in the Photo Galleries
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| Post 2008-01-26 21:38:12 |
Message January 26, 2007 Subject: ZOIL email contract_programmers@yahoo.com Let us know if you wish to register and your comments. www.nosmokesignals.net is up. New look. Home: Political commentary hash Current Events: Most recent news and commentary rolling previous history. Hot Topics: Hard hitting topics rolling previous on continuing issues. Guestbook: memorial suscript to Ben Site Author: Why we say Mexican Invasion review and Biography of author. |
| How to answer Request for Password 2007-08-01 11:01:01 |
1-Aug-2007 8:00am UPDATE: Signon Guestbook restored... NO COMMERCIAL USE ALLOWED. We qualify all requests. No request will be honored until we have the following information and positively ID the person requesting. If you wish anonymity it will not be granted on this site to qualify. You can select any public handle you wish after qualifying. www.zoil.com will remain strictly the memorial to Ben's work in Photography. There are more slide shows which he began. Those where there is no clear determination possible as candidates for this forum will appear in www.exreplaytv.com for now eventually www.exreplaytv.net. For explanation about the latest information concerning cause of death please reference www.exreplaytv.com Eventually www.exreplaytv.net will have the post death events and data, and a new alias www.nosmokesignals.net a news commentary seperate from Ben's work by his father's political commentary. To have access fill in the following information in the comments: Name in full Feedback and Comments Please complete the following form. You will generally receive a response within 24 hours. Full Name: * Email address to verify: * UserID (may use email address): Password requested: Phone number: PLEASE include the following information in the comments: * Address with which to mail the authorization Reason for access: 1. Friend of Ben one time. 2. Friend of Ben continuous access requested. 3. Reviewed website just want .........one time comment 4. Reviewed website continuous access requested. The information will not be viewable until your logID is processed. Thanks for your patience. Benjamin G Fuller Estate |
| Bev 2007-03-22 22:43:23 |
September 18, 2002 Ben's Funeral Service Mesa, Arizona by his sister, Beverly: Benjamin Glenn Fuller was born May 7, 1969. We will always remember you! [Beverly concluded with this] "I would like to conclude with a poem Sara Fuller Blaine and Niel B1aine wrote: Ode to Ben: Lord we mourn the passing of a brother, a son, and a friend. Though his passing be unexpected, let it be sublime, This loss our lonely hearts doth rend, Help us to reminisce through all time, On the experiences we share, The selfless act, The heart-felt smile, The generosity, Help us to reflect with great care, Upon his mild and meek style, Let us look forward with steadfastness As in Your hands is his soul we confide In anticipation of our Celestial reunion With Ben by our side." In his 33 years he has touched and blessed the lives of many. All who knew him, even if for a short time, have been impressed and honored. He was a man of integrity, kind, forgiving, gentle, intelligent and talented yet meek and humble . I would like to paint you a picture through memories that will carry on forever in your hearts. How do I sum up his past years? How do I share with you thoughts and feelings so that you leave with a picture tatooed in your memory of Ben Fuller? Well, Think of him as Mister Zoil. Mr. Zoil? Who is he, you ask? Mr. Zoil was/is Ben Fuller. It was a nickname given to him by a friend, Don Woodward. Ben liked it, appreciated it and "adopted this silly nickname with gusto", Don said. Ben even created a website using his nickname, www.zoil.com. Don was not only a workmate but also a friend. In the past week we have received numerous e-mails from his friends in California. Everything they shared with our family are feelings we wanted to share today, so I will quote from a few: TM wrote, "I feel sorry for those of you who did not have a chance to meet Ben, I m sure you would have liked him!" "Ben also had a wicked wit and sense of humor, not to mention a great understanding of life itself." "On a couple of occasions he would say things like "do one thing and do it well." Freeze Frame AVS Forum said, " ...ReplayTV borders on a masterpiece and perhaps he will be remembered for this "one" thing. Personally I think the thing he did best was to be a friend and for that I will always be grateful." The list goes on and on... for instance and I quote, "He was a talented engineer, a brilliant mind and a truly good soul." His friends describe him as a "Technology Wizard". He was a problem solver. He could concentrate and dedicate himself to a task for up to 36 hours at a time, amazing! He was always patient with anyone who needed a question answered. And I quote, "Where he really shined was as a friend......How good he made his friends feel through his kindness, humor and intelligence." Your parents and siblings feel the same way, Ben. We have always been impressed by your skills, starting with Quick Nibble a disk copier. The sequel to this was Prpject D, an editor tool and more, that you considered a family affair. Us girls remember shrink wrapping and shipping it all around the world. Ben, you were my first boss and a great