Remembering our Friends

Jay G. Miner (1932-1994)

Oscar and Mike vividly remember the chats with Jay on the "Mission BBS", for which Oscar had written the SkyPix software to display animated graphics. Some of the ideas behind that software then found their way into Personal Fonts Maker and Personal Paint. Mike had the privilege of meeting Jay at early Amiga events, also collecting his memories for what would become the Amiga Forever project.

Without Jay Miner, "Father of the Amiga", and his team, the dreams and friends we all shared would not have been possible.

Jay died of complications related to kidney failure at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California, on Monday, June 20, 1994.

Related Links

• Amiga Forever Videos

Kara N. Blohm (1944-2004)

We first learned to appreciate Kara and her artwork as Amiga users in the 1980s. This matured into a friendship and a tight cooperation which allowed us to share many of the ups and downs of the Amiga days, and a bit more than that.

The Kara Collection, featuring Kara's complete artwork on a CD, was first published by Cloanto in 1996. Parts are also included in other publications, such as the Personal Suite, Personal Paint, and Amiga Forever. In 2000, a selection of The Kara Collection, inclusive of a new AnimFont, was released for free download on Aminet.

Kara had been suffering from the consequences of an enlarged heart, and underwent a Batista procedure (experimental open-heart surgery) in March 1997, after which she felt much better. As she said in 2002, "I am still making my own record and living as much as I can." She passed away from a massive heart attack in Venice, California, on the morning of Friday, December 10th, 2004.

A memorial service was held on Saturday, January 15, 2005 at 2:00 p.m. at Gates Kingsley Gates, Smith Salsbury, located at 4220 South Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City, CA 90230, (310)-837-7121.

Related Links

• The Kara Collection - Presentation
• Personal Introduction by Kara

Raffaele Cocchi (1942-2004)

"Raffaele called me one day in 1988, when we were both working on speech synthesis software on the Amiga," remembers Cloanto's Mike. "This call, which evolved into a friendship which lasted for almost 20 years, is a great example for me of the many friendships that were born with and around the Amiga and its talented and diverse community."

In the 1980s, the Amiga made it affordable to widely use speech synthesis in innovative fields such as literature research (e.g. Raffaele and Vanio's Letteratura Amica project) and text processing for the blind and the physically challenged (e.g. Cloanto's HTX). While Amiga systems remained a niche in an educational environment what was increasingly embracing other platforms, they set a powerful example of what was possible. As Amiga emulation became more and more refined, Raffaele started working on a port of Letteratura Amiga within Amiga Forever, for use by his students.

Raffaele died prematurely in Bologna, Italy, on Wednesday, March 24, 2004.

Carolyn A. Scheppner (1951-2019)

"Carolyn was among the first Commodore-Amiga engineers that I interacted with in the 1980s," remembers Mike. "I was an Amiga developer and she headed the technology group of CATS in West Chester, which was supporting us. No matter whether the topic was IFF, file systems, Intuition, printer drivers or bugs and enhancements, Carolyn would not only help, but she would do it with a kindness and patience that added harmony to the cold exchanges of faxes and online communications. Meeting in real life at event after event would later feel like an extended family. She made you feel considered even if you were a teenage developer with limited social skills, which may well be the reason why we are still here today, preserving and celebrating Commodore/Amiga decades later."

Carolyn had been suffering from a serious illness, and passed away on Tuesday, November 5, 2019.

Harv Laser (1949-2022)

A journalist and technical writer by profession, Harvey "Harv" Laser was an Amiga Friend and supporter from the beginning.

He purchased an Amiga 1000 as soon as it became available on October 7, 1985. He founded the Amiga Zone dial-up service in the same year, starting on the American People/Link platform (a CompuServe competitor also known as "Plink"), transitioning to Portal Communications in 1991, and finally setting up a website, Telnet and Wildcat system at AmigaZone.com in 1996. He passionately maintained this infrastructure and community well into the 2010s. Having always been fascinated by handheld digital devices, he used to attend early Amiga events with a Canon Xap Shot camera (remember those 2" floppy disks?)

Harv wrote over a thousand Amiga-related articles and reviews, contributing to more printed and online publications than we can count. He was interviewed and quoted on Amiga topics in Time Magazine, Wired Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. He also wrote numerous software manuals, and the Amiga chapter in John Dvorak's Guide to Desktop Telecommunications (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1990). He helped edit Rob Peck's The Amiga Companion (IDG Communications/Peterborough, 1988). He took great care in writing the occasional obituary.

Harv passed away after a heart attack at his home in Torrance, California, on Tuesday, July 5, 2022.