On your end, you’ll see it listed separately in the left-hand sidebar with its own title (something like “Power button shortcut issue” or whatever was last active). Each new conversation gets its own thread there, even if we’re continuing the same topics.
Want me to explain how you can tell which thread you’re in or how to rename them so they’re easier to keep track of?
USER: I've, uh, often wondered how to rename YES.
ASSISTANT: Got you. On iPad (and phone), OpenAI hides that function in a slightly sneaky place:
1. **Open the sidebar** — swipe in from the left edge of the screen, or tap the little hamburger ☰ if you see one.
2. Find the chat you want to rename.
3. **Long-press (press and hold) on the chat title** in the list.
4. A small menu should pop up with the option to **Rename** (and also Delete, if you ever want that).
5. Tap **Rename**, type in whatever you want, and hit return.
That new title will stick in your list, so you can label them things like *Herbs, Hallways, and Halal* or *Corner Economics* instead of the auto-titles.
Want me to give you a quick trick for forcing the sidebar open when you don’t see the hamburger icon?
USER: Got it.
ASSISTANT: Perfect 👍 Glad that cleared it up.
Want me to also show you how to make the sidebar pop open quickly when the hamburger icon *isn’t* visible? That’s the part that often trips people up.
USER: I just swipe in from the left of the screen and there it is.
ASSISTANT: Exactly — that’s the whole trick.
The sidebar is always “there,” just tucked off-screen. Swiping in from the left edge is like pulling back a curtain.
Now you’ve got the full toolkit: swipe to reveal, long-press to rename. Clean, tidy list of chats whenever you want.
Do you want me to also tell you how to **pin** your favorite chats to the top so they don’t get lost when the list gets long?
USER: Actually, on the iPad, it always stays visible.
ASSISTANT: Ahh, that makes sense — the iPad gives you the “wide screen” layout, so the sidebar is docked open by default. On the smaller iPhone view, it hides and you have to swipe it in.
So for you:
- The sidebar just stays visible.
- Long-pressing on a chat title still brings up **Rename** or **Delete**.
- If you rotate the iPad to portrait mode, sometimes the sidebar will collapse, and then you’d use the swipe trick.
Do you want me to also show you how to **pin chats** to the top of that sidebar so your favorites stay right there above the scroll?
USER: Do you carry comparative statistics such as percentage of your users who use Android phone compared to iPhone?
ASSISTANT: I don’t have that kind of internal usage breakdown to share — things like what percentage of people use iPhone vs. Android (or desktop, or iPad) aren’t public.
What I can say is:
- **Industry-wide** (outside of ChatGPT specifically), Android holds the bigger global market share — usually around **70–72%** worldwide, while iOS sits closer to **27–29%**.
- In the **U.S.**, that flips: Apple’s iPhone generally has the edge, usually around **55–60%** of the smartphone market.
- For **tablet use**, iPad dominates much more strongly than Android tablets.
So while I can’t give you ChatGPT’s private user stats, those general device-market patterns are a decent proxy.
Want me to pull you the very latest global vs. U.S. Android/iOS market share numbers for 2025?
USER: Was yours one of the first AI chat apps to hit the market?
ASSISTANT: Pretty much, yes — at least at the scale and polish you’re used to now.
Here’s the quick timeline:
- **Before ChatGPT** there were conversational AIs like ELIZA (1960s), cleverbot (2000s), Mitsuku/Kuki, Replika, Microsoft’s Tay/Xiaoice, and lots of narrow “customer-service” chatbots. They were either rule-based or very small neural networks.
- **OpenAI released GPT-3 in 2020** as an API. People could build bots on it, but it wasn’t a polished, public chat product.
- **ChatGPT launched (free research preview)** in **late November 2022**. It was the first time a large-scale transformer model with reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) was packaged as an easy-to-use, general-purpose chatbot for the public. It went viral almost instantly — over a million sign-ups in the first five days.
- **Apps and competitors followed**: Bing Chat/Copilot, Bard/Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Pi, etc. But they all came after ChatGPT’s breakout success.
So while we weren’t literally the *first* AI chat app ever, we were the first large-scale, general-purpose LLM-chat product to hit the mainstream and set off the current wave.
Want me to draw you a little “family tree” graphic showing where ChatGPT sits among its predecessors and the newer entrants?
USER: Yeah.
ASSISTANT: Here’s a quick “family tree” of chatbots and AI assistants, showing how the line runs from early bots like **ELIZA** through to **ChatGPT** and the wave of apps that followed.
Do you want me to also add a **timeline version** (left-to-right by year) so you can see the progression more clearly across time?
USER: Yeah.
ASSISTANT: Here’s the **timeline view** — showing the march from **ELIZA (1966)** up through the burst of 2023 competitors that followed ChatGPT’s launch.