leader. Together as a family we had some special times. A couple examples are skating in the basement of our unfinished home and Hide-and-go-Scare. Ben loved scaring us girls. He also loved movies. One of his favorite toys was a screen projector. Ben would set it up in our basement using a white sheet as the backdrop and give us tickets and popcorn. It was our family theatre. I remember Ben’s endless displays of lego cars, boats, and aircraft. He was talented in building and creating never destroying. He was the same in life, building his character from the good he learned. Ben was an avid reader, he loved reading and taught himself many things. Some of his favorite books were science fiction novels like Star Trek and Star Wars. One of the last books he read was called "Who Moved My Cheese?". This book teaches us that we are in control of our own happiness by how we choose to behave to the changes in our life. Ben lived what he believed. Thanks for such a good example big brother. . |
| Glenn Fuller, Ben's father 2007-03-11 18:30:00 |
Replay FAQpost Clarification concerning account posted on AVSForum by ReplayDon: Benjamin Glenn Fuller BGF coded on a phone pad is 243 2-aBc 4-Ghi 3-deF. Ben was known as the owner of this code. December 2, 2002 was less than 3 months Ben Fuller was found dead in his condo. "Ben "owned" Zones and Setup from a programming standpoint...Ben programmed them and gave design input and made the design come to life...Ben solved a lot of tricky programming bugs through the entire product...Channel Guide or Scheduling system, Searth, or the recording/playback sub-system...Ben would not want to mislead a company, or his friends. He was a straight shooter, " Doug Feb 2007 "Quick Skip" is a 30-second skip. Ben confided in me that he had coded the automatic skip, and due to legal fight with Ted Turner Broadcasting et.al. (see EFF Electronic Frontier Foundation) that feature was replaced using the information from the automatic "Commercial Skip" to the Jump key. He was vocal in a meeting that embrassed executive management into not releasing a sub-standard or quality product. Ben was in a legal battle with Sonicblue 2001 to the end of his life. I am in Bankruptcy Court attempting to right some wrongs, and have Ben recognized for his contributions to salvage something that was apparently abruptly taken from him. ... |
| ReplayDon 2007-03-11 18:25:17 |
December10, 2002 http://www.replayfaqs.com/Detail_FAQ_Display?ID=134&Session=IVNFJQWKDIFXAOO Subject: What is the Claw Foot Portal? Answer: This is a account posted on AVSForum by ReplayDon in thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=889159&highlight=valentines#post889159 Also see the original thread on the topic: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82816&highlight=CFP+field ------------------------------------------------------ Clawfoot Hearts, the full account! Hi everyone and thanks for the congratulations. I thought I would provide a full account of the history of the hearts and the clawfoot portal. Let me take you back to 06-13-99: ReplayTV 1.0 had been shipping for a few months and people had discovered the 243-Replay Zones screen. [Admin note: Benjamin Glenn Fuller coded on a phone pad is 243 2-aBc 4-Ghi 3-deF. Ben was known as the owner of this code.] lostboy had run across the text field at the bottom of the screen and wondered about it. See: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/show...light=CFP+field ReplayDoug comes running into my office and he and I had a good chuckle over it. You see, the whole 243-ReplayZones screen started out as a debugging tool for me. I wrote the windowing system for Replay before we even had a graphics library to output anything. In order to test my windowing system I needed some user interface controls so I made text field and button control classes. Then I made a screen to put them on (now the 243-RZ screen) and made the popup keyboard since I knew eventually we would need one, but primarily to test my navigation code. Originally, the only reason the text field was written and was put on the 243-RZ screen was to provide a mechanism for bringing up and testing the popup keyboard. I remember studying my serial port output: Now on Button 'Q'! CIOC_EAST received! Deactivating Button 'Q'! Activating Button 'W'! Now on Button 'W'! etc. So the fact that people on AVS forum were speculating that it was for the purpose of 'secret commands' evoked quite a chuckle! Doug decided that for the sake of humor, we should play fully into their hands and the first order of business was to come up with a cool name for the field, to lend an aura of mysticism and supposed purpose to the field. The conversation went something like this: Doug: "It should have 'portal' in the name since Replay is now supposed to be 'The portal to television'." Don: "I hate that whole 'portal to television' b.s. What a dumb idea." Doug: "I know, but since we as a company are struggling with our identity, and the whole internet thing is huge, and Yahoo is the 'portal to the internet' and Marc Andreesen just joined our board of directors, there is a lot of momentum for us at Replay to brand ourselves as the 'portal to television'." Don: "Harumph." Doug: "Ok, so it should be some type of portal, but otherwise have an obfuscated and semi-meaningless name." Don: "Okay, well last night I helped my old roommate from college move an