his time in the bay area rave scene in the late 90's/early 00's earned him a creepy reputation, mostly due to his fondness of doing "energy work" with shirtless teenage boys.
This can not be under-emphasized. I was in my late teens/early 20s at that time and a lot of my friends who were nerds and into the rave scenes had stories that started with "Oh wow, I met Captain Crunch at a rave, we'll get to hang out soon!" and ended with "You are sweaty, you should take off your shirt!" or "Do you want an energy transfer massage?"
I think his preferences are his own business, but using his reputation to approach a bunch folks much younger than he is and otherwise uninterested, probably had a lot to do with ruining any social capital that he had.
There's a very legitimate discussion that needs to happen about ageism in the industry, but age is not the sole issue in the case of Captain Crunch.
I first met him in '00 (I think). He came up right after I played a live techno set in a warehouse in Oakland, and I second this. As someone who grew up on 2600, my excitement for meeting Draper quickly turned to backing away once the topic of an energy transfer massage came up.
Seriously. It's like this article tries to tug on your heart strings and make the reader want some justice for this early pioneer in tech and then totally never mentions that he's even more famous for being a total creeper.
"Life didn't go as well for Draper; 1980 happened and he ceased doing anything interesting. In this new millenium, he has transformed himself into "Johnny D", creepy old guy that you see at raves in California. He's huge on hugs and if you're a cute enough boy, you might even get one of his special "energy transfer" massages! Turn-offs include cigarette smoke and food that requires chewing."
Is the HHH even still a thing? I'd been to a few parties there back in the day and knew a few of the folks that lived there but haven't heard mention of it in years.
A quote from the article: "Mr. Draper received permission from the sheriff's office to attend a computer fair in 1979 in San Francisco, where the program, named after the cult film "Easy Rider," was a hit. It became Apple's first word-processing program. When IBM launched its first PC, it also chose EasyWriter, over competition from other programmers, including a young Bill Gates."
I have the real story, and the author should have talked to me. After my program Apple Writer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) replaced Easy Writer and became Apple's default word processor, someone from IBM called me up and asked me to write a word processor for their PC.
I asked "What business terms?" The IBM guy, taken aback that a programmer would switch into business mode so quickly, said, "Okay, you get $100K in royalties, after which we own the program."
I thought for a minute, then said, "100K, okay, umm, that's 15 days of Apple Writer royalties right now. I think you'll need to do better than that." But IBM wouldn't budge, and that ended the negotiation.
Later I heard they offered Draper the same deal and he accepted. Rumor has it that the PC version of Easy Writer was really terrible and didn't last long. Later, Draper supposedly remarked, "They asked for a hundred thousand dollar word processor, and I gave them one."
The reason was that IBM looked on their PC as an "entry system", a silly, unimportant introduction to their primary business, mainframes. It's important to realize that IBM didn't see the potential of personal computers -- they thought they would be another passing fad like quadraphonic sound. So they slapped together a really minimal computer, nothing at all remarkable, only hoping to attract people to their main business. They just had no idea what was going to happen, or how the world would look on their PC, given that they were IBM.
That's the real reason why older desktop machines are so crappy. That's the reason why IBM wasn't able to compete against their own imitators. And IBM's contemptuous attitude toward their own PC is one of the main reasons Apple was able to introduce the Macintosh to an adoring public. It really was spectacularly better than the original IBM PC.
Those were the days. I made over a million dollars per year for several years running. And to think it was for a program that ran on a computer with a 1 mHz clock, typically had 16 kilobytes of RAM and one 140 KB floppy drive for "mass" storage.
> I don't know much about programming, so this question might seem a little dumb, but how did you write Apple Writer?
At the time (beginning in 1978) Apple had only one computer for sale -- a small machine called the Apple II that used a very limited processor called the 6502. Both RAM and storage were limited, and the machine had a clock speed of 1 mHz (glacially slow by modern standards).
Also (apart from a version of BASIC that was too slow for serious work), there were no high-level languages, so if you wanted to write a high performance program, you needed to write in assembly language -- one step above object code.
I wrote Apple Writer in assembly language -- a very slow and laborious process, but the resulting program was very fast - much faster than its competition. This was one reason for its success.
> And how did it end up being used in Apple's O/S?
It was actually sold alongside Apple's operating system, it wasn't integrated into it. What happened was that the Apple decision-makers, Steve Jobs in particular, realized they had already saturated the market for hobbyists, and wanted to begin to sell computers to ordinary people, people who intended to use a computer to solve everyday problems like writing and printing documents.
Somehow they heard about a word processor I was writing for my own use, and asked to see it. So, riding my bicycle to the post office with a big manila envelope, I thought, "Hey, maybe they'll like my program. I might make hundreds of dollars." As it turned out, over the next five years I made over six million dollars in royalties.
"Mr. Draper several years ago developed some Internet-security equipment and started a company. Some clients were interested, but the company foundered when one of its executives, a fellow raver, made off with much of the money from investors, say Mr. Draper and another executive, John Johnson."
