Bob Swoger (K9WVY)

Bob Swoger was very active in the Chicago Area Timex Users Group, especially with the club newsletter, Nite-Times News, and in hosting their bulletin board system. One version of the BBS ran on a DEC PDP 11/23 with software that Bob wrote without having seen another BBS (he comments on this in one of his columns, Gator’s Twisted Pair, that appeared in the club newsletter).

During the Sunstate Timex/Sinclair Winterfest ’88, Mel Nathanson proposed forming a national Timex/Sinclair user group, the Sinclair Northamerica Users Group (SNUG). The idea bounced around for a year or so, but for a variety of reasons, didn’t really get off the ground. The Timex/Sinclair NorthAmerican User Groups formed from several folks involved in SNUG, including Don Lambert.

A while later, Bob thought it’d be good to start a newsletter. He called Don in April 1991 and suggested they put out a newsletter. Lambert was recently retired and had experience editing his local user group’s newsletter. With Lambert as the initial chairperson, T/SNUG’s first newsletter came in Spring 1991. The newsletter, ZXir QLive Alive!, was named by Al Feng. The name was an obvious nod to Clive Sinclair, incorporating ZX from the Z80-based computers and QL from the 68000-based QL computer.

ZXir QLive Alive! was published quarterly for 12 years, from 1991 to 2003.

At the same time, Bob had purchased a Larken disk system for his TS 2068. The Larken disk system (and Oliger) did not use the built-in Timex disk commands (CAT, ERASE, MOVE, etc). Instead Larken commands required a RANDOMIZE 100 or PRINT #4 as part of the command structure.

Bob took it upon himself to build a menu-driven front-end to the Larken disk system, LogiCall. He maintained and improved it for a number of years. At some point, he ported it over to the Radio Shack Color Computer (Bob was also involved in the Glenside Color Computer Club, the same group that has hosted the “Last” Chicago CoCo Fest for 31 years).

Bob was also a life-long amateur radio operator ham (K9WVY). He was just as enthusiastic about being a ham as computers.

He worked for Motorola from 1965 until he retired in 2002. He was in the original MICOR Mobile design team from 1969 on, later working on the design teams of Saber, Cosmos and Spectra radios.

Bob passed away December 18, 2022.

Bob Swoger Demonstrating LogiCall on the TS 2068