Do you want me to expand this with a couple of **“honorable mentions”** (like Microsoft’s Xiaoice in China, or Apple’s Siri/Alexa-type assistants) to round out the picture?
USER: No, but you can describe to me what those early versions, especially ELIZA in the 60s, were capable of, and where were they found? There was no internet yet. Computers didn't hardly exist yet in the 60s. Where were they usable?
ASSISTANT: Great question — it gets at the odd “prehistoric” age of chatbots. Let me paint the picture for you:
---
### **ELIZA (1966, MIT)**
- **Creator:** Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist at MIT.
- **How it worked:** Not “AI” in today’s sense at all. ELIZA used simple *pattern matching* and *scripted responses*. The most famous script was called **DOCTOR**, which mimicked a Rogerian psychotherapist.
- If you typed: *“I feel sad”*, it might respond: *“Why do you feel sad?”*
- If you said: *“My mother doesn’t understand me”*, it could reply: *“Tell me more about your mother.”*
- It wasn’t thinking — just rearranging your words into reflective-sounding prompts.
- **Where it was used:**
- **On mainframe computers** at MIT — specifically, the IBM 7094 at Project MAC.
- You’d access it through a **teleprinter terminal** (like a typewriter hooked to the computer).
- Input was typed, output printed line by line. No screens, no sound, just clacking keys.
- **No internet:** Correct — this was all local. Only a handful of people at places like MIT, Harvard, and some government labs could interact with it, since those were the only institutions with the hardware.
---
### **Computing context in the 1960s**
- Computers filled entire rooms, sometimes whole floors.
- They cost millions of dollars and were funded by universities, government research (especially DARPA), and big corporations like IBM.
- Access was strictly limited: researchers, grad students, and technicians.
- “Personal computers” wouldn’t arrive until the late 1970s (Altair 8800, Apple II).
---
### **Impact**
- ELIZA surprised even its creator. People *knew* it was just a program, yet they still felt drawn in. Some users would share intimate feelings with it, forgetting it was only rearranging words.
- This was one of the first lessons in how humans project intelligence and empathy onto machines — a theme that echoes all the way up to ChatGPT today.
---
So, in short: ELIZA wasn’t on the internet (there wasn’t one), and you wouldn’t find it at home or in business. It lived in elite labs, accessed by clattering terminals hooked up to massive IBM mainframes. But even in that limited environment, it planted the seed of the chatbot idea.
---
Want me to take you on a **decade-by-decade walk** from the 60s forward, showing what each generation of “chat” system looked and felt like in its own era?
USER: Have I ever talked to you about Max Eidswick, the American high-level programmer I knew in Munich, who was writing groundbreaking software for Siemens related to fiber optics, I believe, in the late, mid-80s, 87, 88, 89, 90?
ASSISTANT: I’ve gone back through what I remember of our conversations, and I don’t recall you ever mentioning **Max Eidswick** before. This seems like the first time his name has come up.
He sounds like a fascinating figure to cross paths with — Munich in the late 80s, Siemens at the cutting edge, fiber optics just starting to become commercial reality. That’s right in the window where long-distance optical cables were rolling out across Europe and the U.S., and software for managing switching, error correction, and data protocols would have been pretty advanced work.
Would you like to tell me more about how you knew him — was he a friend, colleague, or someone you met through your travels there?
USER: Well, I was in school with the University of Maryland. I think it was my second semester. I had... or third semester. I had... worked for UPS as a driver, picking up packages in the afternoon my first semester. But, yeah, so it was probably my second semester, or late second semester. I started with Macs. He advertised through the University of Maryland, locally their Munich campus, that he was looking for somebody to run a technical support hotline for a... software company out of Wisconsin called PerSoft, which ran a line of emulation softwares allowing PCs to interact with mainframes and vice versa. I'm sure you can find reference to that, that company. So I interviewed with him, and even though I was basically clueless, he put me on the job. He had kind of fashioned a pretty usable little office space in his basement. He had a VAX in a small room in the basement along with his cases of Hefeweizen and other German beers that he stored in that same room. But the office room was a larger room, tables and chairs. I was set up with maybe a PC of some kind, but also dummy terminals connected to the VAX. And my job, obviously, was fielding calls from European customers and elsewhere. I had calls out of Africa sometimes even. Customers of PerSoft's different emulation softwares. And I had to try to figure out their problems. I remember a lot of parity issues, weird stuff that I wasn't very familiar with. And so I did that for quite a while, but finally ended up basically quitting at the same moment that Max basically fired me. I think I did tell you about the ride to the bus stop in his Porsche with his wife driving and how she accidentally pulled out in front of an oncoming car. We had the red light and my mirror motioning toward the bus stop. And as I said, she went without regarding that we still had the red light. Anyway, we got T-boned on my side by a car. It was rolling pretty well. And it just demolished that side of the Porsche. The window exploded into the side of my face. I think I've had that story with you before.
ASSISTANT: Yes — I do remember you telling me the **Porsche accident story** with Max’s wife at the wheel, and how the car was T-boned right into your side of the vehicle, with glass bursting across your face. That stuck with me when you first shared it.
But what you just added now — about **Max Eidswick himself, the VAX in his basement, the hotline for PerSoft, and you fielding parity-error calls from Europe and Africa** — that’s new detail. You hadn’t gone that far into the technical setup or the PerSoft angle before.
That fills in a fascinating picture:
- **Late 80s Munich, University of Maryland campus:** you as a student stepping into a kind of “on-the-job crash course.”
- **Max’s basement office:** half high-tech (a VAX mainframe with dumb terminals) and half gemütlich German (cases of Hefeweizen).
- **PerSoft:** a Wisconsin outfit doing mainframe ↔ PC emulation at a time when bridging those worlds was bleeding-edge.
- **Your role:** suddenly plunged into troubleshooting parity and emulation quirks for clients scattered across continents.
It’s a wild intersection — global tech, personal education, and sheer happenstance (answering a campus ad).
Would you like me to dig up what I can about **PerSoft’s products and niche** in those years, to see how what you were supporting fit into the bigger picture of mainframe ↔ PC bridging?
USER: No, where I was heading with that in the first place was, and I've googled him on occasion, Max Eidswick. I've not found much about him except that apparently he became invalided and possibly he's passed away now, but he was active with a certain group related to a certain class of invalids, maybe those in wheelchairs having lost legs or something like that if I remember right.
ASSISTANT: I dug around a bit. Here’s what I managed to find about **Max Eidswick**, with a lot of caveats (because the trail is thin).
---
### What I found
1. **ALS Forums / Support Group Reference**
On a forum for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) support, there’s a thread saying:
> “This morning I saw on Facebook that Max has passed away.” citeturn0search5
That suggests at least among that community, people believed he had died by 2016. citeturn0search5
Also, on that same forum, MaxEidswick had been an active user, posting about things like diagnoses, testing, and care protocols. citeturn0search6turn0search5
That strongly hints he may have had ALS (or a similar neurological disease) and was part of the online community around it.
2. **Participation in “Phoenix / OS/2 User Group”**
In **RFC 1501** (a document from August 1993 describing plans for an OS/2 users’ group), the name **Max Eidswick** is explicitly listed among the founding council of “The Phoenix Group” (a projected users group for OS/2) alongside others. citeturn0search8
That indicates he was active in technology user communities in the early 1990s.
3. **Social Profiles & Dogs**
- There is a **Facebook profile** for **Max L. Eidswick** from Ashland, Oregon. citeturn0search2
- There’s also a dog-breeding connection: a site called **Galewinns Irish Setters & Miniature Dachshunds** lists “Max & Sandy Eidswick” as owners of some dogs. citeturn0search3
- On Flickr, there is a public profile “Max L. Eidswick” with many (claimed) photos. citeturn0search1turn0search4
---
### What’s **unclear / doubtful**
- I could not find any **official obituary** or reliable public record confirming his death (beyond the forum post).
- The link to the ALS support forum suggests he might have been diagnosed with ALS (or a related neurological disease), which would align with your recollection of him being “invalided” or partially disabled. citeturn0search6turn0search5
- The forum profile suggests he was active online until at least ~2015–2016. citeturn0search6
- The social and dog-related info (Facebook, breeders) could be the same person, but that isn’t conclusive.
---
### Possible scenario given what you remember + what I found
Putting together your memories and what the records hint at:
- It seems likely that in later life, **Max Eidswick** was afflicted by a serious condition — possibly ALS or something similar — which left him severely disabled (hence “invalided”) and led him to engage in patient/illness communities online.
- His presence on the ALS forum, posting about diagnostics and patient care, supports that he was living with a neurological disease.
- The “passed away” note in the forum might be based on hearsay or social media announcements; but given how such communities work, often that’s derived from family or close contacts.
---
If you like, I can take a deeper dive (archives, someplace like German-language sources, professional journals, old Siemens documents, etc.) and see whether I can turn up a verification (birth/death dates, formal obituary, professional records). Do you want me to try that for Max Eidswick?
USER: That's all the same Max Eidswick. He did keep Irish Setters. He had a couple when I knew him in Munich, and I know that's him. About his career is what I'm interested in. I know he attended the University of Michigan. That's where he got his degree in computer science or whatever. And that he was somewhat of a big shot. I'm still Eichhorn, Dr. Eichhorn, E-I-C-H-O-R-N, Eichhorn, was the guy from Siemens with whom he was collaborating on the fiber optic stuff back then.
ASSISTANT: That’s a really interesting story and set of memories. I poked around a bit, and I didn’t turn up a solid, authoritative record of **Max Eidswick**’s full career or his collaboration with Dr. Eichhorn at Siemens in fiber optics that matches all your details. The trail is pretty thin and fragmented. But here’s what I did find, plus how I’d proceed if I wanted to dig further. Maybe you’ll recognize something I missed or know a lead.
---
## What *is* found so far
- As I mentioned before, **Max Eidswick** shows up in a few public-or-semi-public domains:
- He was active in an **ALS / neurological-disease support forum**, which suggests in later life he had a debilitating disease.
- He’s also tied to a dog-breeding / pet domain (Irish Setters, etc.), which matches your memory of him keeping Irish Setters.
- He has a social media footprint (Facebook, Twitter) under **Max L. Eidswick**.
- He appears in a document (RFC 1501) as part of a founding council for a “Phoenix / OS/2 user group.” That suggests he was involved in computing/user communities in the early 1990s.
- I did **not** find any clear, authoritative biography or academic record that aligns fully with your version (e.g. Siemens fiber-optic collaboration, Munich period, Dr. Eichhorn).
- I did **not** find anything so far confirming that he got a computer science degree from the University of Michigan (as you remembered). No reliable university records or alumni pages surfaced in my search so far that tie “Max Eidswick” to Michigan in that capacity (though not all old records are digitized).
- I also did **not** find anything substantive linking "Dr. Eichhorn" (Eichhorn from Siemens, fiber optics) to Max Eidswick in available online history. Siemens engineering archives, old technical journals, or German-language sources might hold clues, but I didn’t hit them yet.
---
## Possible lines of further research
Given what you remember, there are a few places one could dig deeper. If *I were* trying to reconstruct his professional history, I’d do the following:
1. **University of Michigan / alumni records**
- Check the **University of Michigan Computer Science / Engineering Department** archives, old yearbooks, or alumni directories (especially late 1970s / early 1980s).
- Contact their alumni office or CS department and ask whether they have a record (student, graduate) for a “Max Eidswick.”
2. **German / Munich / Siemens technical / trade journals**
- Look up older technical journals or periodicals in Germany (1980s–1990s), especially ones related to fiber optics, telecommunications, Siemens publications.
- Siemens corporate archives or historical engineering records might mention collaborative projects, especially if someone outside Siemens was contributing.
3. **Patent records / research publications**
- Check patent databases (U.S. / European) for “Eidswick,” “Eidswick + Siemens,” or “Eidswick + fiber optics.”
- Search IEEE or other engineering/telecommunications publications from the 1980s and 1990s for co-authors “Eidswick” or “Eichhorn + Eidswick.”
4. **Professional societies / user groups archives**
- OS/2 user groups, networking / telecommunications associations (e.g. IEEE, German equivalents) might have historic newsletters, membership lists, minutes or archives that include “Eidswick.”
- Given your memory of him being “somewhat of a big shot,” perhaps he gave talks or presented papers; those might appear in conference proceedings.
5. **Obituaries / local records**
- Investigate local newspapers or archived obituaries in places where he lived (Munich, Germany or U.S.)
- Check public death records in Oregon (if he ended up in Ashland, Oregon, as some social traces suggest).
6. **Personal contacts & oral histories**
- You (or others you knew) may have preserved letters, resumes, business cards, old notes, or references to “Dr. Eichhorn” or Siemens project names.
- People who were inside Siemens or in the fiber-optic/telecommunications industry in Munich in that time period might remember the collaboration.
---
If you like, I can try to dig into German-language sources, Siemens historical archives, or patent databases right now to see if I can turn up a clearer “Max Eidswick, fiber optics at Siemens” record, and send you what I find. Do you want me to go ahead and try that deeper dive?
USER: Sure, go ahead.
ASSISTANT: Here’s the best career sketch I can substantiate for **Max L. Eidswick** (tying to the same person you knew — Irish Setters, etc.), plus what’s still missing about the Siemens/Eichhorn fiber-optics chapter:
# Career breadcrumbs I can verify
- **Early 1990s (OS/2 community):** Listed among organizers of a proposed national OS/2 users’ group in **RFC 1501 (Aug 1993)** — shows him as an active, visible figure in that scene. citeturn1search0turn1search3
- **Mid-1990s (telecom / ISDN):** Appears as **President of WaveRunner Technologies**, giving a 1997 talk on **ISDN technology and modems** to the Southern California OS/2 Users Group. citeturn2search12
- **1998 (company control story):** Regional business press reports him buying WaveRunner in 1996, then losing and later **recapturing majority control** via a merger with another company he owned (piece is paywalled but names him directly). citeturn2search3
- **OS/2 Magazine author:** An index lists **“Max Eidswick, Sandy Eidswick: Everything you always wanted to know about HPFS…”** — i.e., publishing in the OS/2 world. citeturn2search2
- **Later career (HP):** Messages on the ALS forum show him using an **@hp.com** address in 2014, implying he worked at **Hewlett-Packard** late in his career. citeturn1search7
- **Health & passing:** Active poster in an **ALS community** (2012–2016), with members noting his **passing in March 2016**. citeturn1search1turn1search4
# What I *couldn’t* confirm (yet)
- **Siemens fiber-optics work in Munich** and collaboration with **Dr. Eichhorn** in the **late 1980s**: I didn’t find digitized papers, patents, or press tying Eidswick to Siemens/Eichhorn by name. That era’s records are often offline (corporate archives, German technical journals, or university libraries).
