Terry Shannon

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Terry Shannon

For many years, Terry Craig (T.C.) Shannon was a highly regarded IT consultant on computer companies, especially Digital Equipment (DEC) and its successors Compaq and HP (Hewlett-Packard), and on technology in general. During more than 30 years, he was involved in implementing PDP, VAX, and Alpha computers with their respective operating systems RSX, VAX/VMS, and OpenVMS. Credited with assigning Intel Corporation the humorous nickname "Chipzilla," Terry was always a welcome participant and highly sought-after speaker at meetings of DECUS (the Digital Equipment Corporation Users Society), the international users group of DEC, currently known as Encompass.

Terry C. Shannon was born in Syracuse, New York, USA on August 16, 1952, the first son of Glenn and Muriel ("Mike") Shannon. He attended Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) in Syracuse for three years, but dropped out of high school at the age of 17 to enlist in the US Army in 1969. After going through basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, he received advanced training at the Army's Intelligence School, which at the time was located at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. He served as a spook in Vietnam at a Radio Reconnaissance Field Station (i.e., the 330th RRFS) with the 509th Radio Research Group of the Army Security Agency(ASA), a branch of the National Security Agency (see NSA and/or SIGINT for explanation). During his Vietnam War service, Terry was a computer communications and traffic analysis specialist. He monitored movements of enemy troops and ordnance down the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail, calling in an airstrike when he considered one necessary. While noting the human toll (i.e., enemy KIAs) of those airstrikes, Terry was certain that the lives of many American servicemen were saved by the timely removal of thousands of enemy troops and tons of ordnance.

While he was in the military, Specialist Shannon became very adept at obtaining several "free" round-the-world trips, traveling by both military and commercial flights. He accomplished these feats by carefully analyzing the scheduled arrival and departure times of said flights, and following his orders to "be on the next plane leaving" to the letter. The "next plane leaving" was always going in the direction Terry desired.

He was separated from the Army, with an honorable discharge, in 1972. After earning his GED, Terry received his Bachelors degree from SUNY Empire College. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, about thirty years after separation, for his meritorious service in the Vietnam War.

Terry's venture into self-employed status began when, in May of 1983, he learned that he could make a living through writing. He published his first brief article in the May 1983 issue of DEC Professional. About two years later, in September of 1985, Terry began working as a contributor for Digital Review. It was during his 3-year stint with Digital Review that Terry began to publish under the pseudonym Charlie Matco.

Over the next two decades, Terry wrote widely about trends in the IT industry. A well-known advocate of the VMS operating system, he wrote the first version of the VMS user guide, Introduction to VMS. According to those associated with its original publisher, Professional Press, the book sold more than 100,000 copies, a number that exceeds the sales of most non-technical best sellers.

While T.C. also frequently wrote under the pseudonyms Digital Dog and "the notorious Belgian hacker" Cedric Zool, Charlie Matco was by far his best known nom de plume. Under this byline, T.C. wrote the "Rumor Roundup" feature at the end of each issue of Digital Review. His contributions in "Rumor Roundup" established his notoriety for combining humor with rumored (but very often, correct) details of as yet unannounced products. His ability to discern and distribute a tremendous amount of timely information on IT industry trends resulted, in large part, from his well-polished skills at networking with a large number of people and astutely combining information they provided. T.C. was known to reward people who had provided "mission critical intel" by sending them a Charlie Matco coffee mug. Very often, the recipient of one of those mugs would be unaware of the reason for receiving it. Many other mug recipients, while they knew that it was T.C.'s way of thanking someone who had contributed information he could use in his column, had no idea which of their information had been deemed important enough to merit the reward. In fact, more than a few such recipients hadn't even known that Terry and Charlie Matco were one and the same. Few know that the signature of "Charlie" was actually the handwriting of Debra Macdonald, the then managing editor of Digital Review.

T.C.'s erudite commentary continued with his publication of a newsletter, Shannon Knows DEC, which eventually morphed into Shannon Knows HPC (for "high performance computing"). He was very knowledgeable about work in progress in the computer industry, especially for Hewlett-Packard. Shannon Knows HPC was eventually made available online at his website, where Terry presented valuable articles about technology related to HP.

Friends and family were deeply saddened to hear that Terry had died on May 26, 2005, at the age of 52. He is survived by his daughter Erin, his son Michael, and his brother Scott.

More extensive biographical information can be found at his website, http://www.ShannonKnowsHPC.com.

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