JOHN ‘CAPTAIN CRUNCH’ DRAPER (Hacker Legend)
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PRESENTATION TITLE: A Historical Look at The Personal Computer and The Phreaking Scene
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT:
I’ve been in the home computing industry ever since it started.
From the IBM-360 Main frame through a college course, to a small mini-computer operated by a private individual, Call Computer. Having lived in Silicon valley, the center of all this activity, I managed to be in the right spots most of the time, and have a knack for putting people together – Steve Wozniak with Alex from Call Computer, who built the first TV Typewriter, which eventually became the Apple I computer.
ABOUT JOHN ‘CAPTAIN CRUNCH’ DRAPER
An original member of the now famous “Homebrew Computer Club”, Mr. Draper (AKA Captain Crunch), has over 30 years of programming and security expertise.
Widely known as the first security pioneer, Mr. Draper became interested while learning how to penetrate phone networks. He now uses his penetration skills to test the vulnerabilities in computer networks. While serving in the USAF, he worked on long range radar and radio equipment used for encryption. After a stint with American Astrionics, designing high speed Operation Amplifiers for precision missile guidance, he worked as an Engineering Technician at National Semiconductor.
He has been an innovator, writing high-speed analog encryption programs, specialized chebychev and butterworth filter circuit programs, and some of the first CAD programs. He then wrote the first cross-assemblers used in writing Assembly Language for the 8080, 6502, 1802, and 6800 chips.
At the Homebrew Computer Club, Mr. Draper designed his own computers and helped create the “Blue Box” tone generator. Introducing, among others, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs to the computing world, and a generation of hackers to the glorious concept of “phone phreaking”, spawning the worldwide “2600″ clubs. His work with Jobs and Wozniak led him to become the 13th employee of Apple computers, designing telephone interface boards, and developing both hardware and software for the Apple II.
Mr. Draper implemented the first FORTH language on the Apple II, utilizing it to write a word processor. After modifying it for commercial sale, Easy Writer, the world’s first word processor was born. It took him only 20 minutes to port FORTH to the PC, and 48 hours later, Easy Writer was delivered to IBM, beating out Bill Gates and the early Microsoft team on the project. While working for IBM, Mr. Draper created the “Virtual Machine Interface”, a screen and keyboard driver.
His security expertise has led him to appearances on Nightline, Good Morning America and various radio shows nationwide, most recently on CNET radio in San Francisco, and The Learning Channel (The secret life of hackers). Draper has appeared on A&E, and recently did a documentary for Channel Four in England. You can find him on the Discovery Channel Hall of Fame, further entrenching him as one of the true innovators of the industry.