I’ve only paid for a magazine subscription once in my life — to Jack Rickard’s Boardwatch magazine, which through the late 1990s was the geekiest read in town.
You can still read 70 issues of the magazine from more than 25 years ago at Archive.org. But this week the small Southeast Missourian newspaper reported that the magazine’s original editor/publisher Jack Rickard has died at age 65:
Following his graduation in 1973, Jack enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He proudly served aboard the USS Midway as an aviation support equipment technician. Following a distinguished tour in the Navy, Jack enjoyed a career as a technical writer in the defense industry.
Jack was a Mensa member and an early adopter of new technologies. His keen intelligence helped him to see the value of the internet as early as the 1980s. He started Boardwatch… Supported by a strong team, Jack developed Boardwatch into a successful magazine, which he sold in 1998.
Following his initial professional success, Jack proudly returned to his hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. While in Cape Girardeau, Jack continued to pursue his interest in innovative technologies, including aviation and electric cars. In 2008, Jack established EVTV, an internet-based platform that taught individuals methods to convert gasoline-powered vehicles into electric-drive vehicles. As electric cars became popular, Jack expanded EVTV to focus on solar power storage.
Jack always felt like an old friend, even as his role in the tech community kept evolving. (Rickard’s editorials at EVTV always featured a black-and-white sketch of the author — a tradition he’d continued through more than three decades of writing.)
Even Boardwatch “began as a publication for the online Bulletin Board Systems of the 1980s and 1990s,” explains Wikipedia, “and ultimately evolved into a trade magazine for the Internet service provider (ISP) industry in the late 1990s…
Boardwatch spawned an ISP industry tradeshow, ISPcon, and published a yearly Directory of Internet Service Providers. In 1998, Rickard sold a majority interest in Boardwatch and its related products to an East Coast multimedia company, which was then acquired by Penton Media in 1999 and moved to other ventures…
This week fans left testimonals on his funeral home’s web site.
“What an inspiration to mankind,” read one. “Always enjoyed his views on any subject. We could use more people in this world with his wit and knowledge.”
And another just wrote “Jack you were the most insightful speaker on the topic of electric vehicles. I enjoyed every second of your wisdom and videos and will continue to watch them for years to come. Rest In Peace my YouTube friend.”
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot