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which took place in St. Louis, Missouri during the weekend of July 22-24, 1988.
Before we get to the bulk of the issue I'd like to make a note that this year's
turnout was even greater than last year's with the majority of those claiming
they would attend, actually showing up... we had a great time. -KL
Please Note: All the events depicted in this story are based on the
observations as seen by Knight Lightning (me).
PreCon '88; A Little Background
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Taran King and I went off to college, Sir Francis Drake picked up running
Phrack Inc. and PWN. Taran gave the rights to SummerCon to Sir Francis Drake
as well, although it was not really his right to give away. At any rate, SFD
intended to hold SummerCon '88 in New York City, possibly by trying to get Bill
>From RNOC or Tuc to help him out, since SFD lived out on the west coast. A lot
of publicity was put out in both 2600 Magazine and WORM (a hardcopy magazine
for "cyberpunks" written and distributed by Sir Francis Drake himself).
However, eventually it became quite clear that SummerCon '88 would not be held
in NYC, at least not by SFD.
In the meantime, there was quite a bit of controversy concerning SummerCon '88
on a bulletin board known as The Forgotten Realm, run by Crimson Death 618.
Apparently the members of TFR were trying to figure out where to have the
convention. Control C said that he would hold SummerCon '88 in Detroit,
Michigan, but the only person who really liked that idea was Ax Murderer.
Eventually it came down to two places; New York City or St. Louis, Missouri.
The discussion went on for over a month with everyone leaning heavily towards
St. Louis. The clincher came when Prime Suspect received word from myself,
that we were indeed planning SummerCon '88 here in St. Louis. So on June 19,
1987 (the ONE year anniversary of SummerCon '87) Crimson Death contacted
Phantom Phreaker to get to Taran King who in turn passed the word on to me and
I called Crimson Death. We set the date and as such, the actual preliminary
planning for SummerCon '88 had begun.
Crimson Death sent the word out and I finally had a chance to release the idea
I had conceived two months prior... The Phoenix Project. The new millennium
has begun and the rebirth of the phreak/hack community has been achieved. In
fact, this rebirth is currently evident in a more physical fashion on a fairly
new bulletin board earning its name from my idea...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Phoenix Project
300/1200/2400 Baud
(512) 754-8182
Brought to you by The Mentor!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SummerCon '88; Not As Planned... Friday Morning, July 22, 1988
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coincidentally, Tuc was again this year's first arrival from out of town.
Taran King, Forest Ranger, and I arrived at the airport to greet him and after
some hassle at Lambert Field, we grabbed some lunch and went to this year's
official SummerCon hotel; the Ramada Inn - Westport.
>From here things did not go exactly to plan. Over three weeks in advance I had
reserved a double room in Forest Ranger's name to serve as the Phrack Inc. room
or whatever as sort of a base of operations. Ramada had a super savers weekend
promotion going on all through summer where a limited number of rooms (doubles)
could be purchased for a special weekend rate of $33.90. Well I was sure to
get this rate and was given a reservation identification number. However, the
check-in counter at first denied this and then finally pulled up the file.
They insisted that the room was for $68.00 and that was what we were told.
They were incorrect. At about this time, Taran and I had wandered into the
main lobby where we were confronted by a guy who subtly said, "Are you here for
SummerCon ?"
It was The Dictator, who had come from Phoenix, Arizona (602 NPA). He had
already gotten a room (211) at the ridiculous price of $68.00. Unfortunately,
we still had a problem, because the hotel supervisor insisted that we weren't
21 anyway and by Missouri State Law they could not legally rent us a room at
any rate. This is when I jumped in saying we had reserved the room for Tuc who
was 22 and I had been promised the rate of $33.90. The supervisor began to
tell some story of a computer error (yeah right) and the person who guaranteed
the room was wrong. I argued that it was their problem and not ours if there
was indeed this computer error and that this gross display of bad business and
false advertising would be reported to the Better Business Bureau. In the
meantime Tuc, Taran, and Forest Ranger had grabbed a copy of the Southwestern
Bell Yellow Pages (it really is easier to let your fingers do the walking) and
were checking out other hotels in the Westport area. My biggest concern was
for all the guests driving in who thought we would be at the Ramada. It was
not long before the hotel supervisor had spoken to the hotel manager and they
offered us the room for a flat rate of $40.00. We took it. The rooms were
quite nice actually and would serve our purposes well.
Taran and I ran off on separate errands, while Forest Ranger and Tuc visited
Westport Plaza to do some shopping. When Taran and I returned, we ran into
another interesting person who said, "You guys here for SummerCon?" It was
Dr. Cypher of Bellcore and with him was Mike (a non phreak/hack type, but cool
just the same) and Hatchet Molly, a 23 year old graduate student at Northern
Illinois University who was working on his thesis; the social atmosphere of the
phreak/hack community or something like that.
It was only about 20 minutes later when I wandered down to the lobby and found
Lucifer 666 and Synthetic Slug checking in. Standing five feet behind them was
another fearsome threesome made up of Crimson Death 618, Phrozen Ghost, and
Surfer Bob. PG and SB had been visiting Crimson Death earlier that week prior