David H. Ahl
David H. Ahl | |
---|---|
Living Computer Museum in 2013 | |
Born | May 17, 1939 |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Author |
David H. Ahl (born May 17, 1939) is an American author who is the founder of Creative Computing magazine. He is also the author of many how-to books, including BASIC Computer Games, the first computer book to sell more than a million copies.[1]
Career
After earning degrees in electrical engineering and business administration, while completing his Ph.D. in educational psychology, Ahl was hired by Digital Equipment Corporation as a marketing consultant in 1969 to develop its educational products line. He edited EDU, DEC's newsletter on educational uses of computers, that regularly published instructions for playing computer games on minicomputers. Ahl also talked DEC into publishing a book he had put together, 101 BASIC Computer Games. During the 1973 recession, DEC cut back on educational product development and Ahl was dismissed.
Before he even received his last cheque, he was rehired into a DEC division dedicated to developing new
Frustrated, Ahl left DEC in 1974, and started Creative Computing, one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution.[2] For the next decade Creative Computing covered the whole spectrum of hobbyist, home, and personal computing, and although Ahl sold the publication to Ziff Davis in the early 1980s, he continued in his capacity as Editor-in-Chief.
In 2010, David Ahl helped re-publish a Special 25th and 30th Anniversary Edition of two of his classic programming books, specifically for a new development environment for beginners, called Microsoft Small Basic.[3]
In June 2022, Ahl released everything he had ever written, from prose to software, into the public domain.[4]
References
- ^ Anderson, J. J. (November 1984). "Dave tells Ahl--the history of Creative computing". Creative Computing. 10 (11): 66–8+.
- ISBN 0-07-135892-7.
- ^ Ahl, David, "Further Thoughts (2010)" Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Barela, Anne (June 16, 2022). "David Ahl places all his classic computing publications into the Public Domain". Adafruit Industries - Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!. AdaFruit. Retrieved November 8, 2022.
External links
- Basic Computer Games: Microsoft Small Basic Edition — Special 30th Anniversary Edition Edited by David H. Ahl
- David Ahl's Small Basic Computer Adventures — Special 25th Anniversary Edition by David H. Ahl & Philip Conrod
- David H. Ahl Biography from Who's Who In America at David Ahl's personal site
- Basic Computer Games by David Ahl
- More Basic Computer Games by David Ahl
- Big Computer Games by David Ahl
- David H. Ahl's Homepage