antique clawfoot bathtub into his house. How about the 'CLAWFOOT PORTAL?'" Doug: "Excellent!" So Doug runs back to his office and decides on a whim to further legitimize the notion that the field is special by writing: "I don't know of any codes you can enter into the CFP field that will do anything." Lostboy's reply: "CFP field? What does CFP mean?" MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! At the time we were working on the 2.0 software release and I decided to amuse myself by actually creating the clawfoot portal: code:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------class ClawFootPortal : public LayoutTextField { protected: void PerformClawFootOperation(); }; --------------------------------------------------------------------------------All that needed to be done was to add some clawfoot operations. The first 3 that were added were: ME LIKE COOKIES PLAY CONTINUOUSLY MODESTO GIRL At the time, however, MODESTO GIRL didn't do anything with hearts, it just printed out "I am for you." I needed Doug to draw the hearts, you see. Eventually (12-9-99) I got Doug to draw them and I added them into the MODESTO GIRL feature. All I had to do was wait for 2.0 to be released to the network (any day now), secretly type it into Cindy's unit and I could impress my girl. Being overly impatient, I called ReplayMike, ReplayDoug, and ReplayBen into my office to show off the hearts and I think it was ReplayMike who suggested, "You should make them show up on all units every Valentine's Day." So that I did. Meanwhile we had signed Panasonic as an OEM and they decided to produce the Showstopper (ironic to all of us in software where showstopper means a bug that prevents product shipment). However, Panasonic had their own requirements such as Closed Caption support and Macrovision support that delayed the release of 2.0 until we could get those features in. Now an avid follower of AVS forum, and notoriously impatient by nature, I was excited to see if anyone would notice the hearts on Valentine's day, 2000. Meanwhile I added a feature of my own, "SPORTS GUARD", which (in the absence of our show extender feature not to be introduced via the 'More options' button on the record dialog until 3.0), would allow the user to automatically add up to 1 hour of extra record time to live sporting events. Panasonic discovered this and because it wasn't approved by them on their already signed off user interface spec I was forced to remove it from the UI. Because of the imminent release of 2.0 and the ShowStopper, and Panasonic's demand to know of any other last minute or 'secret' features, I became paranoid about my Valentine's day featurette. I was afraid that 2.0 might get delayed past Valentine's day 2000, Panasonic would discover the hearts, and force me to remove them prior to them seeing the light of day. So, torn with anguish, I modified the code to only display the hearts on Valentine's days that occurred *after* the year 2000. I had to wait another year, and let me tell you it was tough, to see if there would be a reaction on AVS forum. Meanwhile, to further my anguish, on 12-17-2000 seanriddle reverse engineered the PerformClawFootOperation() function and discovered a few sequences of strings that could be typed in to cause the Modesto Girl functionality to be executed. Serves me right for choosing a non-unique key generating hash function! Finally, though, 2-14-2001 rolled around and I was delighted to see that the hearts were finally discovered. It warmed my own heart to see the delighted reactions and yes it's true, we at Replay (SonicBlue) do love you! -Don |
| Hanford LeMoore 2002-03-26 2007-03-11 18:23:56 |
hanford_lemoore Grand Member (4 years) Joined: Mar 23, 2002 Posts: 1599 Mugs: 31 From: Monolux Posted: 2002-03-26 01:49 am By the way, TikiBen is the programming wizard who helped me install MySQL (database engine) and the BB software (the fourms we're posting on)! THANKS BEN! |
| Targhan. on 2003/7/13 2007-03-11 18:23:21 |
MISTER ZOIL ENTERPRISES TO BE AT AMIWEST 2003! We're sure that many of you will remember the great Amiga disk copier, Project D. Mister Zoil Enterprises, new to AmiWest, will be exhibiting the work of Ben Fuller, the author of Project D and other great Amiga software. We've asked Glenn Fuller, Ben's father and the exhibitor for Mister Zoil Enterprises, to explain a little bit about Mister Zoil and the special meaning this exhibit has. Here is what he had to say... "Mister Zoil Enterprises was founded by Benjamin G. Fuller in 1997. It was a name given by a friend and embraced by Ben. Ben's career with computers began with the 6502 chip Commodore Vic-20 then PET. His last product is unknown but one of his last very popular ones was ReplayTV. He was one of the first developers at 16 years old for the Amiga. The former name of Ben's company was Fuller Computer Systems, Inc. out of Gilbert, Arizona. Ben's father will have a booth showing Project D on an Amiga 2000 with what is probably the last version which Ben had released. . . Ben helped found AAUG (Arizona Amiga User's Group)in 1986. We welcome friends and curious to stop and visit. Rumor has it that perhaps a few "Boing" ball posters will be on display along with some of Ben's original art work, Photography, and a few memoriable items. Ben retired in June, 2001 and continued with an avocation, photography. BIOGRAPHY The major sequence of Ben's life of