Born in Chicago, Tom Trinko has lived a deprived life, never once having butchered a hog. In an attempt to improve the quality of life in Chicago, he pursued his higher education in Pasadena, California, at Cal Tech. He moved to Wisconsin for the better climate and picked up his PhD in physics, graduating with the official title of mad scientist. His first smart move was marrying a woman who worked at Apple and who had an Apple IIe. With that, he was able to extend his professional programming career, which began in 1972, to home computers. His long-suffering wife brought a Mac home in 1984, which marked the start of Tom’s enthusiasm for the only OS for people who want to get work done. He’s ordered the Mac around in Basic, Forth, C, Pascal, and about a billion or so scripting languages. Back when Apple didn’t know any better, he did contract work for Apple’s Developer University. In real life, he works on other platforms, ranging from supercomputers to UNIX workstations, which continually remind him of how spiffy the Mac really is. His current main objective in life is staying more computer literate than his kids.