Mr. Wizard, R.I.P.

I seem to have found a new theme for this blog: wait for a celebrity to die that I had some knowledge of and then comment on him or her. Of course, it could be a long wait between posts!

I grew up watching Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) on Chicago TV. Perhaps he was something of an inspiration for me to go to a science school (Caltech). He'd do stuff like have a long-haired girl touch her hand to a Van Der Graaf generator and watch her hair rise up. According to the obit linked here, he also played the ukulele.

One day, many years later when I had a small software company in Los Angeles, I got a visitor who said Mr. Wizard was in a nearby office and needed some help with his computer. Well I followed him and found Mr. Wizard muttering over a Radio Shack TRS-80 and its dot-matrix printer. He was in a foul mood and stormed off - I don't think he ever asked for help, my contact had done that on his own. I couldn't get the printer to work, so I was no use. I must say I was surprised at his surly personality, so different from the TV show. Maybe that's what a Trash-80 will do to you.