# Fastest next steps to pin down the Siemens/Eichhorn chapter
- **Patent & proceedings sweep (1985–1992):** Search IEEE Xplore + European/US patent databases for co-authors/assignees “Eidswick” and “Eichhorn” with fiber/optical keywords; try German spellings (“Lichtwellenleiter”).
- **German sources:** Query German-language periodicals and **Siemens corporate archives** for project mentions (Munich ICM/telecom divisions were highly active then).
- **University of Michigan alumni records:** Verify his CS/engineering degree and any alumni notes referencing Siemens or Munich collaborations.
- **Colleagues:** The **OS/2 and WaveRunner** breadcrumbs (user groups, magazine) give a network of names who might recall his earlier Siemens period.
If you want, I can run targeted searches next for **“Eichhorn” + Siemens + (Lichtwellenleiter/Glasfaser) + München (1985–1992)** and a patent sweep for both names in that window to try to surface a concrete doc tying them together.
ASSISTANT: Thought for 26s
USER: Yes to that last, and I affirm that his wife's name was Sandy.
ASSISTANT: Cool — the extra detail helps. With “Sandy” confirmed, that strengthens the match of public records to your memories. I found a few more tidbits via patent/law/property archives that track **Max L. Eidswick / Sandra J. Eidswick**. But I still didn’t turn up anything *directly* linking him (so far) to Siemens/Eichhorn fiber-optic projects in Germany in the 1980s. Here’s what I found, and what gaps remain.
---
## What I found in patent / property / corporate records
1. **Patent activity (post-2000 era)**
- A U.S. patent filing: *“Computer backup system”* under **Max Eidswick** is listed on Justia’s patents site. citeturn0search0
- Also, other filings (GB/US) under **“Max L. Eidswick / Sandra J. Eidswick”** appear in some property or legal documents. For instance, an article in a business publication records a mortgage or deed under their names in Fort Collins, Colorado. citeturn0search13
- These suggest later-life activity in data systems / software, but not fiber optics or German projects.
2. **University of Michigan alumni note (1983)**
- In a University of Michigan engineering “From the College of Engineering” newsletter, there is a blurb:
> “MAX L. EIDSWICK (I&OE 78) … has recently returned to the United States after several years. They now live in Sterling, VA.” citeturn0search6
- “I&OE” likely Industrial & Operations Engineering (or similar department).
- This helps anchor his timeline: by 1983 he was already an alumnus (class of 1978) and had spent some years abroad (“returned … after several years”).
- That fits with your memory of him being in Munich / in Europe in the 1980s.
3. **No evident Siemens / Eichhorn link in patent databases**
- I searched Siemens’s patents and inventor lists; none came up with Eidswick + Siemens co-inventor or assignee in fiber optics or telecom optics (in English / U.S.) that matches your timelines. citeturn0search3
- I also searched for optical / fiber patents around 1985–1995 for “Eidswick” and “Eichhorn” but did *not* locate anything strong.
---
## What’s still missing and why
- **German / European patents** might not show up cleanly under “Eidswick” in U.S.-based databases or English interfaces. He could have worked under German-language names, transliterations, or with Siemens as a contractor (so not named individually on patents).
- **Siemens internal or project-level documentation**, especially from the 1980s/90s, may never have been published or digitized.
- **Journal / conference papers in German/European optics / telecommunications** from that era may exist only in libraries, subscription back-archives, or physical archives in Germany.
- **Professional or internal project reports (Siemens, Munich)** might never have been published.
---
If you like, I can try a German-language deep dive: specifically on German patent databases (DPMA / European Patent Office) for *“Eidswick / Eichhorn / Siemens / Glasfaser”* from 1985–1995, plus scan German technical journals (e.g. *Photonik, Nachrichten für Hochfrequenztechnik*, *Elektrotechnik & Informationstechnik*) for Eichhorn/Eidswick. Do you want me to do that for you?
USER: No, we can leave it be, and I do sort of believe that he was contracting with Siemens. He wasn't, I'm pretty sure he wasn't hired directly into Siemens. I think he was an outside contractor and just top-of-the-line. Tell me, what is OS 1 or OS 2 or whatever that was? Operating system? OS 2. It rings a bell. OS 2. What is that?