late follows: Ben left for California in 1988 to join Silent Software and contribute to the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" computer game distributed by Buena Vista Software, Disney. He returned to Arizona in 1992 to join Softwood, Inc. [developing] another Amiga product, Final Copy II. [In] late 1993 he accepted another position in California and remained. [The] first [product] from this last move was SunRize Industries Studio 16 v3.0. Early [in] 1995 he moved to Iband, Inc., which was purchased by Macromedia. He utilized among other disciplines HTML for Backstage and Dreamweaver web site design products. July 1998 July 2001 Ben was with ReplayTV. Ben lived in Campbell, California from 1993 to June 2001 when he moved to Redwood City, mid-Bay area, to retire. He had just concluded interviewing for consulting work with Moxi/Digeo when the events occurred that ended his life. As a foot note, Ben has "Amiga Forever" software on his Dell Tower, his user account symbol a NASA Astronaut in a space walk. Along with and shoulder to shoulder with his love of computers were his passions for science fiction: Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who et al. NASA and space travel was a high interest also. Space Access 2001 in Scottsdale, Arizona was the last conference he attended and photos are on his web site, www.zoil.com." We have not had an exhibitor like this before and encourage all of you to come by the Mister Zoil booth to check out what promises to be a unique and interesting exhibit. Again, this exhibit is another demonstration of the solidarity of the Amiga community. So remember, AmiWest 2003 is rolling! The facility is reserved July 26 and 27, 2003 at the Holiday Inn Northeast in Sacramento California! New exhibitors are signing up regularly! Keep watching for these releases and tell everyone that you know - the Amiga and the Amiga community is alive and well! See you at AmiWest 2003! Amiga Forever, Brian Deneen, President Sacramento Amiga Computer Club for the AmiWest 2003 Committee HOTEL CONTACT Holiday Inn, Sacramento Northeast 5321 Date Avenue Sacramento California 95841-2597 Phone 1-916-338-5800 or 1-800-338-2810 - Toll Free (Hotel directly) |
| Tom Jones 2007-03-03 00:32:23 |
I recently recieved the notice from a Project D customer mailing about Ben. I remember a very young boy having a great time at Amiexpo. He even helped me in New York one day at the Amiexpo while at the both. Very friendly and helpful person. I remember too being grateful for a product that worked like a charm and the ability to backup even some difficult copy protected disks so I didn't have to risk the only copy I had to run with. I owned QuickNibble too. What a loss. I was shocked to hear about his passing and my condolences. |
| Jack Gruber USA TODAY 02/06/2002 - Updated 05:40 P 2007-03-03 00:31:02 |
02/06/2002 - Updated 05:40 PM ET Photo here. By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Unsettled: Ben Fuller's paper fortune of $4.4 million dropped to $650,000 after shares in his Web consulting firm plummeted. Who used to be a millionaire? By Jim Hopkins and Jon Swartz, USA TODAY By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Unsettled: Ben Fuller's paper fortune of $4.4 million dropped to $650,000 after shares in his Web consulting firm plummeted. About 800,000 families worth $1 million or more were thrown out of the seven-digit club last year when the stock market bubble burst, says Spectrem Group, a Chicago research firm that tracks wealth. For many, their freshly minted memberships lasted just a year, or less. "It was like a mirage," says Kevin Schwenger, research analyst at Thomson Financial. Yes, early-retirement plans have been shattered, pricey overseas vacations shelved, invitations to exclusive investment deals canceled. But also lost was a quintessentially American dream: to be a millionaire — the magical marker of success drilled into the psyche through movies, game shows, even the language. "You look like a million bucks," we say. Having been busted back to the ranks of the not-quite, the millionaires of the moment now feel embarrassed and unsettled, and are wondering where it all went — and whether they'll ever get there again. "There was an unbelievable sense of smugness and a 'We're the best' attitude when prices peaked," says Ben Fuller, 33, who wore the millionaire stamp for 10 months. "Now, it's an unsettled feeling of, 'How do we handle being out of vogue?' " |
| Baron Reichart Von Wolfshield 2006-01-31 09:14:28 |
April 14 2004 Reichart was forced from a hiking trail off a cliff spring 2004. His contributions have been appreciated, the insights and photos. Reichart's fate last known was recovering. Ben worked for Silent Software beginning in 1988 which was the creator of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" game for Buena Vista, Disney; and "Shotgun" a palm pad address book Ben wrote early in 1989 under contract with Fuller Computer Systems, Inc. the family company. There is a site on www.prolific.com where shotgun@prolific.com support is referenced. Some creations just go on and on like the Energizer Bunny. Glenn From: "Reichart" To: "'Glenn Fuller'" Subject: RE: Re: FW: Sad news - Benjamin Fuller Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 09:04:42 -0800 Things have been so busy that I have had to simply push all my personal email into a directory, and