John Edwin Everson (1942-2021), known to his friends and family as Jack, was a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer during the dawn of two major eras in the 20th century: the Space Race and the ascent of the Personal Computer. A native New Yorker and lifelong resident of Long Island, Jack had an early fascination with science and technology. At the ripe age of thirteen, he began working at a television repair shop, where he quickly gained a reputation as a wunderkind who could fix anything. He studied Electrical Engineering at Hofstra University and started his career in the aviation industry.
Jack's proudest achievement came in 1966, when he contributed to the design of NASA's Surveyor moon probe, developing the power systems. Surveyor played an integral role in the United States' space program and laid the groundwork for the Apollo manned missions to the moon. Jack and his fellow engineers etched their names under one of Surveyor's panels and mused, "How many people do you know have their names on the moon?"
On sleepless nights, Jack would toss and turn, plotting out engineering diagrams and solving mechanical problems in his head. He was constantly tinkering and modifying the objects around him, always looking to build the ne plus ultra-the perfect, ideal version of something, simply for fun, whether at home or to push something to its maximum potential at work.
Then came the now-iconic January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which introduced the Altair 8800 - the first personal computer available to the general public.For Jack, the idea of owning a computer and having one at home was nothing short of life-changing. That moment sparked a lifelong passion for computing and provided him with an outlet for his engineering talents. He saw it as a way to experiment, solve problems, and bring his ideas to fruition. Jack threw himself into learning everything he could, subscribing to stacks of computer magazines and joining the famous Home Brew Computer Club to connect with others who shared his passion. His collection grew significantly, including issues of Byte, Kilobaud Microcomputing, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobb's Journal, and, of course, Popular Electronics - the publication that marked the beginning of a revolution that would shape both his life and the future of technology.
In 1975, Jack co-founded Computer Paramedics, a company that leveraged the then-brand-new Altair 8800 personal computers to build one of the earliest digital medical record databases for hospitals. His time in this nascent industry also brought him into contact with the founders of MITS (the creators of the Altair 8800), as evident in his numerous written correspondences, where he worked on troubleshooting the early eccentricities of the 8800 and its components. While Jack was dealing with the eternal struggle of tech support, he was seeking a way to make every aspect of his Altair 8800 experience better: testing the computer's RAM chips thoroughly, sending detailed printouts of error logs, and even handcrafting a highly customized shipping container that ensured his Altairs would survive the trip to and back to MITS headquarters unscathed.
Jack went on to work at Tektronix, a company known for its cutting-edge, high-end workstations. As a Sales Engineer (a position he created at Tektronix), Jack understood the product beyond the sales pitch, being able to address the most obscure technical questions and guide customers to finding the right machine for their use case. His reputation for building complex systems and solving problems for his industrial, aerospace, and government clients, such as Boeing, Grumman, and Brookhaven Laboratory, positioned him as one of the
highest-performing individuals at the company, earning him the designation of a Tektronix Master for multiple years. For Jack, being a Master was much more than a title; it was a source of immense pride.
When Jack wasn't working on high-end computer hardware in his professional life, he found his happy place in the basement of his home, a personal computer lab filled with a myriad of different generations of computer equipment, including a Tektronix 4052 graphics desktop system, Commodores, Amigas, Macs, and PCs, but it was the Altair 8800, the device that started it all, that continued to capture his imagination. Long after its heyday, Jack was still using the Altair to run a home billing system he had built in the late 1970's that printed checks on a dot-matrix printer and meticulously tracked every transaction to his exacting standards. His passion for technology and engineering was more than a hobby - it was a way of thinking, a belief that human ingenuity could reach farther, soar higher, and transform the world for the better. It's a mindset he passed on to his children and grandchildren, and one that lives on in the tools, ideas, and innovations he left behind.
