Alan Kelemen

[David W Schroth]

The original author of the forwarded email that I saw regarding Alan
Kelemen graciously gave me permission to share the following on this
newsgroup:

I am vey sorry to report that Alan Kelemen passed away on November
5th. Alan lived near Frankfurt, Germany. He contracted Covid and a
respiratory infection about three weeks ago and was in intensive care
for the last two weeks. Alan was dagnosed with leukemia about three
years ago and the disease was well controlled with a modern drug he
took every day. But that disease compromises the immune system system
and can greatly increase the severity of viral and bacteriological
infections.

Alan was 78 years old and quite thin, so his natural reserves were low
to begin with. Alan is survived by two brothers, neither of whom
speak English. I don't speak German, so all recent information was
obtained via another friend who lives in that country.

Alan began offering technical assistance with PS/2200 in 2003 and we
soon became fast friends. His knowledge of OS 2200 software (and
hardware) was prodigious. I could ask him anything and he either
answered immediately or could discover the answer with only a few
minutes of research. Without Alan, PS/2200 would have run only SOS in
basic mode, and nobody wuld have heard of it. I started off as a
reasonably competent BM MASM programmer with a desire to compile and
run my programs at home. Alan opened my eyes to the wonders of
extended mode and all of the intricacies of the hardware and software
interfaces necessary to boot the real OS 2200. Regarding most things
2200, having Alan as a friend was like having a direct line to God.

Alan and I spoke for an hour or two almost every week. We only met
face to face three times, but he became like a brother to me. Alan
was unusual because he treated me as an equal even though there was a
vast difference in our level of knowledge, especially at the
beginning. He was uncommonly humble for a person of such high
intelligence. Most probably don't know that Alan obtained a PhD in
theoretical physics but ended up working with computers because there
weren't many jobs available in that field.

I plan to continue issuing PS/2200 licenses and supporting it as best
as I can.I want everyone to understand that fixes and new features may
take longer in coming and I may require assistance from time to time
depending on the difficulty.Right now I feel like the floor has been
kicked out from under my feet.

Sincerely,

Ward Condit
Author of PS/2200


And for myself, I will first apologize for any typos I introduced when
typing in Ward's message.

In my forty-five years of supporting systems, debugging problems,
writing and maintaining code, I have met very many talented people.
Linda Dowdy, Chuck Caldarale, Doug Eney, and others whose names do not
come immediately to mind. In my opinion, Alan Kelemen fits
comfortably in the top rank of the talented people I have worked with.
He will be missed.

Regards,

David W. Schroth

[es]

David W Schroth schrieb am Mittwoch, 22. November 2023 um 02:12:29 UTC+1:
<snip-snap>

I am the "another friend" mentioned in Ward's message above and can just endorse what's been said. Having had the pleasure and honor to work
with Alan for more than 25 years on numerous OS2200 related tasks, it never had the taste of "work" - it was pure fun and
enthusiasm. Although I'm out of the OS2200 world for quite some years now, we were still in contact every now and then.
There are not many people with that deep and wide OS2200 knowledge, with this capability to read and improve even very complex code just like this.
He will be missed indeed.

[Andrew]

Hi Erich, good to see you are still around, even if you have gone over
to the dark side.

[bill]

I didn't know Alan but I have often wondered what ever happened to
our long time Univac 1100 CE at West Point. His name was Yves Daneels
and I assume he eventually retired and went home to Canada.

bill

[es]

Andrew schrieb am Donnerstag, 28. Dezember 2023 um 18:47:12 UTC+1:

> Hi Erich, good to see you are still around, even if you have gone over
> to the dark side.

Hi Andy, yes, lurking in couple of times a year to see what's going on.