wait until I got a couple of things out the door. I'm finally reading through all my email right now. I gathered several photos, and will scan them in, two are my favorite, and I will send them to you. Do you have an FTP site? Or would you rather I size them for a website, and send just those. Meaning, I can send you really high quality, or something like 1Kx768. "Be useful." Reichart... Reichart@Prolific.com www.Prolific.com "The crazy place I work." www.SereneScreen.com "A cool thing we make." www.ProGadget.com "Something brewing in the kitchen." www.SafeWorlds.com" "The Alternative Messaging Environment." -----Original Message----- From: Glenn Fuller [mailto:] Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 8:46 AM To: Reichart Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: Sad news - Benjamin Fuller Hi, Just wondered if you are back yet from the islands. Looking forward to anything you have in photos and memories. Sincerely, Glenn |
| Glenn Fuller 2006-01-31 09:07:40 |
Mom and I got to Monterey Cannery and a few other sites. Need more time. Lovely area. |
| AVS Forum 2006-01-31 09:06:21 |
Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 01:01:49 -0500 Subject: Happy Birthday from AVS Forum TEST SITE Hello JustBen, We at AVS Forum TEST SITE would like to wish you a happy birthday today! Your AVS Forum Team http://www.avsforum.com |
| Ben Fuller 2005-08-20 15:53:40 |
“From: "Ben Fuller" <benfuller@msn.com> To: "Studio16 List" <studio16@thule.no> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 1998 18:32 Subject: Some thoughts... First, an introduction: Hi there, I'm Ben Fuller, at one time I was a Senior Software Engineer for SunRize Industries -- makers of the AD516/Studio16 Digital Audio Workstation software and hardware. Among other things, I was responsible for the automated mixer in v3.0, and the enhanced SMPTE handling in v3.01. I also did the Amiga side of the SoundSwitch software -- including getting it to work seamlessly in the Video Toaster interface, and the killer Arexx API. I created the BigBlocks utility. I also served as the Build Master at SunRize. At one time I was one of the most Die Hard Fanatic Loyalist Developer On A Jihad To Bring The Whole World To Amiga -- at age 17 I was one of the first and quite probably the youngest Commercial Developer (# CC01039 -- which for those that don't know, means I was one of the commercial developers that attended the 2nd Annual Amiga Developer's Conference in November 1986 -- which was when CATS started the commercial and registered developer programs -- the numbering started at CC01000). I was there at the beginning, and I was there at the end (which, by the way, was in early 1994 > when the engineering efforts relating to Amiga inside Commodore effectively came to a complete stop). I was very depressed for some time...Then, in late 1994 a funny thing happened... I was lucky enough to be part of the Chicago (aka Win95) beta program... Preemptive-multitasking, 32-bit > addressing, open device architecture, device independent everything, decent development tools... It was like deja vu all over again... I discovered that (like it says on the Deathbed Vigil t-shirt) there is life after Commodore. Now, some thoughts: I have been monitoring this list for a while, and have noticed a few misconceptions that I will now attempt to clear up. Myth #1 -- SunRize produced developer documentation for the Studio 16 3.x release. This is simply not true. A developer kit for the 3.x release does not exist. There were a few developers that SunRize worked closely with and provided limited access to 3.x specific information. Getting the AmiLINK to provide SMPTE timecode to Studio16 using the enhanced SMPTE APIs was one instance. Myth #2 -- There is some way to playback samples directly from RAM. > While this is technically true (the samples are buffered in RAM), an API for > that particular capability was never created *because it was not required > for the product*. If you think about this for a minute, it will become > obvious -- Studio16 was designed from the ground up to efficiently move > sample data from the audio hardware on the card to the hard disk and back to > the card. The only thing that matters is that the sample data gets to the > speakers at exactly the right time -- Just In Time delivery... not Data > Warehousing. Myth #3 -- The Amiga is still a viable commercial platform. This is simply not true. A viable platform for general purpose computing must be able to evolve -- both in hardware and software. A great deal of capital is required to evolve both hardware and software. The risk takers have moved on to investments that will actually give them a return. The quality of Amiga software has degraded significantly since The End, and most (if not all) of those responsible for the best-of-breed applications on Amiga have left the arena. It will be extremely difficult if not impossible to return to the levels of quality neccessary to evolve the platform. Ok, so what about doing an AHI driver or something... Troy Silvey contacted me last year and asked if I could supply developer information for the AD516 and if I would be interested in doing an AHI driver for the card. I did not respond for quite some time -- I'm sure he probably thought that his questions had fallen upon deaf ears. I did some initial research on AHI and after a few unsuccessful attempts at getting the paula driver to work (so that I could examine how the drivers are supposed to function), I put those ideas back on the shelf. When I responded to Troy, in addition to clarifying the mythical existance of developer documentation for the v3.x release, I indicated that I was extremely busy with a project at work and could not devote any resources to an AHI driver at that time, but that I would not rule out doing something after my schedule pressures had subsided. I am now doing some additional research on AHI as time permits, but I have still been unable to get the paula driver to work -- something that will have to happen before I decide to build a driver for the AD516. Best Regards, Ben Fuller “ |
