[baw]

Don Crabb, 1955-2000

http://www.macintouch.com/doncrabb.html

We lost a colleague and a valued member of the Mac community on February 26, 2000, when Don Crabb passed away. Don had a remarkably quick wit, a wonderful sense of humor and a real love for the Mac (Apple's foibles notwithstanding). He somehow managed to singlehandedly produce more Mac and computer content than any five other writers, while simultaneously teaching and consulting and communicating with all kinds of people about shared interests. We're going to miss him.

[euchomai]

I don't get it.

[baw]

Get what?

Computer expert Don Crabb dies

February 27, 2000

BY ROGER EBERT SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Sun-Times computer writer Don Crabb, 44, a nationally known educator, writer and broadcaster about the cyberworld and the Internet, died Saturday in the University of Chicago Hospitals.

He had been hospitalized since early December with a disease of the pancreas.

A big man with boundless energy and curiosity, Crabb was well-known to Chicagoans because of his nationally syndicated Sun-Times columns, his Saturday night radio programs on WGN-AM (720), his weekly appearances on TV's ``Fox Thing in the Morning,'' and his status as guru-in-residence for the Steve Dahl, Bob Collins and Spike O'Dell radio programs.

Mr. Crabb was associate director of graduate and undergraduate computer science, director of instructional laboratories, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago, where he helped set up the computer instructional lab and taught a popular course linking computers to the liberal arts.

He liked to joke that he was the only computer scientist to enter the field through medieval history. He grew interested in computers in high school, but studied history at Ohio State University as an undergraduate, and at the U. of C. as a graduate student.

His thesis was on Odo of Rouen, a medieval archbishop, and he used computers to organize and analyze Odo's writings.

He and his former wife, Roberta Baranowski, moved to Chicago in 1978. After a year as a graduate student, she recalled, he started working with computers in the university's business school. His academic career as a historian went on the back burner as he moved into the university's computer science department, becoming its director of instructional laboratories and a senior lecturer.

In the 1980s, Mr. Crabb began reviewing computers and software for Infoworld and other magazines, and after the introduction of the Apple Macintosh, he became one of its most enthusiastic advocates. Tirelessly prolific, he wrote columns for Digital Chicago, MacWorld, PC magazine, MacTech and MacToday (where his column was named ``Present at the Creation'') and many other publications.

He also wrote books about the Mac that were translated into many languages and edited his own ``Don Crabb Macintosh Library'' for Hayden/Macmillan Books.

Mr. Crabb was far from a tunnel-vision tech-head, however. He was a student in my U. of C. film class for 22 years, always sitting in the front row, always generous with comments, usually barbed, delivered with the timing of a stand-up comedian and revealing an encyclopedic knowledge of film, art, history, and a bewildering array of specialized fields.

When pressed, he would admit that as a high school freshman, he placed first in the Ohio statewide music competition--in the tuba division.

Mr. Crabb and his first wife divorced last year, and at the time of his death he was engaged to be married to Janet Viane of Darien, a business executive. Late Saturday night, she telephoned during Mr. Crabb's WGN radio time period to share the news of his death with guest host David Lawrence and his listeners.

The program turned into an extended tribute to Crabb, with Lawrence praising him for giving readers ``the real skinny,'' oblivious of outside pressure, even in the computer field where magazines are sometimes reluctant to criticize their advertisers.

``He was hands-on,'' Lawrence said. ``If you saw his office at the U. of C., his workbench, the way he rolled up his sleeves and worked on machines and software, the way he understood programs--this was a man who knew what he was talking about.''

He was born March 25, 1955, in Chillicothe, Ohio. He is survived by his parents, Marilyn and Donald Eugene Crabb, of Cincinnati; and a sister, Diane McHenry.

[euchomai]

Yeah, I'm still confused. Is this post from an alternate universe in 2000?

[Big Mac]

He's just reposting memorials to Crabb. The thread's title is a bit confusing, but the thread itself is clear. It's a nice thing to do.