Dan Gillmor wrote of Bob Wallace in his September 28 column in the San
Jose Mercury:
Bob Wallace, personal-computer software pioneer, philanthropist and
activist, died last week in San Rafael. He had a too-short life, but
accomplished more than most.
Wallace was 53 when he died, apparently of natural causes, according to
the Marin County coroner's preliminary report. He was one of the first
Microsoft employees, but left in the early 1980s to start his own company,
Quicksoft, which sold a popular word processor, PC-Write.
He may be best known for his early contributions to the genre of software
that became called "shareware"-- a marketing method in which people would
buy diskettes with free-to-try software on them, or download it, and then
let them buy it if they liked it. He had qualms about the commercial
software industry, and once told the New York Times, "My philosophy is
that I want to make a living, not a killing."
Wallace worked, in college and afterward, with some of the industry's
leading lights. He joined Microsoft in 1978.
Wallace's interests ranged beyond the computing world. He was also known
among drug-policy reformers, and funded medical and social research about
psychedelic drugs.
Wallace had many admirers, including his former employers at Microsoft
and technology luminaries in Silicon Valley. "I remeber Bob as a gentle
soul who was soft-spoken, but creative, persistent and meticulous in his
programming and thinking," Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen told the Times
this week.
Rest in peace.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Tue Oct 01 2002 - 01:37:29 BST