I remember back in 2001, seeing Draper speak at University of Illinois about his "CrunchBox" security appliance. I got the vibe that he was just repackaging some open source software on it and putting his name on it.
I never really heard anything more about it after that talk, though - I guess this explained what happened.
I met the captain a few times when I was living in California. Weird does not even start to describe him. I was part of the party scene in San Francisco at the time, and heard how he was banned from certain parties because of inappropriate massages. I treated that as rumor until now, when I read different comments specifically about his special massage techniques.
I think if I had a great deal of money, I'd skip flying first class a few times per year and "tenure" guys like John by giving him a few $k/month and telling him to go work on whatever he wanted.
Just seeing what he came up with each year would be far more entertaining than another beach vacation somewhere.
Some friends and I muse about what it would take to create a home for people like John during their twilight years. Its very challenging. There aren't a lot of high tech jobs that pay pensions, and the retirement money is very unevenly distributed around.
Not a lot of folks think about that now, but someday, maybe sooner than we would like, some icon of computing history is going to get rousted out of a homeless shelter on national TV. I don't look forward to that day, not at all.
This passage really strikes me, because he is happy, though his life seems so tragic, so emblematic of the dark side of technological obsession. It's a bittersweet mixture of a "there but for the grace of God, go I" feeling and a simultaneous admiration for the purity of his life's focus. It makes me reflect on my own life:
"Mr. Draper's unusual behavior, such as shouting at anyone smoking anywhere near him, could wear on fellow workers and employers. 'He was not a self-starter, or associated with all the companies springing up back then,' says Mr. Wozniak. 'But, actually, John is one of the happiest guys I know, no matter what his situation seems.'"
"I'm blacklisted, man, a permanent menace to society, I guess,"
No dude, you're just old, in an industry with entrenched ageism. Just like the other accomplished engineers in the story living in mobile homes, couchsurfing, and living in a bus. Not a lack of skill or relevance, so much as an excess of gray hair.
Imagine the same story if he went for management instead of engineering, he'd be a CEO somewhere, greatly loved for his eccentricity, etc.
Although I have grey hair, and it does seem to reduce the number of job offers, I think a lot of those couch-surfing engineers have other issues besides hair color.
Capt Crunch would likely do better if he bathed regularly, washed his clothes, and stopped shouting at people whose behavior he doesn't like (and hapless waiters who bring him substandard bacon). And then there's that pesky criminal record.
It's all self-justifying fantasy on Draper's part, and passive aggressiveness. He's a crazy old coot with dreadful personal hygiene who never brushed his teeth or took a bath, with an inflated sense of his self-importance to go with his disgusting habits, in addition to a predilection for "working out" with young men.
Years ago one friend of mine went to a conference Draper was at. During a break he went outside for a smoke, well away from the building. Draper left the building through the same door, saw him smoking, and did his "I'm going to scream at you now" act.
My friend had no idea who he was, and as a result almost punched Draper in the face.
Then there's his criminal record. But to Draper it's all a persecution complex. He doesn't have enough sensitivity as a human being to understand why many people didn't want to work with him at any age.
I got one of those offers to "work out" with John. I remember putting on my shoes, headed for the door to join him, and something stopped me. To this day I listen to my hunches and gut feelings. I'm not always right, but I think I was that time when I decided to stay home.
Steve may have been a strange dude himself, but he wasn't even in the same league with John.
My guess about what made him uncomfortable? John probably wanted Steve to "work out" with him.
Source: I was into phone phreaking in the late 70s and was friends with John for a while. Until one day he asked me to work out with him. And then I found out what he meant. No thanks!
No dude, you're just old, in an industry with entrenched ageism.
Maybe if your view of "this industry" stops at Silicon Valley startups. But there has always been a place for older programmers / hackers in the world, and there's a reason the stereotype of the "UNIX Greybeard" exists in the first place.
Personally, If I had money to spend hiring people, I'd hire Captain Crunch in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd hire him to do nothing but sit around and smoke weed all day, and appear at events and what-not, just to support a legend like this. And think about the "geek cred" of being the company that John Draper works for.
It's too bad Capt. Crunch has fallen on such hard times. I wonder what's happened since this article was written?
Looks like his feed is full of vain calls for help to @christinemariek and @tolgakatas with the refrain "I'm in a lot of trouble right now." Sort of unnerving...
Wow, some of you guys are impressing me with how much you're struggling to suppress your raging homophobia in this thread.
I realize the need for some techies to look down on people who won't assent to their brand of whatever for a chance to climb the ladder of temporary success. Draper's more widely known and admired than most of you will ever be. So I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. (which probably doesn't involve hanging out with Woz)
It's not homophobia to be put off by unwanted sexual advances. I can only speak for myself, but I would have been just as put off if a woman did the same thing.
Back at defcon last year he ended up joining a game of Cards Against Humanity that I was playing. He's an interesting guy for sure, and it's nice to be able to say that I hung out with him for a bit, but he wore out his welcome pretty quickly. He wasn't being rude or disrespectful - he just acted like an old man who had seen a lot of shit. Felt bad for him...
