelist.'

Your comments made me think about a line from the movie Tucker where Abe Karatz says:
When I was a little kid, maybe five years old in the old country, my mother used to say to me -- she'd warn me, she'd say,

"Don't get too close to people, you'll catch their dreams".

Years later, I realized I misunderstood her. "Germs", she said, "not dreams, you'll catch their germs." I want you to know something, Tucker. I went into business with you for one reason, to make money, that's all. How was I to know...

that if I got too close I'd catch your dreams?
A few years back, I received a game developers award for my pioneering work in multiplayer games (I'm sure Dave Howard told y'all about it, as he attended the dinner.) Anyway, during my speech, I talked about SPB "The First Multiplayer 3D Game, Text Only", and Doug, and the whole gang and how it inspired me to build my career around using computers as communication machines instead of calculators. There's more to it than marketing a grand idea, there's those who run with it, make it real, give it flesh, and make it their own. You guys did all that, and more, and that is what made COM and SPB special.

We have all benefited from many inspirational figures over the years. Tom Hartsig, "Mr. F", and those who went out of their ways to knock down barriers for us that we never knew at the time. But we also had each other, and I am so very greatful.

I think of you all often and of the many dreams we caught from one another.

Randy

Admiral/Fleet Commander Retired,
I.R. Asmodeus
Command - CL
Cloaking screens raised!
You are deep in Yahoo! space.

10:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To: Randy Farmer
From: Howie
Subject: Re:Re:Condolences

Randy,

I'm glad you liked what I wrote about your Dad.

Also, the story you found on the internet is interesting. I IMMEDIATELY recognized the writing style as mine, and then began to think about who I might have sent something like that to who could have put it up on the web.

I believe there was a young kid who was a fan of the old TI-99/4As, and he found me somehow, and asked about how I got in the business. So, I wrote up the story and emailed it to him. Later I found the story on the web under the title "Interview with a Classic Games Programmer". I was somewhat embarrassed, but definitely flattered. Maybe that's what you found.

It's also interesting what you said about not recognizing what you now think may be your greatest talent. I may have just had a similar experience.

Recently there was a new job that opened up at work. Getting the job would have been a promotion for me. My buddy [omitted], whom I thought was the #1 guy in line for it, told me that I should go for the job, and that I had a good chance. I was interested, but really thought that I was probably the 3rd guy in line for it.

Well, when the interviews were scheduled, The #1 choice didn't even get an interview (which bothered me, because he really is a good guy and a good friend). Still, I thought #2 was the next strongest candidate.

Well, after the interviews, I got the job. I wasn't completely surprised, because I had already been doing much of the new job already, which I assumed helped me. However, I still thought another was the most qualified.

Today I was talking with a female co-worker, who used to work in our department, about the promotion, and told her, "My money was on [#2]. I thought he'd get the job."

And then I admitted the truth: That much of the reason for my past success had been people like her - friends of mine through-out the organization that I could call and lean on - who would help me solve problems that I couldn't solve myself. These people helped me out on a regular basis, and I owe a lot of debts to a lot of people.

Then she said, "That's EXACTLY why you got the job."

Huh?

"Everyone knows that you have developed a lot of great relationships with lots of people through-out the company, and those relationships help you get things done that other people would have problems doing."

So maybe it's not WHAT you know. It's not WHO you know. It's WHAT YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH, which is a combination of what you know, and who you can inspire to help you when you can't solve things yourself.

Interesting thoughts....

Howie

10:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't know Mr. F as well as many (I was 12), but I remember. I remember my Admiral, and the joys of SPB at midnight. Frank was a memorable man, and in our memories he will live on. Frank, safe journey and God speed (it's faster than warp). You'll be missed.

Thomas
I.R. Chimera

11:47 PM  

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