Brodie Lockard

Brodie Lockard is an American computer programmer who wrote the first computerized version of Mahjong solitaire on the PLATO system.[1]

Early life and education

His parents were Kirby and Dorothy Lockard (née Judge).[2] Brodie grew up in Tucson, Arizona and attended Stanford University, initially majoring in English.[1] He took courses in mathematics and computer science as he realised they might improve his luck in the job market.[1] He befriended Jeffrey Chung, a pre-med student, who told him about the PLATO system, which he had seen in Hawaii.[1] However, the system was not available in Stanford.[1]

His father was a professor at the University of Arizona, which had access to the PLATO system and Professor Lockard wanted to use the system in his classes.[1] Brodie worked for him, creating a tutorial.[1] When he returned to Stanford, he made enquiries about renting a terminal, but discovered they were prohibitively expensive.[1]

Accident

In December 1979 he suffered an accident while dismounting from a trampoline.[1][3] He awoke in hospital, on a breathing apparatus, with his limbs paralyzed.[1] He learned how to type with a mouth-stick and after his father reached out to CDC, Cindy Poulson of CDC visited Brodie, bringing her personal PLATO terminal for him to use.[1]

Mahjohg Solitaire

During his rehabilitation, Brodie was introduced to a tile-based board game, which was Mahjong solitaire, and implemented it on PLATO.[1]

Brodie moved to Hawaii in 2000.[2]

gollark: `for k, v in pairs (getfenv()) do getfenv()[k] = nil end` you.

gollark: Well, I hate the environment and am actively working to destroy it.

gollark: ALL observing members are utterly equal to this.

gollark: OH BEES DO NOT (RETROACTIVELY)

gollark: The database file is *actually quite big*, because the full text search index contains approximately as much text as the books it's indexing.

References

Dear, Brian (19 November 2017). "How a little-known computer network system changed the history of the internet". Salon. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
"Dorothy Lockard 1928-2016". San Francisco Chronicle.
Stone, Allison (24 January 1980). "Brodie Lockard at Valley Med - Gymnast remains paralyzed after December accident". The Stanford Daily. Retrieved 14 August 2019.

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[salon-how-a-little-known-computer-network-system-changed-the-history-of-the-internet-1] Dear, Brian (19 November 2017). "How a little-known computer network system changed the history of the internet". Salon. Retrieved 14 August 2019.

[dorothy-lockhard-obituary-2] "Dorothy Lockard 1928-2016". San Francisco Chronicle.

[the-standford-daily-gymnast-remains-paralyzed-3] Stone, Allison (24 January 1980). "Brodie Lockard at Valley Med - Gymnast remains paralyzed after December accident". The Stanford Daily. Retrieved 14 August 2019.