Charles LaFara has left the building

[+Ksarul]

For those of you who knew the old International User's Group back in the day, has seen an issue of Enthusiast '99, or for anyone who has disks from the old IUG library, the name of Charles LaFara is a household name. I saw this notice on the Yahoo! group, so I thought it might be good to cross-post it here:

 

From Charlie La Fara's Facebook timeline, posted yesterday morning:

 

"This is Melinda,
Early this morning my best friend left me for a new journey. Charlie was loved by so many. I could not make personal calls to everyone, I apologize. Charlie loved each and everyone of you.
His family, Chad, Tracy and sons, Dawn, Todd and children and me, his Friend will be planning a memorial service followed by a 'Charlie' party. Details will be announced later.
I want to thank each and everyone for your love and support. I loved Charlie with all my heart and will miss my friend."

 

And this was posted an hour ago:

 

"This is Melinda, to reach all of Charle's friends I am using his facebook page.

There will be a Memorial Service for Charlie on September 12, 2015 at the Conkle Funeral home in Avon.
Visitation will be at 3 p.m. with Memorial service at 4 p.m. After Memorial Service there will be a party at our home to celebrate his wonderful life. As Charlie would want, there will be friends, food, music and laughter.

Once again, I want to thank you for your love and support."

 

[Willsy]

Oh that's a shame. My deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. He indeed was a household name in the TI world, even on this side of the pond. God's speed Charlie.

[Opry99er]

LaFara... Yea man... I saw his name plenty in my mags and reading the period newsletters. Sad day for his family. Condolences.

[Toucan]

LaFara... Yea man... I saw his name plenty in my mags and reading the period newsletters. Sad day for his family. Condolences.

 

This is a bad day indeed. I contacted him in 1999 and he shared some neat info on the TI. Such as this e-mail:

 

Dear Bryan --

 

The "Star Trek" manual that was on the cover of the July 1983 issue of "Enthusiast 99" magazine was from a prototype e-prom module that I received from Sega. I only know of 3 copies. One was sent to T.I., the second was sent to the IUG for our evaluation and the third was sent to Jack Carroll who worked for me at that time. Jack; if I remember correctly re-burnt 4 other copies for other IUG employees. The game was almost identical to the Atari 800 version except it ran much faster on the 99/4 and had better sound qualities. Jack, once he broke the source code, added some "text-to-speech" features to his copy. I am not sure where any of the modules are today. My ex-wife still has all of the hardware and software we salvaged from the bankruptcy of the IUG. My son who is now has his MBA, and is webmaster for a large bank on Tulsa still plays with the 99/4 when he visits his mother in Oklahoma City. I will ask him if he has seen the "Star Trek" module lately.

 

In November of 1983 I approached T.I. in an effort to purchase the entire remaining inventory of hardware and software. I had some very strong financial backing for an OKC bank. While considering my offer I was given 1 each of the current module inventory and 17 unreleased projects from T.I. and third party producers, none which ever reached the consumer level. If I remember correctly all but one was on e-prom. Several of the projects were from Milton-Bradley; some from Creative and some from Sega, only one was from Activision. Needless to say T.I. was unwilling to sell us their remaining inventories, under our terms, and chose to use another source to dispose of their remaining product. Bound by copyright laws ( by this time we had enough legal problems, Guy Romono was suing us for 1 million dollars) we did not attempt to copy and distribute any of the prototype product in our possession. We did, however make copies of all except the Activision project for internal use. Some where someone may still have copies of all of these. I will ask Bill Gronos who worked for me if he still has any of the ones we burnt off, if not he may have the original source code. He is a pack rat by nature."

 

-- Sincerely, Charlie La Fara

Edited September 7, 2015 by Toucan

[Toucan]

 

This is a bad day indeed. I contacted him in 1999 and he shared some neat info on the TI. Such as this e-mail:

 

Dear Bryan --

 

The "Star Trek" manual that was on the cover of the July 1983 issue of "Enthusiast 99" magazine was from a prototype e-prom module that I received from Sega. I only know of 3 copies. One was sent to T.I., the second was sent to the IUG for our evaluation and the third was sent to Jack Carroll who worked for me at that time. Jack; if I remember correctly re-burnt 4 other copies for other IUG employees. The game was almost identical to the Atari 800 version except it ran much faster on the 99/4 and had better sound qualities. Jack, once he broke the source code, added some "text-to-speech" features to his copy. I am not sure where any of the modules are today. My ex-wife still has all of the hardware and software we salvaged from the bankruptcy of the IUG. My son who is now has his MBA, and is webmaster for a large bank on Tulsa still plays with the 99/4 when he visits his mother in Oklahoma City. I will ask him if he has seen the "Star Trek" module lately.

 

In November of 1983 I approached T.I. in an effort to purchase the entire remaining inventory of hardware and software. I had some very strong financial backing for an OKC bank. While considering my offer I was given 1 each of the current module inventory and 17 unreleased projects from T.I. and third party producers, none which ever reached the consumer level. If I remember correctly all but one was on e-prom. Several of the projects were from Milton-Bradley; some from Creative and some from Sega, only one was from Activision. Needless to say T.I. was unwilling to sell us their remaining inventories, under our terms, and chose to use another source to dispose of their remaining product. Bound by copyright laws ( by this time we had enough legal problems, Guy Romono was suing us for 1 million dollars) we did not attempt to copy and distribute any of the prototype product in our possession. We did, however make copies of all except the Activision project for internal use. Some where someone may still have copies of all of these. I will ask Bill Gronos who worked for me if he still has any of the ones we burnt off, if not he may have the original source code. He is a pack rat by nature."

 

-- Sincerely, Charlie La Fara

What's neat is, if you look at the cover for that issue you'll notice some neat games, like Astrochase by Parker Brothers. Also you'll notice the manual for Star Trek was a 3rd party Sega version, like the ones they put out for other systems. The TI one had a purple stripe in that picture that said "For use on the Texas Instruments 99/4A Home Computer". This is what piqued my interest initially since I thought these were of games for other systems, until I read the small print (you have to look closely). It might have been that Sega was going to produce their games as a 3rd party until TI brought out the GROM. It's a cover worth examining. Remeber, July 1983 was before Atarisoft or Parker Brothers released anything for the TI to the public, even though you can see the manuals for the games on this cover. I'd like to know what the 100 dollar image is from under the Pac-Man manual on the top right...

 

ftp://ftp.whtech.com./magazines/enthusiast99/E99-0783.pdf

Edited September 7, 2015 by Toucan

[+acadiel]

What I'd like to know is if anyone has actually approached his Ex-Wife to ask her about the prototypes... sounds like something Ksarul or Toucan would take on :)

[+Ksarul]

Toucan has already gone there, several years ago. She was not too receptive. . .

[unhuman]

I remember that guy... The IUG had an interesting program for submitting programs to their library. They offered $2 or $3 of credit for each program... I was cranking out stuff and submitted a bunch and bought all kinds of stuff with my fake $. They had some coupon-looking-dollar things.

[Opry99er]

^^ THAT... Is cool... ^^

[+Ksarul]

I think I may still have one or two of those coupons that I never redeemed. Tenex used to issue similar discount coupons that could be used with future orders. I may still have one or two of those around too. . .I seem to remember finding one in one of my boxes of TI stuff a couple of years ago.