Disc World

One evening in 1991, at the Soho, London offices of Lightworks, we were trying to get onto the Internet to transfer software to our office in Los Angeles. We wanted to get our newest features to demo to a key Hollywood opportunity by the following morning. After spending a considerable amount of time configuring a dial-up modem's baud rate, stop bits, RS-232 port assignment, my boss, Paul, threw up his hands and decided to call an expert, his friend Terry. Within 15 minutes, in walked a Catweazle-like character, wearing a felt hat and backpack. This was Terry Pratchett.

In his backpack he carried a disc that would allow us to connect with the other side of the world. It was a 5 ¼" floppy disc containing a program called TapCIS that allowed us to connect to Compuserve. Terry expertly helped us transmit one of the first copies of the Lightworks software that would transform the way that movies would be edited.

I confess that I didn't know of his fame then but he left a profound impression and I'm sad at his passing.