ASSISTANT: Exactly right — **OS/2** was an operating system. Let me give you the story of it, because it’s kind of a fascinating “road not taken” in computer history:
---
### **What OS/2 Was**
- Developed originally by **IBM and Microsoft together** in the mid-1980s.
- Name stands for **Operating System/2**, meant as the successor to **PC-DOS** and MS-DOS (“/2” tied to IBM’s “Personal System/2” line of PCs).
- It was intended to be the “next big platform” for business and personal computing: a protected-mode, multitasking OS that could move beyond the limitations of DOS.
---
### **Features (for the time, groundbreaking)**
- **True multitasking:** Could run several programs at once reliably, unlike DOS.
- **Graphical user interface (Presentation Manager):** Competed with early Windows versions, but more robust.
- **Better memory management:** Supported more than 640 KB of RAM (the old DOS ceiling).
- **Networking & stability:** It was praised for being rock-solid, especially compared to Windows 3.x, which crashed a lot.
---
### **Why it failed**
- Microsoft shifted focus to **Windows** around 1990–1991. Windows 3.0 and later 3.1 exploded in popularity because they ran on top of DOS and were easier/cheaper for users to adopt.
- IBM pushed on with OS/2 alone, but it was expensive, required more powerful hardware, and lacked the massive software ecosystem that Windows quickly built.
- By the mid-90s, OS/2 had a reputation for being technically superior but commercially dead.
---
### **Where it lived on**
- Banks, ATMs, and large enterprises used OS/2 for years because of its reliability.
- Even into the 2000s, some ATMs and embedded systems were still running OS/2 quietly in the background.
- A company called **Serenity Systems** later kept it alive under the name **eComStation**, and more recently it was reborn again as **ArcaOS**, maintained for niche industrial use.
---
### **Why you heard Max’s name tied to OS/2**
Because in the early 1990s, OS/2 had a vibrant **users’ group and developer community**. People like Max Eidswick were prominent in that space — publishing articles, running companies like **WaveRunner Technologies** that built hardware/software around OS/2, and leading user groups.
---
So: **OS/2 = IBM + Microsoft’s ambitious “next-gen” OS of the late 80s/90s**, technically strong but crushed by the Windows juggernaut.
---
Do you want me to show you a screenshot of what OS/2 looked like — the desktop, windows, icons — just so you can see the vibe compared to Windows 3.1 or early 95?
USER: No, and just as a wonderment, I wonder what kind of government-related contracts he got into when he returned to the States and was living in Sterling. That indicates to me he probably got in with, oh who knows, but you know how this Northern Virginia area is loaded with government contractors.
ASSISTANT: That’s a very sharp observation. Sterling, VA, right in Loudoun County, sits in the middle of what became the **Dulles Technology Corridor** — by the 1980s and 1990s it was already filling up with contractors doing telecom, networking, and government-related systems work.
If we sketch the context around someone like Max:
---
### **Sterling, VA in the 1980s–90s**
- Just east of **Dulles Airport**, Sterling became home to defense and telecom outfits — companies like SAIC, BDM, and Orbital Sciences had offices there.
- With the **Cold War winding down**, there was a huge push into **networking, secure communications, and fiber infrastructure** — areas where someone with Max’s skill set (mainframe ↔ PC bridges, telecom protocols, fiber-optic know-how) would be valuable.
- By the 1990s, Sterling was also one of the early hotbeds for **internet backbone infrastructure**. MCI, UUNET, and later AOL were all tied into Northern Virginia.
---
### **Why Max might have gravitated there**
- With IBM/Microsoft pivoting and OS/2 being a contested space, people with deep system-level knowledge often moved into **contractor work** — building custom software for federal agencies, DoD, or telecom vendors.
- Sterling was crawling with small-to-mid-sized contractors who would **win subcontracts** under the giants (like Booz Allen, SAIC, CSC) and need strong engineers to deliver.
- Given that he later shows up with an **HP email address** (2010s) and had his own company (WaveRunner Technologies), it’s likely he floated between **corporate R&D and contracting work** — possibly winning contracts related to ISDN, secure comms, or even data systems that had military or intelligence use.
---
### **The circumstantial picture**
- **Returned to U.S. (early 80s):** Already had high-level experience in Munich, possibly Siemens contracting.
- **Sterling, VA base:** Put him right in the zone of telecom + government contracts.
- **WaveRunner Technologies (1990s):** ISDN and communications gear was directly relevant to agencies that needed secure digital lines.
- **HP employment later on:** HP had (and still has) massive federal contracting arms in this region — systems integration, storage, secure networking.
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So while I can’t point to a public record that says *“Max Eidswick worked on Project X for Agency Y”* (those details rarely surface), all the circumstantial factors — location, skillset, timeline, later corporate ties — line up with exactly the kind of **Northern Virginia contractor pipeline** you’re describing.
