Re: Obituary - Joe Kohn

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

spectrumdaddy@nospam.com (Ewen) wrote:

>It is with heavy heart that I report this--one of the Apple II's notable
>personalities has passed away.
>
>Joe Kohn of ShareWare Solutions II, died on Jan. 6th, 2010 following a
>battle with metastatic cancer.  He was 62 years old and lived in Marin
>County, Calif.

    I just read the news on A2Central moments ago and it has me 
utterly and completely shocked. I saw him posting here just mere 
weeks ago, I had no idea he was even ill. It also hits a nerve with 
me personally since I just lost my father, who very close in age to 
Joe, to brain cancer back in April and I'm still not over that.

    It's hard to believe Joe Kohn has died, he meant a lot to the 
Apple II community and it's sad to think he is gone. Funny how 
I never met him in person, yet I feel like I knew him well through 
all the online correspondents I had with him in the past 18 years. 
When I was in college, I would regularly pick up an issue of 
inCider/A+ on newsstands and read his Shareware Solutions 
column. And when it ended, I still remember being one of the 
lucky 10 or so people to get a free sample of Shareware 
Solutions II when it first became available in the summer of 
1993 (I still have that original copy he personally mailed me!).

    I remember how I proudly got to be a beta tester for many of
the software titles he published for Brutal Deluxe. I can also
remember Joe contacting me to compare details of his Mark 
Twain (around the time he got one) with the one I knew about 
through a software developer here in Montreal who's company 
had one on hand in the early 90's. There was even a time Joe 
honored me by asking if I could write an article for SSII detailing 
the story of Sword of Sodan (over the years, I essentially did my
own investigation and discovered a great deal about what went
on behind the scenes). Never did get around to it being published, 
but again, I felt honored and special Joe had asked me. I considered 
him a friend and looked up to him for being such a leader in the
Apple II world. I will greatly miss him...

Mitchell Spector