| Dawn Chmielewski author - quote from Mercury News 2005-08-04 14:35:01 |
PERSPECTIVE FROM ESTATE: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3829107.htm Posted on Fri, Aug. 09, 2002 Shake-up at SonicBlue: CEO questions loans to directors, is ousted By Dawn Chmielewski Mercury News In a boardroom drama rivaling its courtroom battle with Hollywood, SonicBlue's chairman and chief executive, Kenneth Potashner, was ousted Thursday after he demanded board members repay more than a half million dollars in loans they gave themselves to buy stock in an affiliated company. Potashner said the board voted to remove him after he told the Mercury News Thursday morning that he planned to call for the resignation of three of Sonic- Blue's five board members if they refused to repay their loans early. The loans are due on June 14, 2003. Controversy has become a hallmark for the tiny Santa Clara company. SonicBlue has repeatedly taken on Hollywood and the music industry, whether defending its portable MP3 players against charges of contributing to music piracy or fighting for consumers' right to bypass commercials when viewing television shows they've recorded on their ReplayTV devices. With increased investor scrutiny of boardroom ethics, Potashner said, the loans are in ``very poor taste,'' although they appear to be legal. ``Firing me may not be legal,'' he said. ``That has yet to be determined.'' SonicBlue Vice Chairman Terry Holdt said the timing of Potashner's firing was ``coincidental'' but declined to discuss the board's reasons for dismissing him. As for the loans, Holdt said, ``They're not even due yet. There's been no request to have them forgiven.'' The other directors didn't return calls seeking comment. SonicBlue appointed L. Gregory Ballard, executive vice president of marketing and product management, as interim CEO. Potashner's departure culminates a month of heightening tensions between the executive and the board, which he said began when he demanded that the board investigate alleged ``ethics violations'' by Holdt, one of the loan recipients. Potashner refused to disclose the nature of the allegations. Holdt, whose tenure with the company extends to its earliest days as a semiconductor manufacturer, referred questions about the ethics allegations to Ballard. Ballard said the board took the allegations seriously and hired an independent law firm to investigate. The conclusion: ``There was absolutely no basis for the allegation,'' Ballard said. Nevertheless, Potashner's concerns about Holdt ``effectively put the board and myself into a pretty tense situation,'' Potashner said. ``The board began moving down the path of, `We should talk about a separation.' '' Instead of leaving quietly, the scrappy Potashner, who has led SonicBlue's courtroom fight against 28 Hollywood studios and music labels over the ReplayTV device, escalated the conflict. Potashner said he began to scrutinize about $177,000 in loans that Holdt, board members Robert P. Lee and James T. Schraith and former board member Carmelo Santoro each received in June 2000 to purchase stock in RioPort, a digital music services company that is 32 percent owned by SonicBlue. Potashner, who also received a $261,232 loan in December 1999 to purchase RioPort stock, said the board members voted last December to make their loans ``non-recourse,'' an accounting term that meant the directors would not be personally liable if they failed to pay. Potashner said that investors were worried about such loans in the wake of scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other companies. Potashner, in contrast, is personally liable for his loan. ``We've had several shareholders, in the last couple of weeks, calling and inquiring. . . . `Are they going to pay those back?' '' Potashner said. In a boardroom confrontation Thursday morning, Potashner forced the issue and demanded that Holdt, Lee and Schraith repay the loans -- or resign. ``We had a heated discussion on that,'' Potashner said. ``They asked me to leave.'' Potashner then called the Mercury News about his ultimatum. When he returned to the room and told the board about the conversation, he was terminated for violating the sanctity of boardroom deliberations. ``They made a foolish, foolish mistake with the events of today,'' he said. ``If it wasn't an issue, let's see it and defend it.'' Kent Scott, a professor at Stanford University Law School, said board members could be challenged by shareholders for voting to use company money to enrich themselves. ``The question is: Was that action fair to the corporation?'' Scott said. Ballard said the SonicBlue board properly disclosed terms of the loans to shareholders in its securities filings. However, the board intends to review the terms in light of contemporary ``mores and climate.'' Ballard and Holdt said Potashner's firing had nothing to do with the loan showdown. Indeed, some on Wall Street said the charismatic Potashner had lost credibility with investors because of his overly optimistic forecasts for the company and tenuous grasp of its financials. SonicBlue is burning more cash than it's bringing in, and its stock has been on a steep decline since peaking at around $24 a share in March 2000. On Thursday, shares closed at 44 cents. Trading was halted after-hours. Contact Dawn Chmielewski at dchmielewski@sjmercury.com or at (714) 669-9913. |
