William W. Basham, a physician who was also a pioneer software/shareware developer, engineer, musician, nature photographer, traveler, hiker and more, died peacefully in his home in Springfield on Saturday, April 13, 2021 after a three and half year struggle with ALS. He was 70 years old.
Bill was born in Atlanta, the son of a U. S. Air Force officer. Military transfers took Bill’s family to Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado and Virginia.
While teaching Electrical Engineering to cadets at the Air Force Academy, Bill’s father found time to convert a decommissioned school bus into an early RV. In 1962, Bill and his family travelled in the bus to Yellowstone National Park, the Seattle World’s Fair and down the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles. The next year, the family drove through Mexico. By this time, Bill was hooked on travel.
In his early years, Bill demonstrated the curiosity and creativity that characterized his life. His younger brother Richard shared this story in an email:
We would collect Baseball Cards...
We built a stadium out of cardboard, with walls and painted signs, etc.
We painted the field green with paint we got from little jars of model car & airplane kits. We would take the cards and put the players in the respective positions on the field: Hank Aaron in RF. Mickey Mantle in CF, etc.
Bill then got a pair of dice and we’d roll them when the batter was up.
A 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, would be an out. A 7, 8, 9, would be a single.
A ten was a double, an eleven was a triple and a twelve was a HR.
To me, it was like a real stadium: The start of my love for baseball, I guess.
A few years later, some table top board baseball games came out with dice and cards and real life averages with rolling dice – APBA and Strat-O-Matic,
which is still around. Bill was certainly ahead of his time, even back then.
In 1964, Bill’s father was transferred to the Pentagon. The family lived first in Arlington, VA, then moved to Silver Spring, MD. His father retired from the military and took a position as an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland. Bill followed his father and two older brothers to UM, graduating in 1973 with a BS in Electrical Engineering. In 1977 he earned an M.D. from the UM Medical School in Baltimore and joined the U.S Public Health Service.
He took a position as an emergency room physician in southern Pennsylvania and later, in Rockford IL. He said he liked the chance to help people in acute distress.
While living in Southern PA, he built a recording studio in his house. He did sessions with the late jazz guitarist Nathen Page. By then, he had taught himself to play piano and become good enough to accompany Mr. Page on some recordings.
He also learned to play oboe, flute and guitar, and performed at country music festivals.
His oldest brother Bob recalls hearing Bill play during a family reunion:
I always knew he was very smart but never understood just how brilliant he was. I was always impressed by his music abilities particularly on the piano. I think it was at the Greenbrier at the first reunion that he sat down at a piano and just started playing some great music and I remember thinking how impressive that was. An amazing man who all the way until the end was trying to use his God-given abilities so others would not have to go through what he went through.
At the dawn of the personal computer age, he developed an interest in the Apple II computer. His youngest brother, Mike, recalls his impact:
Bill was exceptionally gifted in many areas; Medicine, Engineering, Music. He was also one of the most brilliant and innovative computer programmers of his generation.
When Apple Computer released their Apple II, the first commercially successful Microcomputer, Bill set up his own company to write software for the platform. Diversified Software Research (DSR) became famous for elegant and ground-breaking software for the Apple II.
One of DSR's products was DiversiDOS--a replacement for the Disk Operating System that was included with the Apple II. Bill's software was much better than Apple's, so much so that Steve Wozniak, who wrote the original Apple II DOS, became a customer and bought DiversiDOS under an assumed name.
In these early days, PC software companies were very concerned about users making illegal copies of their disks and giving them away to their friends and associates for free…. Bill came up with a novel idea for preventing illegal copying of his software -- he invited it! In what he called the "Rip Me Off" model of software distribution, he allowed users to copy and distribute his software as much as they liked, but if they enjoyed his products, he asked that they voluntarily send him a payment of $25. To everyone's surprise, this approach worked, and today it is known as "ShareWare".
Bill was also a pioneer in the field of on-line communications. He created a chat server called "DiversiDial", which was a forum for users to gather on line for discussions and networking. We take this for granted today, but in the years before the internet, when the most advanced networking device was a 300 Baud modem, this idea was ground-breaking.
DSR produced many more novel and innovative products, including an addictive game called "Dogfight", a backup utility called "DiversiCopy", and a sing-a-long music program called "DiversiTune". Users of these and other DSR programs still honor Bill with online tributes and reunions of groups who have benefited from Bill's genius as a computer programmer.
Bill loved to travel, often towing his little trailer – the Scamp – on long trips. He noticed that it took a long time – and wasted water - to get enough hot water to bathe and wash dishes, so he designed and installed an auxiliary tank that held preheated water.
He also was an avid photographer who made amazing time lapse pictures of night fall, sunrise and the heavens. He wrote and installed code that allowed his camera to adjust exposure during the time lapse shoot.
Bill had an almost superhuman ability to absorb information on any subject. He did it with the US tax provisions that applied to his home businesses and he did it again when he was diagnosed with ALS. He turned his ferocious intellect to the task of staying alive as long as he could. He turned to a regimen of micro-doses of the steroid dexamethasone and believed that added years to his survival. He wrote about it on the website https://drbillbasham.org.
His final Facebook post said “I’m afraid I won’t make it much longer… But I’m sure the dexamethasone works … because that’s what I’m taking for over a year. Please someone try it or try to get my website looked at by a real scientist… Thanks for all your support.”
Soon after that, he calmly passed over with his wife Linda at his bedside and his little dog Echo’s head on his leg.
In addition to those already mentioned, Dr. Basham leaves behind his mother, Doris Basham; his children, Ruth Ann and Jeffrey Scott; three granddaughters Amanda, Olivia and Sonya; his older brother, Tom; his cousin, Susan and his aunt, Mona.
His living, breathing works of art through nature are on his DrLapser You Tube channel at https://youtu.be48asFTEON84.
His brother Mike has set up a web site in Bill’s honor. Among other things, it contains remembrances, photos and a link to make a donation to the ALS Association. The memorial site is:
https://www.gatheringus.com/memorial/bill-basham/6826
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