Cliff Ide, TRS-DOS hacker, passes

NEWDOS 2.1 History

Excerpt:

In mid-1978 when Radio Shack introduced TRSDOS 2.0, their first disk operating system for the Model I, it contained many bugs. Some were fixed by TRSDOS 2.1 later that year, but many bugs remained, some quite severe. One of the earliest people to attempt to fix these bugs was Clifford Ide. He analyzed Model I TRSDOS in great detail and developed a set of patches to fix the bugs, increase performance, and add new features. This set of patches, originally known as APRDOS, was not a commercial product but was only available to those who knew someone who already had a copy. ... For whatever reason, Clifford Ide’s name was never used in connection with NEWDOS. The NEWDOS author was identified only as "Sam Jones," a pseudonym used to "keep his privacy and avoid being swamped by phone calls," according to an 80 Micro article. In Harvard Pennington’s book TRS‑80 Disk and Other Mysteries, the NEWDOS principals (Lauletta and Ide) are described not by name but as “two guys in Denver.” In the acknowledgements to the book, Jim Lauletta’s name is listed in full (although not identified with Apparat) but Clifford Ide’s name is abbreviated as C.I. The true identity of “Sam Jones” remained a mystery until 1987, when Apparat finally revealed his real name after a false attribution.

Comment:  Cliff worked for Norwest. The man was a genius!