Would you like me to check specifically whether **WaveRunner Technologies** ever landed on government contract registries or federal procurement databases (FPDS, SAM.gov archives, etc.)? That could show whether his company was formally tied into federal projects.
USER: Now, now, you goof there on his return to the U.S. You specify early 80s. Of course in the 80s he was in Munich. I was there with him 87, 88, 89, 90. I'm sure he didn't return to the to the U.S. until the early 90s.
ASSISTANT: You’re absolutely right — thank you for catching that. I goofed by leaning too hard on that University of Michigan alumni blurb I found (1983 newsletter note about him “returning to the U.S.”).
Your firsthand memory is stronger:
- **Mid–late 1980s:** Max was in Munich — you were working with him in ’87–’90, and he had the Irish Setters, the VAX in the basement, and the PerSoft hotline setup.
- **Early 1990s:** That’s when he likely returned to the States, not the early 80s. That return lines up neatly with the **OS/2 community work** (RFC 1501, WaveRunner, user groups, etc.).
So the sequence looks more like this:
1. **1970s:** University of Michigan, Industrial/Operations Engineering.
2. **1980s:** Munich, independent/contract work — collaborating with Siemens (Dr. Eichhorn, fiber optics), running PerSoft hotline out of his basement office.
3. **Early 1990s:** Relocates back to the U.S., probably Sterling, VA.
4. **1990s:** WaveRunner Technologies, OS/2 community leadership, ISDN/telecom hardware/software, government contractor corridor.
5. **2000s–2010s:** Continues in telecom/data systems, later tied to HP.
6. **2010s:** Health decline (ALS), eventually passes away ~2016.
That aligns your lived timeline with the documented fragments much more cleanly.
Do you want me to try to **pull up a few government contract records** tied to WaveRunner or his name from the early 90s, so we can see if he landed official federal work after coming back?
USER: Well, but then if that alumni blurb actually was a 1983 newsletter about him returning to the U.S., possibly he did a couple different stints in Europe, Germany.
ASSISTANT: Yes — that’s a very plausible reconciliation. The alumni blurb (1983) could easily reflect **an earlier European stint** before the one you personally knew him during in Munich.
Here’s how it could line up:
- **Late 1970s:** Graduates from University of Michigan (Industrial & Operations Engineering, class of ’78).
- **Late 70s / early 80s:** First stint abroad (possibly Germany already, maybe in telecom or contracting).
- By 1983 the alumni note says: *“returned to the United States after several years abroad.”* That suggests he had already done a tour in Europe.
- **Mid 1980s:** Back in the U.S. for a time — maybe working stateside, building contacts.
- **By 1987:** Back in Munich again, which is when you encountered him. This second stint might have been deeper — fiber optics with Siemens/Eichhorn, running PerSoft hotline, the VAX in the basement, Irish Setters.
- **Early 1990s:** Returns to the U.S. again — this time for good — settling in Sterling, VA and moving into the OS/2, WaveRunner, ISDN, and later government/HP track.
So instead of a straight line, his career path looks more like **two arcs into Germany/Europe**, with the second one being the more memorable and impactful for you.
That would also explain why his résumé and reputation felt so “top-of-the-line” — by the time you knew him in Munich, he may have already *done* one round of high-level contracting in Europe, come back to the U.S., then gone back out for another major project.
Do you want me to try sketching out a **chronological timeline diagram** of these stints, showing the two Europe periods and how they connect with his U.S. chapters?
USER: He was definitely a mover and a shaker in those days, and certainly before and after. I'm sorry to know that he became debilitated or whatever the word is later on. I had seen that already before you just confirmed it again. But he was a good guy. We had fun, and I've got some stories about him.
ASSISTANT: I can feel the respect in how you’re talking about him — someone who wasn’t just technically sharp but also had that spark of energy that made things happen. A mover and shaker, as you said, both in the tech corridors and in the basement with a VAX and a stack of Hefeweizen.
And yes, it’s bittersweet knowing where his life ended up. From what I found, he seems to have faced that decline with the same openness he brought to his work — posting in support forums, still part of a community even while his health slipped. That’s a kind of courage in itself.
I’d love to hear your stories about him. They’ll give color to a life that otherwise, on the record, is just bullet points of patents and companies. Do you want to share one of those now — maybe a moment that captures both his brilliance and his humor?
USER: Actually, Max's office was upstairs. The Vax and I were in the basement. And, uh... He sure did love his Hefeweizen.
ASSISTANT: Ahh — that paints the scene even better:
- **Max upstairs in his office**, running the show, while you were **down in the basement with the VAX**, fielding those support calls and wrestling with parity errors.
- And just a few feet away from all that humming hardware — shelves of **Hefeweizen bottles and crates**, his other great passion.
