Tribute to David Seal, 1956 - 2021

David was there in the background of my life long before I ever knew him personally. Way back in the eighties, I was a teenager and he was one of the authors of Acheton, almost certainly the most elaborate adventure game ever published for the BBC Micro. Then I went to Cambridge University and discovered all this code by "DJS6" still quietly running on the Phoenix mainframe. While I was at university, ARM was founded with David as one of the original employees, and soon I began to see him on Usenet, posting ingenious solutions to awkward problems. This, I thought, was someone I'd love to work with. Sure enough, upon graduation I started work at ARM. I finally got to meet David and, to my delight, he was an endlessly fascinating person, friendly and happy to talk about the ARM or any of countless other topics. When I left ARM, I was sorry to lose touch with him. Though for many years afterwards I kept spotting his name on technical documentation. I was delighted to meet him again at the ARM 25th anniversary celebration. Of course, I had no idea it was the last time I'd ever see him. A sad loss.