[Coco] The kindness and generosity of the CoCo community

[Terrance Hale]

Hi all,

This is a big shout out to one Steve Ostrom mainly, but also to all you others as I browse through emails. And here's why I was motivated to write this...

Some of you may recall that about three and a half years ago, I sent out a request for a copy of the 2nd Rainbow Book of Adventures because a game I wrote had been featured in it.  It was after scouring the internet for the book that I ran across Dennis and the CoCo mailing list. After joining (where Dennis very nicely got me set up after a problem with an email account) and posting my inquiry, I received several helpful replies on where to get a copy, how to go about it, etc., and it was working out that Steve and Tim Fadden would make arrangements, but there would be a delay because of one copy of the book being "snowed in" in a cabin.

As life is, I got distracted and did not follow up on a reminder that spring.

Fast forward to last month, when I sent a followup email to both Steve and Tim. After a while, I had given up hope and was going to have to go through Amazon, when I got a message from Steve. He had been very busy, but would shoot me another message when he had a chance to catch up.

He wound up mailing me the book, at no charge. Here is part of my reply to him:

I have a hard time describing how I felt when I saw the package, opened it up, and pulled out the book. It was like being transported in time back to that period of wondrous, magical discovery, where "modern" programming languages were relatively new and I was able to learn and consume as fast as I could read and type. My breath was taken away and I almost started crying. (That's between me and you ha ha.) I spent an hour just leafing through the pages, reading introductions and code, thoroughly enjoying myself. The thought processes I had writing the Adventure in BASIC came back as easily as riding a bike after nearly 30 years. Memories of all the years I got the Rainbow magazine and all the wonderful contributors flooded my mind.
This is a real treasure to me, and I don't know what to do to express my thrill at your massive generosity, except to give you a from-the-heart-and-soul, resounding "THANK YOU!!!"  Maybe a man hug, too. hehThis, again, is a huge example of what I see when I get a chance to see what all you guys are up to.  Everyone so helpful, friendly, and informative.

Steve, may your PEEKs and POKEs always return the desired results, and may your hardware never fail! :)

Best to you all,
Terry