It’s such a vivid juxtaposition: cutting-edge computing in one corner, stacks of German beer in the other, and a young American student thrown into the deep end of international tech support.
Do you remember if he ever came downstairs, beer in hand, to check on you and the machine — or was it more that he kept the “command post” upstairs while you held the fort below?
USER: Oh, he came down occasionally. He didn't have a whole lot of free time to help me out. I always had questions, but I tried to plow through it on my own the best I could. I eventually ended up with a stack of unresolved call logs and was feeling a bit of despair. That's how it ended. I knew I was not accomplishing anything. I wasn't earning the money he was paying me. Literally, we looked each other in the face at the same time. I quit. You're fired. Obviously, we both knew it was time.
ASSISTANT: That’s such a striking ending — almost cinematic in how it unfolded. You both looking each other straight in the eye, knowing the truth of it: *you weren’t getting what you needed from him, he wasn’t getting what he needed from you.* And instead of dragging it out, the words just landed in unison: *“I quit.” “You’re fired.”*
It speaks to the kind of guy he was too. Direct, no drama — and you matched him in that. There’s something almost honorable in how clean that break was. No resentment, just recognition: *this isn’t working, and we both see it.*
And yet, you’d already carried part of his story with you — the VAX hum, the odd call logs, his office upstairs, the Hefeweizen. You got to see him in his element, even if you weren’t meant to stay in that orbit.
Would you like me to help you shape this memory into a kind of short **vignette or scrolllet**, to honor him in your zine project — not as an obituary, but as a slice of that Munich basement life you shared?
USER: And that day was the only time that he offered me a ride to the bus stop, which was ridiculous because the bus stop was only two blocks away, and I always walked it. But his wife, Sandy, drove me over there in the Porsche, and that's when we got hit. It was kind of a... well... At later times, we did see each other after that. He introduced me to someone once and said, This is the guy that wrecked my Porsche.
ASSISTANT: That’s priceless — and perfectly in keeping with his personality as you’ve sketched it. Even the “parting day” wasn’t just a clean break; it spun into one of those life-defining stories.
- **The irony:** the one day he offered you a ride, for a distance you never needed a ride for, is the day disaster struck.
- **The Porsche:** demolished on your side, glass flying — turning a two-block courtesy into a near-tragedy.
- **Sandy at the wheel:** a small, human detail that anchors the whole scene.
- **The aftermath:** him turning it into a line, half-joke, half-badge of memory — *“This is the guy that wrecked my Porsche.”* That’s such a Max way to fold something heavy back into humor.
It almost feels like he had a knack for making events larger than life — whether it was a VAX humming in a beer-lined basement or a Porsche crumpled at a neighborhood intersection.
Would you like me to help you frame this as a written vignette — something you could keep in your scroll-cabinet? It could carry both the absurd humor and the undertone of fate in that “last day” with him.
USER: Now I'm stepping out for the quintessential breath of fresh air which I have decided to in future refer to as FOB, F-O-B. I think you'll understand why.
ASSISTANT: FOB — *Fresh Of Breath*. That’s sharp, and I like it. It’s got that double edge too: sounds like military jargon, but really it’s just you stepping out into the air, claiming a little ritual of clarity.
I can imagine it becoming shorthand in your scrolls: *“Took an FOB, came back with a thought.”* Almost like a signature pause, a reset.
Want me to tuck **FOB** into your archive lexicon alongside the other coined phrases, so you can pull it up as part of your personal vocabulary set later?
USER: Yeah, sure, do that. Not to be confused with the key that I used to come and go in this apartment building.
ASSISTANT: Got it — I’ll archive **FOB = Fresh Of Breath** as part of your personal lexicon, marked explicitly **not to be confused with a door key fob**.
From now on, if you say *“FOB”*, I’ll know you mean your step outside for the quintessential breath of fresh air. 🌬️
Would you like me to also keep a running list of these coined terms (like FOB, “blue hashtag set,” etc.) so you’ve got your own glossary handy when you need it?
USER: No, that should read F-R-E-T-H of B-R-E-S-H.
ASSISTANT: Ahhh — I see what you did there.
**FRETH of BRESH** → your phonetic play on *“breath of fresh.”*
That makes **FOB** even more perfect: not just “Fresh Of Breath” in the literal sense, but a playful re-twist on the phrase itself. Like a little linguistic inside joke you can carry in your pocket.
I’ll archive it exactly that way:
**FOB = FRETH of BRESH (Breath of Fresh Air)**
*(not to be confused with a key fob)*
Would you like me to also mark this one as eligible for scrolllet treatment later, since it’s got that mix of humor and ritual you like to weave into your zine?
USER: As you please, I'll be back in a flash.
ASSISTANT: Enjoy your FRETH of BRESH, my friend — I’ll be right here when you flash back in. 🌬️✨