upgrade to 3.0

content/blog/2005-07-11-byron-preiss.md

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+title: 'Byron Preiss'
+date: '2005-07-11T12:59:26-04:00'
+permalink: /byron-preiss/
+tags:
+    - publishing
+    - reading
+---
+
+Back in grad school, I did a bunch of freelance work in electronic publishing, working first for the [Voyager Company](http://www.the-underdogs.org/company.php?name=Voyager+Company), and then for [Penguin Electronic](http://www.the-underdogs.org/company.php?name=Penguin+Electronic). In fact, I was the last employee of Penguin Electronic, literally the one who shut off the lights on the way out. At the time, I was the producer of the CD-ROM version of [Total Television](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?path=ASIN/0140249168), which we built in collaboration with Byron Preiss Multimedia.
+
+Today, via [Nalo](http://nalohopkinson.blogspot.com/), I find out that the founder of the company, Byron Preiss, [died](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/nyregion/11preiss.html?ex=1278734400&en=6ac47e1e21e2470e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss) over the weekend in a traffic accident. I’m struck by this, not least because of the ways that my history in multimedia is this summer moving into the present. Byron was a pioneer, and his work, like that of the Voyager Company, was well before its time. For any such production I’m able to do in the future, I owe Byron Preiss a debt of gratitude.
+