[ In Spanish | Index ]

[Wolfgang Haller]
Wolfgang Haller
(1957 – 2010, softography)

Wolfgang became leader of the "Rainbow User" computer club in 1990.
He leaded this club under the name of "Spectrum und SAM Profi Club Köln" until 2008 when he suffered a brain haemorrhage and was hospitalised. In June 2010 he got in a coma after swallowing some food badly. He didn't recover and died on 23.08.2010.

Wolfgang programmed his games on the SAM Coupe under the name of "Halliman".
Some games he coded for the SAM are:
Chicago
Fifty-One
Hare and Hedgehog
Knights-Bridge
Lantern
Paperboxer
Quadrato
and Coloris

Wolfgang lived in Cologne and came up for that town. Cologne has its own beer named "Kölsch". His discussions with other members from neighbouring town Düsseldorf about their "Alt"-beer are classic. He even changed his keyboard when "Kölsch"-beer found out that all PC-users used the "Düsseldorfer"-keyboard and they came with a replacement key to make your keyboard "Kölnisch" by changing the ALT-key to KöLSCH-key.
[KöLSCH-key advert]
Wolfgang didn't see himself as the leader of the SPC, but was more one of the guys of the club. A very striking example in this was during one of the last HCC-days in Utrecht where he got a nametag with his function of "Leider SPC" which in Dutch means "Leader of SPC". "Leider" in German means as much as "unfortunately", which Wolfgang saying he was the unfortunate leader of the club!

Some personal thoughts:

RoKo (Roelof Koning)
I cannot retrieve the number of times that I met Wolfgang over the years, just the names of places are returning: I met him in Bergisch Gladbach, in Cologne, in Mönchen Gladbach, and of course in NL: Houten, Groningen, Bunnik, Utrecht and Urmond. More occasions come to mind, like 'ZX-Team' in Dietges, 'Spectrology' in Wittenberg, 'Spectrumania' in Filderstadt, and there was Königswinter and Kassel. I always have pitied that I accidentally missed the Urmond Replacement Meeting (M.U.R.M.E.L.) at his home.
I will remember Wolfgang as a very nice person, and a true hobby-colleague who fulfilled a quite important social function in the heart of the German Spectrum/SAM scene for an impressing number of years. He had to leave us far too early.

Dr BEEP (Johan Koelman)
My first meeting with Wolfgang should be in Houten, soon following Bunnik, Urmond, Mönchen Gladbach, Königswinter and at his home(s) in Köln.
We did great things together. Wolfgang was the proud owner of the cigarboxinterface, a one time only interface I built to connect ZX Spectrum hardware to the SAM Coupe which made it possible to use a kempston joystick on the SAM. Later he experimented with the scanner. Wolfgang also met my wife and daughter. He emphasized to me to stay in good relation with them. So neatly indicating that in his personal life not all his relations went well. Wolfgang always got overenthusiastic when I managed to compress the Minidumproutine once again. What if I ever manage to do that again? I will never have his reaction!

We have lost a good friend in Wolfgang.

Acknowledgements: Roelof Koning and Johan Koelman for the write-up.

[Mail] [Index]