RIP, Steven L. Inness

Filed under: Computers, Death, Gadgets
7 Comments

When I was in 7th and 8th grade, at Wilbur Middle School, the school's computer lab had a couple of NorthStar Horizon computers. They were running an operating system called SLIDOS.

It turned out that it was called that because it had been written by a guy named Steven L. Inness. He had gone to Palo Alto High School, and then had stayed in the Palo Alto area, doing various computery things. He occasionally hung out at the Wilbur computer lab, though I vaguely think he spent more time at the computer lab at Jordan, the other middle school. He was in his mid-twenties. I have no idea how he ended up supplying the operating system for the middle school computers, nor whether SLIDOS was available anywhere other than those computers.

I thought of him as Steven, but apparently he was more widely known as Steve. His other main piece of tech that I was aware of was a device he called the Lunar Crooner; it was a (wooden?) box about the size of a cigar box, hung on a strap around his neck, with a set of toggle switches on one side and mysterious electronics inside. By setting the switches, he could make the box generate all sorts of sounds, including phone-related sounds; I think that was my first exposure to the idea of phone phreaking. My father told me about Captain Crunch (I don't remember whether that was in response to my telling him about the Crooner, or whether it was earlier), but Steve actually knew him.

I was never close friends with Steve. He was an interesting guy, and I was impressed at his technical prowess, but I never spent much time with him. But friends of mine did, so I occasionally heard bits and pieces of what he was up to. But I hadn't heard anything about him in some years.

So I was sad to learn last night that he died a couple of years ago, apparently suicide. He had been living in Davis, apparently a familiar face around town, active in various computer- and bicycle-related groups. He was apparently homeless fairly often, but widely known and liked in the community. Various obituaries and memorial articles note that he was hit by a train, and a couple of them mention suicide; I haven't seen an explicit statement that his death was officially ruled a suicide, but that seems to have been generally understood, so I'm guessing that there was such a statement at some point.

Some relevant articles and pages:

(Side note for later searchability: I always thought his last name was spelled “Innes,” with only one S, but a bunch of sources confirm that it was “Inness.”)

7 Responses to “RIP, Steven L. Inness”

  1. Skippy

    Steve was a Child Molester. He took advantage of kids looking for knowledge.

    reply

    • Michelle

      Can I ask how you know this? I’m simply curious.

      reply

      • Brian Johnston

        I can confirm that Steve was, unfortunately, a child molester. I grew up in Redding, CA, and my good friend connected with Steve somehow (likely a BBS) nd eventually Steve visited us in Redding. We were 11 or 12 years old roughly, so this would have been 1984 or 1985. It was incredibly odd for someone that age to be hanging out with us, but I assumed it was just shared love of technology, phreaking, building blue boxes, etc. But it was when he would try to rub our backs ackwardly that I knew something wasn’t adding up and I refused to be around him any more. I’m glad someone else had a similar experience and that I wasn’t imaging it.

        reply

      • Skippy

        I was one of his victims. Just a dumb kid who didn’t understand what was going on at first, but hungry for knowledge, so I put up with his constant advances. I have heard reports of others who experienced the same thing, and know one other person directly who had the same experience. I wish it wasn’t so. He was brilliant, and I learned a lot from him, but it has taken me decades to get past what he did.

        reply

  2. Rebecca Griner

    I lived next door to the inness’ house. I was friends with them and took “each one teach one classes on programming from Steve at Jordan”. I was closer in age to his younger sisters. They were all odd, but I haven’t any recollection of inappropriate sexual advances. My older cousins used to sunbathe naked on the rooftop outside our second floor bedroom directly facing Steve’s bedroom window. They called him a peeping Tom even though he was younger i think, One might say they were exposing themselves. They were big on that kind of thing, Streaking at school even in Junior High at Jordan for example. The innesses were from Canada and Mr Inness was like a Scottish Woodsman. Tweedy and smoking a pipe, visiting often for a cup of coffee and to speak with my grandparents. His wife died horribly of a genetic disease that is autosomal dominant and the girls published important work on the ethics of genetic data. All of them were brilliant. The girls both got the disease Same disease that took Woody Guthrie and being identical twins they knew that once one got it the other one was sure to follow. In the years their mother was dying, she became a howling lunatic confined to a bedroom and screaming in fierce agony for years. We could hear her next door, like a wild animal. The kids would come over to our house for relief. It was during one of these visits but after she had passed away and while they were processing the experience, that i witnessed the twins form a suicide pact with each other. To avoid that end, They called it “Jumping in front of a bus.” I believe the train episode was an expression of that childhood pact. Steve claimed to be stateless and he did not carry ID he visited us even near his death. One of the sisters visited us too. about 12 years ago, around 2011-12 in summer She was symptomatic, She wanted to visit Steve in Sacramento. She told me her sister had jumped in front of a bus. We tried to help her, but her mind and body were very altered, and it was difficult. Ultimately we just helped her get to some Physical Therapy at the JCC. Going back to around the late 1980’s, I went on a trip in a Van with some other members of the homegrown computer club including the famous phone Phreak John Draper “Cap’n Crunch” to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. They had one hotel room for a vanload of geeks -and me. We all slept on the floor and John and one other guy who paid for the room got the bed. Probably 8 or more in one room for the weekend, Nobody molested me and they weren’t having sex in there.

    reply

    • Michelle

      How so very sad. He and both sisters, who were twins, developed Huntington’s disease. It is such a horrible illness. One of the sisters, Julie, was my Philosophy professor in college. She had just come to the school the first year I took a class with her. She too was socially awkward brilliant, like her brother. I’ve suspected that they were on the autism spectrum scale. She seemed to live in her own world in many ways, but loved sharing her ideas around philosophy, particularly feminist political theory. I will always have fond memories of her.

      reply

  3. Dave

    I knew Steve when I was a camper at The Original Computer Camp in Lake Tahoe, I believe in the summer of 1982. He was a counselor who showed me the Lunar Crooner which impressed me mightily. It was inspirational as was his talent for electical engineering and programming. It was my first real exposure to computers and I was so excited by it all. The next year I returned to the camp and he was there, though in a different capacity. I think he just visited for a day or two. One day, toward the end of my stay there we hung out and caught up. I did get the feeling that he was trying to get me to come back to his room and I felt a little uncomfortable, but was able to avoid doing so. I was probably 15 then, so not a lot of wisdom or life experience. He was socially awkward, so it could have been that. As I got older and went into psychology (as well as information technology) I wondered if perhaps Steve was on the autism spectrum. People have speculated as much about his friend John Draper, Cap’n Cruch, who Steve also told me about.

    Steve and I kept in touch infrequently over the years via random exchanges of letters. In 2014 I connected with him on LinkedIn and he remembered me, saying ” I TOTALLY remember you from CC [computer camp]. Also your sister! In fact, I can count everyone I remember with the fingers of one hand… I’m glad life has (apparently) been good to you.
    Best wishes to you,

    Steve”

    I guess those were happier days for him. I am saddened to hear of his struggles and demise. He is one of a small number of people who fueled my passion for technology which led me into the bulk of my career. I think of him from time to time and feel appreciative.

    reply

Join the Conversation

Click here to cancel reply.