Searching for Horst Mann
Google has, maybe, failed me. If Horst Mann is still alive, he is not heavily invested in the modern internet community, which would seem to be a bit silly.
Horst Mann wrote the original 313 BBS List (renamed to the Southeast Michigan BBS List when we got 810). A guy on the bus gave me a copy of it on my freshman year, with good BBSs already highlighted.
I mention it because it changed my life, see. I was an introverted kid – I’m sure it took all my gumption to interrupt the other dork who was talking about having fun with his modem, y’know?
It gave me a chance to measure my responses, to let go of the constant fear of people’s reactions to my thoughts, to engage in reasonable debate with adults on an equal basis.
Oh don’t get me wrong, at 12 I was in many ways immature, but I could sound like an adult, and most of THEM weren’t any more mature than I was :)
Ultimately, like most other BBS geeks, I met my first girlfriend through a local board, I found people I could relate to, I learned something new, and I found some pride in myself that I had been sorely lacking.
If I’m lucky, Horst Mann wasn’t 60 when he made the list, and is still alive today. I’d like to thank him for his small part in making me into the (fun-loving, social) person I am today.
Did you ask Jason Scott?
At least Horst Mann has a unique name – facebook only has three of him! (closest is in Vancouver, sadly)
Uh, I mean this Jason Scott: http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/director.html
Ah yes! I’ve emailed the chap. (Did you know I own the documentary, BTW?)
Now that you mention it, I recall you mentioning it before.
Craigslist has a looking for people section if other avenues turn up empty. There’s a decent chance someone who knows him would read it.
The US Public Records Index on Ancestry.com (Genealogy is your friend!) lists two addresses for that name, one in Clinton Township and the other in Almont, which isn’t that far from Clinton Township. Do you want the phone numbers, or what?
PS Steve’s grandma’s maiden name was Horstmann, a not-uncommon German name. At first I thought you had made a mistake, and left off his first name….
Hahaha, holy shit, I remember that list. I was a regular contributing member on both the Highway 61 and Velvet Underground BBSes back then, under the highly-original (not) nom-de-plume of Blue Adept. Oh, Piers Anthony, how you failed me. :P
Velvet Edge, or Velvet Underground? Seraphine/Vamp’s BBS (the former)? I was Message Op there.
BBSMates doesn’t know a Velvet Underground in MI, though Highway 61 sounds familiar to me.
I was rathermuch a fan of that series too, back then.
No, Velvet Underground. Sysop was a fellow named Serpa, who used the handle Monty Python. This was a little earlier than the version of the list you linked to, though, probably around 1989-ish or so, so it might have been defunct by the time that version came out.
Ah yes, two years before my time, actually.
You guys were long distance. Insanity Central was where it was at in Rochester. I think mine, in its longest incarnation, was the Onyx Dragon. But, like I said, you guys were BFE. ;)
I just google searched for those BBS’s and found the old DOOM .wad level files that my buddy Eric and I made. Wow.
1994, what a year.
It’s possible that he hasn’t moved, and still uses the same P.O. Box. It’s worht a try — his P.O. Box address is near the bottom of this edition of the list.
I think it’s terribly amusing that you linked to the same thing I linked to, up there. ;)
It’s been 14 years since the 1994 edition was published. It’s possible his P.O. box is still there, but I don’t know how likely it is. Same with addresses from around that time.
This is 2008, this guy has to have an email -somewhere-. :)
::sheepish grin:: I blame the banana mush that my brain has become, and use your amusement as an excuse to get a cup of coffee after lunch ;)
I’m sure he does, and I do appreciate the irony of thanking the man via smail mail, but it might be a nice gesture, and possibly one that puts you in a position to know his email without resorting to stalker-lite information searches ;-}
But I’m usually so GOOD at stalker-like information searches!
Errr, I mean …. nuthin’!
I assume you’ve established that it’s a different Horst Mann who edited the Detroit Monitor?
If you mean “established” as in “Have you emailed him and asked?”, then yes, but I haven’t gotten a reply.
Oh don’t get me wrong, at 12 I was in many ways immature
Holy crap, you were a freshman at 12?
Yeah – I skipped a grade.
Go you!!
I was 14 as a freshman/9th grade. Started kindergarten at five (I was neither early nor late)… which was annoying since my birthday was in the summer. :( No school parties for me!
Possible clue:
http://www.alumni.wayne.edu/GettingListedCommCalendar.pdf
Page 3
The Monitor
Fax: (586) 296-6072
Mail: The Detroit Monitor
Attn: Horst Mann
33490 Groesbeck Hwy.
Fraser, MI 48026
E-mail or call: Horst Mann
Editor
monitor@usaring.com
(586) 296-6007
See later in the comments. :)