I worked with John for a few years in the 1990s. This was during the heyday of BBSes, when he joined our small team at Mustang Software after Mustang bought Qmodem. John moved to Bakersfield California (with his family, including OP!) to be with us. John left a few years later due to I think business differences with management.

John was personable and full of joy. He always loved a good joke. I remember the parties (not wild, we were pretty tame back then) we would have around the pool at his place. He was generous with his time.

The story of Qmodem itself was a bit different. Qmodem for DOS was a one-man shareware business and was John's pride and joy. It was clear that he poured everything into that program. It was finely tuned and just worked. Times were changing though, and people were calling for a Windows version. Unfortunately, John was not interested in learning Windows programming, so Scott Hunter (now at Microsoft), Dan Horn, and I built Qmodem for Windows. It was good, but it really never had the same level of polish that John's work did. It was "Qmodem" in name only.

After John left Mustang he also left Bakersfield and I lost touch with him. I'm sure he continued to make the people around him smile. Thank you for your time and contributions, John.