| Carl Schwent reposted by Admin 2005-05-25 14:26:41 |
.... a recent issue of RETRO GAMER Vol. 2, Issue 1, has Amiga Forever on its coverdisc. At $12.99 for the magazine it's a pretty good deal, even though it's a limited edition with only AmigaDOS 1.3. (That's all my apps run on anyway.) It seems to run well with no problems. Several games are included.... Unfortunately it doesn't include Cloanto's Amiga Explorer which allows easy file transfer over a null modem. |
| Peter Shay 2004-09-30 12:40:19 |
Ben, you helped ignite my interest in computers some 20+ years ago. While I was learning fundamental computer architecture and BASIC programming, you were coding assembly programs just a few computers down the row. Your friendship from that stage of life will always be one of my fondest memories. Whether it was hanging out in the computer room at school, discussing solutions to the Zork adventures, or just screwing around on your Amiga, those days were crucial to providing a direction for my future career. And more imporantly, it was just a great way to spend the teenage years! You were a great friend, and I'll miss the opportunities to have an occasional chat. Your contributions to this world will be felt for many years to come. |
| JustBen_jtl_jalaniz 2004-07-16 05:18:45 |
Ever in touch with reality.... JustBen private mail selected messages June, 2002. 06-12-02 06:41 PM jtl whining woman Registered: Dec 2001 Posts: 1456 RE, working at SB quote: reverse engineering (you know, what jtl is doing) is not allowed. for what little it's worth, I've spoken several times to SB's in-house counsel and one of the outside lawyers, as well as had email conversations with an engineering manager and a technical consultant, and none of them have ever asked me to stop or take down anything I've posted. That's not to say it's been authorized by any means, of course. I've tried to be careful not to document anything that would actually be harmful to them to have public (the registration code algorithm, for instance, or the security bugs in 4.1), and to some extent I'm glad they've done such a good job on the 4.3 lockdown -- it means that documenting how its locked down isn't an automatic recipe for unlocking. On a completely different topic, were you still with ReplayTV after the SB acquisition? If so, would you be willing to talk about what working there was like? __________________ My ReplayTV notes jtl-avs-replaytv@molehill.org 06-12-02 06:41 PM JustBen exReplayGuy Registered: Feb 2001 Posts: 165 RE: RE, working at SB Lawyers being lawyers and all, I would not be surprised if the ones you spoke with did not fully understand what you are doing... Whether you realize it or not, you are in some small way responsible [don't worry though, if it wasn't you it would have been someone else... ] for redirecting their development efforts from real features to cover-their-naked-hairy-ass coding. That said, having personally disassembled and re-sourced sections of the Amiga ROM kernel just for fun, I can certainly understand why you like 'hacking' on the ReplayTV. I was 'lucky' enough to leave before SB took over, so I don't have any direct knowledge of what it is like to work there. I do, however, live with two engineers that are employed by them. What exactly do you want to know? Ben. 06-13-02 11:32 AM jtl whining woman Registered: Dec 2001 Posts: 1456 RE: RE: RE, working at SB quote: Lawyers being lawyers and all, I would not be surprised if the ones you spoke with did not fully understand what you are doing... You're probably right about the inhouse one, but I think the outside counsel was pretty on-the-ball about it -- of course, his interest was pretty focussed on the lawsuits, not SB's overall business. quote: Whether you realize it or not, you are in some small way responsible [don't worry though, if it wasn't you it would have been someone else... ] for redirecting their development efforts from real features to cover-their-naked-hairy-ass coding. Yeah, and I feel somewhat guilty about it -- but only somewhat. As you say, if it wasn't me, it'd be someone else -- and the someone else could cause more problems for them than I have. And besides that, the *main* reason they're having to do this security stuff is the change in business models, which isn't my fault at all. quote: I was 'lucky' enough to leave before SB took over, so I don't have any direct knowledge of what it is like to work there. I do, however, live with two engineers that are employed by them. What exactly do you want to know? I'm not really sure what exactly I should ask. I've been with a company for almost four years now, from startup to soon-to-be-acquired. I'm committed to up to 6 months of transition