It's Larry!

Such a time, growing up where playgrounds were havens of potential disaster with metal play equipment, merry-go-rounds, etc. A time when reruns of the original Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Ultraman, and Night Gallery were broadcast, and of course, where 'Creature Features' could be found on a Saturday night there too.

In 1977 our family moved about a hundred miles inland to San Andreas (sorry folks, 'that' San Andreas is not our fault *chuckle*), a former Spanish mining town in the gold country (named after Saint Andrew for you trivia types). There is where I was introduced to Role-Playing Games and started reading science fiction and finally got to see Star Wars in 1979 (in the former Calaveras Cinema, now the Metropolitan live 'Theater'') My days were spent mainly at the library till high school, that is when I came in contact with the PETs!

It was not too many months into my freshman year when my (sophomore) brother, Richard, took me into the computer room. There, back behind the desks were three new Commodore PETs, and more were planned to arrive. He helped me load up a couple games and I remember playing Ratrun from a Cursor tape (it's a maze game where you are the mouse looking for cheese with a rat's-eye view of the maze) After playing I started messing with the graphics characters and made myself a picture of a castle. It was enough to impress a couple fellow students and they helped to put line numbers to make a program out of it, unfortunately they neglected to type NEW and the picture was mixed in with an 8k game listing. I redid the castle (pictured!) as well as many other graphics. Not too long after I was able to take the computer class, and did well, I wrote many little games and animations using BASIC. Most of the time I was lugging around bunches of cassette tapes with all my programs and hand-writing BASIC code between computer classes. We also had a High School computer club (Calaveras High Computer Club), a great excuse to collect dues to buy a game or two and to hold meetings during lunch to play those games. Throughout high school I had learned and helped teach others BASIC, wrote a program for the technical drawing class, and I also participated in two regional microcomputer programming competitions for high schools - our school had won fifth and third place in the two competitions I attended. Though old habits die hard, I also had Art for four years, still drawing spaceships doing model rocketry and stuff like that.

(I believe that microcomputer programming is now a lost art at Calaveras High...),

[Pictured Calaveras High Computer Club - Left row: Larry Biggs, Jim Green, Carl Gastner, Chris Nelis, *don't recall*, Jeff or Jim Blackwell (one of identical twins), back row- my brother Richard Anderson (what hair!) and me - note:Richard and I rated as we had the computers that had access to the only floppy drive! (everyone else had to use cassette tapes) - photo circa 1981/82]

After High School I bought my first computer system, a VIC-20 and tape drive! Back in 1984, that was one of the best deals for $200.00. I started to learn the basics of machine language as I worked for the nearby schools being a teacher's assistant in a few computer courses (I can still hear the third graders call out "Mr. Anderson!, Mr. Anderson!" kinda weird being on the other side...). I also worked part-time at the local video store and once I bought my 64, I wrote a video reservation program for them.

Back in 1986 I started work at the Human Resources Council, Inc., a local private non-profit organization that administers a number of community programs (such as Child Care Resources, Legal Aid, and Emergency Services) for the county. There I have taken my BASIC skills and learned dBase II on their Kaypro (moving up - CP/M!) and then McMax and FoxBase +/Mac for the Macintosh systems. I still work there have entirely written and maintain the database applications for Child Care Resources' child care resource & referral, child care subsidy, and food programs (and more...), I put my years of drawing and graphics art interest to work in the database and on other tasks including publishing the Child Care Resources Newsletter and the Agency's Web Site.

Other than that I also took over and for a number of years the Mother Lode Commodore Users Group which was very popular and a great place to exchange information and ideas about our Commodore 64s and 128s.

I discovered gaming around that time and had regular game meetings, battling with paper and dice evil dwellers of a fantasy realm for good and profit. (parents: of all the nasty things in the world gaming is probably one of the least. Most gamers have memories of ODing on pizza , soda and candy and the only fights were resolved with a 20 sided dice. Though, dating doesn't play much into that either...). I remember playing several characters with my most successful being the good cleric character, or one of many common fighters, and a magic user.

Somewhere back there in 1985 I had acquired a modem and took on another persona, that of "Joe Commodore". Back when I was choosing a handle for calling Computer Bulletin Board Systems (handles are an offshoot of the CB idea instead of using names you go by handles). I decided on Joe Commodore, a variation on Snoopy's cool dude persona of "Joe Cool" back then I was pretty knowledgeable on Commodore systems. Some thought it was a play on those "Joe Isuzu" ads of the time, but it wasn't.

In 1985 many of the BBSs were Commodore 64s, some Apple and a few Atari boards it wasn't until the late 80s that IBM computers had a decent (or affordable) BBS system to offer sysops. The big places to call boards were Stockton or even better, Modesto. A couple years of calling on and off prompted me to start my own BBS (partly to lessen my phone bill, partly because I WANTED to run a BBS... it seemed so cool to heave an on-line place for your computer friends to hang out.)

Bulletin boards are a different world where you develop friendships and maybe someday you may actually meet your friends face to face. Unlike the internet, BBSs are way more intimate, as there are usually local callers and mostly regulars. The BBS centered on my computer and gaming hobbies with most of the gaming group as regular users on the BBS.

The Joe Commodore handle still lives on on the Silicon Realms BBS, my personal Bulletin Board System of just over 15 years running on a Commodore 64, (and probably will continue for many more, though I have to admit I have little time for it presently).