Hi. David's ashes will be scattered at Eucalyptus Grove Waikumete Cemetery at 11am 27 February, which is tomorrow.
Regards, RH. On Tue, 2025-02-25 at 12:41 +0000, Stephen wrote: > Hi Richard, > > My condolences, is there a service planned? > > I did not know David personally, but have known of him for nearly 30 > years now. > > Thanks > > Stephen > > > On Saturday, February 22nd, 2025 at 6:58 PM, Richard Haakma via NZNOG > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Hi all. > > > > New Zealand Internet pioneer David Dix has passed away today, the > > 22nd > > of February 2025. > > > > David was the founder and owner of the KCBBS bulletin board system > > and > > KC Internet Company in the late 1980s. > > > > KC stands for Kappa Crucis, which is the tenth brightest object in > > the > > Southern Cross constellation, actually a star cluster also called > > the > > "Jewel Box" and came from David's other hobby, astronomy. David was > > involved with the Auckland Observatory and could get you a good > > deal on > > a telescope. > > > > KCBBS was built on 386BSD Unix which was a natural choice as the > > Unix > > operating system already had drivers for serial ports and > > multitasking > > which meant that it could support more than one user > > simultaneously. > > This was at a time when conventional BBS's running on MS-DOS > > supported > > one user only. Later the BBS was upgraded to a Sun workstation > > running > > SunOS. > > > > David wrote the BBS code himself in the C computer language. > > Unfortunately I believe the code was lost some years ago. > > > > The early Internet came to New Zealand via Waikato University and > > made > > its way to Auckland University, where KC first got a connection at > > 2400 > > bps. This was soon upgraded to 9600bps when David and friends > > discovered how to modify an asynchronous PC serial port to work on > > a > > synchronous data circuit. > > > > Curious KCBBS users could start to use email, but this was before > > hypertext and HTTP websites came in to use. > > Upgrades in speed and the change to actual router hardware, which > > was > > DEC hardware using licensed Cisco firmware, meant that the costs > > were > > growing. KC Internet was started to provide internet access to a > > few of > > David's mates in tech businesses for a fee to cover the budget. > > More > > customers were found and KC Internet became a commercial internet > > provider. > > > > Users of the KCBBS BBS program continued to use it for free. > > KC dropped the connection to Auckland University and became > > directly > > connected to Waikato University. When the universities wanted to > > get > > out of the chain of commercial internet activity the international > > service was handed over to a branch of Telecom and KC Internet > > became a > > customer of Telecom. > > > > David became interested in solar and wind power so installed a wind > > turbine and solar system which was large enough to run the ISP > > equipment 24/7 and no mains power. For a time KC Internet was the > > greenest ISP in New Zealand. The mains power would go off all up > > and > > down the street and David's place still had the lights on, making > > his > > neighbours curious. This was around the time of the great > > electricity > > crisis of Auckland CBD and KC internet was not affected. > > > > Getting data services installed to David's suburban basement became > > a > > problem and the core was moved to the CBD and away from the solar > > system, which meant that KC Internet was no longer the greenest > > ISP. > > > > Eventually health problems meant that David needed to step back > > from KC > > Internet and David had a quieter life and continued to benefit from > > that solar power system at home which is still working now. > > > > David passed away comfortably in North Shore Hospital. > > > > Regards, > > RH. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > NZNOG mailing list -- [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
