My story starts in a suburb of Northern Virginia called McLean.  I was born and raised there and lived in the area for a little over 30 years before moving to Charlotte, North Carolina where I now reside.  I was about 20 when I got involved with computers.

I have been involved in the online world since 1984 when I came in to possession of a Commodore 64 Personal Computer.  The "system" consisted of the 64 itself and a converter that allowed you to attach it to a television.  I began a nightly ritual which consisted of keying in a terminal program that was written in ML (machine language).  The terminal program gave me the ability to dial out on the phone using the 300 baud VicModem that was included in the purchase.  Armed with a list of BBS (Bulletin Board System) numbers that came with the computer I was able to learn more about the Commodore and what additional hardware I would need to put together a better computer.  I soon added a lightning fast 1200 baud modem and a couple of 5 1/4 inch disk drives that allowed me to store up to 360k worth of data on each!  This gave me a place to save the programs I used to have to key in every time I wanted to use the computer.  Somewhere around 1985 I put my own Commodore BBS online and grew the system into one of the largest Commodore BBSes in the Northern Virginia area.

Somewhere around 1990 I moved out of the Commodore world and into the world of the IBM Personal Computer.  I can remember paying nearly $2000 for my first generic 286.  It had a 65 MEG RLL hard drive and 1 MEG of memory with a CGA graphics card!  I immediately started to run another BBS on the PC and once again it was a very successful operation.  Alas, it only lasted a little over 5 years.  In February of 1996 I downed the BBS for the last time.  The Internet had killed BBSing by that time, or at least it had relegated it to the world of odd curiosities accessible by dialup or TELNET.

During all of this time I acquired several degrees in Information Systems including Systems Analysis and Programming.  I also got certified as a Novell Engineer and managed to make money doing contractual work and reselling computer equipment that I restored. 

I met my wife on the Internet in an IRC channel on a Netcom server in 1995.  We chatted for over a year before deciding to meet in person.  In 1996 I moved to the Charlotte area and we married in 1997.  I have a wonderful step-daughter and a beautiful baby girl, Rachel Aldavern Haymaker, born to us in August of 2000.

After moving to North Carolina I landed a job programming at PCA International in Matthews, North Carolina.  I've been with PCA since 1997 and have moved from programmer in their R&D department to Director of Software Development for their ITS department.  The projects are challenging and the work is exciting, and of course, it only serves to fuel my desire to continue working with these small digital boxes that are revolutionizing the world we all live in.

Scott R. Haymaker
2001...at the dawn of a new millenium...