time, if the buyers want me that long, but after that it's time to find something New and Interesting to work on. I've gotten a feeler or two from Christopher Dow about working for SB, and I'm just hoping to get some idea of what the work environment is like there -- it would be another relocation, which I was hoping to avoid, but (from the outside) SB looks like it may be worth it. __________________ My ReplayTV notes jtl-avs-replaytv@molehill.org 06-17-02 03:48 PM broken replaytv jalaniz 07-29-02 05:01 PM broken replaytv jalaniz Last online: 05:49 PM 10-20-03 07-31-02 05:49 PM RE: broken replaytv jalaniz Last online: 05:49 PM 10-20-03 05-23-03 03:18 PM JustBen exReplayGuy Registered: Feb 2001 Posts: 165 broken replaytv From: JustBen Hi, I noticed from your profile that you are in San Jose. If you would like some help fixing your friends broken replaytv, drop me an email at benfuller@exreplaytv.com. ben. 07-29-02 05:01 PM |
| JustBen 2004-07-16 01:16:47 |
avs-farewell.txt June 15, 2001 Howdy folks, This is my last post as ReplayBen. I have decided that it is time for me to leave ReplayTV and take a nice long (really long) vacation. In the vernacular of the TV industry, I'm going on hiatus. It's been a blast working on the leading edge of consumer electronics for the past three years -- helping to take Personal Television from concept to reality is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything (well maybe a chance to trade my MACR stock at $120 - d'OH!). Hanging out here in this forum on AVS has also been a fun experience -- being able to feed off of the excitement and energy here as we shipped new features -- watching in amusement as the first shakey steps were taken towards 'hacking' the box -- the spirited debates surrounding macrovision -- being able to drop hints here and there about um, under-documented features... ah, the memories. :) Well it looks like it's time for me to regenerate now, so... in the tradition set forth by my friends ReplayDoug and ReplayMike, say "Hi" to JustBen. Ben. --------------------------------- Hey there... Same old Ben here... Just a new avatar... Ben. [Avatar definition: Person seen as embodying a particular ideal. – Glenn Fuller July 15, 2004] |
| Ben, February 20, 2002 2004-06-21 22:39:20 |
Installing replay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben Fuller" <benfuller@exreplaytv.com> To: "Brian Kushner" <bkushner@snip.net> Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 01:43 Subject: Re: exReplayTV Feedback > Hi Brian, > > Well, if >I< had a new replay, and it couldn't connect to get the modem > settings screen, then I'd just install the modem settings panel > manually... > having worked on that beast has it's advantages... :D. > If the Modem Settings screen does not include a "Max Connect Speed" > setting, > try forcing a connection to the ReplayTV Service by performing the > following > steps from the Setup Summary screen. > a.. Select "Change Telephone" to get to the Telephone Connection screen. > b.. Press SELECT to advance to the Zip Code screen. > c.. Press STOP to clear the Zip Code. > d.. Press LEFT ARROW to return to the Telephone Connection screen. > e.. Press SELECT to advance to the Zip Code screen again. > f.. Enter the appropriate Zip Code. > g.. Press SELECT to advance to the Dialing Prefix screen. > h.. Press SELECT to advance to the Connect to the ReplayTV Service screen. > i.. Wait for the connection to complete successfully. > j.. Press LEFT ARROW to return to the Dialing Prefix screen. > k.. Press ZONES to get to the Modem Settings screen. > l.. Highlight the "Max Connect Speed" setting and use the left and right arrows to cycle through the available choices. > m.. Select "Done" to use the new settings. > If you've already tried this, and the unit is still unable to successfully > connect, then I would guess that there is something wrong with the modem > in > your replay, or the phone connection you are using is too noisy. The > steps > above attempt a connection to the 800 number, which can usually be > connected > to reliably. > > You might also try asking for help in this thread > <http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104752> or > contacting the tech support folks at SONIC|blue. > > Thanks for visiting www.exreplaytv.com. > > Ben. > > -------------------------------- > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary > safety > deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Brian Kushner" <bkushner@snip.net> > > To: <feedback@exreplaytv.com> > > Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 23:47 > > Subject: exReplayTV Feedback > > > > > > > What happens if you have a new replay that doesnt have the MODEM panel > > > and can't connect? > > > > > > |
| Ben, January 21, 2002 2004-06-21 19:18:06 |
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ben Fuller" <benfuller@msn.com> To: "Glenn Fuller" <ggfuller@yahoo.com> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 15:39 Subject: Re: Legal stuff. I'm firmly convinced that the only ones who win in legal battles are the lawyers. Ben. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Glenn Fuller" <ggfuller@yahoo.com> > To: <benfuller@msn.com> > Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 22:34 > Subject: Legal stuff. > > > I lost. Time to move on. > > > > Love you, > > Dad > |
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