The turbo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frank Borland is more mystique than mystic, as elusive as the
Trinity Alps big foot, as shy as the famous Loch Ness monster.
Even at Borland International, his namesake, few people have
ever seen him. The old-timers recognize him for his remarkable
algorithms, still the fastest in the west. Borland lives deep in the
Santa Cruz mountains with his transportable computer, his
burro, and his dogs. In the early days, he didn't have a permanent
homestead, but lived in a couple of camps deep in the redwood
groves. Now, Frank has settled down a little, bought a cabin, and
is raising a family, thanks to the success of his programming.
These days he is seen even less around town, but still can
occasionally be reached by modem.
If you are a Compuserve user, you are closer to Frank Borland
than you realize. He is writing either a gothic novel or an epic
poem-he hasn't decided which-entirely in bulletin board
messages left on different SIGS (Special Interest Groups). But he
never uses his real name, and he switches names often, so his
writing is hard to follow. Look for messages in cadence, or
rhymes. (You can find information on Borland products and a
Borland SIG by typing GO BOR from any Compuserve prompt.)
Frank is a warm-hearted person. He wrote Sidekick (one of his
latest programming efforts) for humanitarian reasons. Carrying
notepads, calculator, and calendar from camp to camp was
beginning to stunt the growth of his burro, Lotus, so he wrote
Sidekick to make all that unnecessary. He left a note in our
mailbox, saying he'd saved Lotus' development.
He rarely talks about his background, or why he chose to
abandon normal life and take to the mountains. Some say it had
do to with changing the whole motherboard on a PC, just to
replace a single chip. Others blame the high price of microcomputer
software. We don't really know. Do you?
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