RIP Glenn Botts AKA Glenn the 5200 Man

[polyex]

12 hours ago, Savetz said:

The family has decided to destroy all of Glenn's disks.

 

-Kay

I am sorry to read that, I can almost hear the disappointment in your post. The work you do in archiving is a gift to the community.

Edited May 17, 2023 by polyex

[idavis]

Kay,

That's a real bummer to hear, but I guess you did what you could.

[cx2k]

16 hours ago, Savetz said:

The family has decided to destroy all of Glenn's disks.

 

-Kay

This sounds a bit suspect or just plain stupid. Why would they change their mind and adopt such an extreme position?

 

I get the whole possible privacy issue but honestly, what are the odds that there is any relevant personal information on 40 year old disks?  And certainly any that they couldn't entrust a single person like Kay to ensure was destroyed. Am I missing something here?

 

Also, I was told years ago that Glenn the 5200 Man was actually two people. Glenn, who got the games and sent them to another individual (I'm sorry, I'm not at liberty to say who) who used "the 5200 man" as his handle. I was told the names just kind of merged together.

 

[+DrVenkman]

59 minutes ago, cx2k said:

I get the whole possible privacy issue but honestly, what are the odds that there is any relevant personal information on 40 year old disks?  And certainly any that they couldn't entrust a single person like Kay to ensure was destroyed. Am I missing something here?

I do, actually. I wrote some letters regarding a minor car insurance thing for a friend on my Atari (either AtariWriter or a bootleg copy of PaperClip, can't remember which), then printed them out for him to sign and mail off. I also have some letters to the US DOD regarding the USAF physical exam stuff I had to do as part of my Air Force Academy/ROTC applications. When I rediscovered my cache of 80's floppies, that stuff - along with school essays and reports - were all still readable.

 

Now, having said all that, for a guy as well-known by reputation in the A8/5200 scene as him, it's a damned shame Glenn's family didn't take 15 minutes to learn about Kay's history in the A8 community, his record of interviews and data recovery work in the interests of historical preservation, etc. My stuff will all be labeled and my wife/kids know how special it is to me. They know it has some value to someone even if just as curiosities and it won't end up in a landfill. The handful of floppies with my old personal stuff on it are already labeled and family will know to erase or simply destroy in lieu of giving away or selling those few disks with the rest of the stuff. 

 

[Tempest]

29 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I do, actually. I wrote some letters regarding a minor car insurance thing for a friend on my Atari (either AtariWriter or a bootleg copy of PaperClip, can't remember which), then printed them out for him to sign and mail off. I also have some letters to the US DOD regarding the USAF physical exam stuff I had to do as part of my Air Force Academy/ROTC applications. When I rediscovered my cache of 80's floppies, that stuff - along with school essays and reports - were all still readable.

I know at one of the VCF shows I was at someone had gotten a Coleco ADAM lot that he wanted to test out.  We found out that it had been used by a law office and it still had full legal files on it!  I can't believe that a. No one destroyed those records when they got rid of the ADAM, and b. A law office used a Coleco ADAM!  Another person had some IBM PCjr disks that had a families bank account info on them including all their transactions.  Sure this stuff was 25+ years old, but those account number could still be active!

 

Maybe someone can talk to the family again and get them to reconsider?  I can't help but feel there's some valuable stuff on those disks that might be lost forever.

[+x=usr(1536)]

18 hours ago, Savetz said:

The family has decided to destroy all of Glenn's disks.

This is deeply unfortunate.

 

While we can only speculate as to their reasoning, it's entirely possible that the attention that Glenn's possessions received while they were still dealing with their grief caused them to simply want to wash their hands of it all.  Quite understandable, given the circumstances.

[_The Doctor__]

They seemed dis-appointed that there were not more people there, a few did call and cancel. But it was raining, it was hot, and humid. Time frame was limited from 12-5 and they closed up earlier than that (4:05pm). The Atari 8 bit selection was with so many restrictions and prices were such that only a non Glenn 130XE sold as far as I saw of the 8 bit stuff. It looked as though they wished there were more people with disposable cash. I am pretty sure the few hours pulled in around $2,400.00 or there abouts, so the community did their part in helping out. In fact, I only bought what I did partly because I felt some money would be of use. I don't think Glenn felt as though the time was coming to leave this earth so preparations were not made. Whenever that happens the powers that be make life difficult, that means estate sales, probate, etc... and until all that clears, the family must shoulder most things out of pocket. Any accounts that still contain money can be used for final expenses with a caveat that there is paperwork to do that allows for such things. It's a large daunting task to be sure.

 

Giving it a go and saying goodbye to an electronic pen pal is what was accomplished in the trip. At least they know people cared.

Edited May 17, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[+mytek]

9 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I don't think Glenn felt as though the time was coming to leave this earth so preparations were not made. Whenever that happens the powers that be make life difficult, that means estate sales, probate, etc... and until all that clears, the family must shoulder most things out of pocket. Any accounts that still contain money can be used for final expenses with a caveat that there is paperwork to do that allows for such things. It's a large daunting task to be sure.

I'm not sure how other states handle these things, but when my father passed back in 2014 with no will it actually was a pretty simple process for us in California. We simply hired a probate lawyer, had I believe 3 face to face meetings with him, and wham bam we were done with that side of things. His fees were very reasonable, and some of that got paid for by filing I think it was called a K2 form with the IRS which gave us a big write-off on our taxes. The only not so fun part of the process was filing out forms for back taxes that my dad owed but never paid due to him probably having more important things to worry about like having cancer. Death and Taxes

 

Also a big help to us was the real estate agent who sold our dad's house for us, and he knew a ton of people and services to help us clean up our father's nearly 50 years of hording (and it was a big house -- unfortunately no Atari gear).