Bruce Wilcox designed a famous early Go program, and also designed a strategy called Instant Go, and generally terrorized the Go scene with his cocky personality. I first heard of him when my dear aunt gave me a copy of the program at about age thirteen.

Digging through boxes this week, I found this "interview," tucked in behind the floppy. This bit of text had a rather significant impact on my own character development. I used to read it over and over, wondering at the nature of the person behind it. It's easy to recognize a few characteristic features of a certain culture here; you know who you are.

For a few years there, Bruce Wilcox, along with Will Wright (the creator of SimCity) were my heroes. They were creating toys that were thoughtful and imaginative, things which didn't have any obvious commercial value, but which were popular just because they were creative and elegant.

I met Bruce Wilcox once, briefly, when his program was competing in a computer Go tournament in my home town. While the game played, dialog boxes kept popping up that said things like "Can't free already freed cons cell" and he kept swatting them away. "That's a flaw," he would say—never a "bug," always a "flaw." My coworkers may recognize that turn of phrase has crept into my own diction.