Terry Shannon (IT) - Writing Career

Writing Career

In May 1983, Shannon became self-employed as a writer. He published his first brief article in the May 1983 issue of DEC Professional. About two years later, in September 1985, Shannon began working as a contributor for Digital Review. During his tenure with Digital Review, Shannon began using the pseudonym "Charlie Matco".

While Shannon also frequently wrote under the pseudonyms "Digital Dog" and "the notorious Belgian hacker Cedric Zool," Charlie Matco was by far his best known nom de plume. Under the "Charlie Matco" byline, Terry Shannon combined a humorous writing style with erudite and timely prognostications about IT industry trends, product releases, and major business transactions, often well in advance of the public release of such information, in the "Rumor Roundup" feature at the end of each issue of Digital Review magazine. This information was obtained as a result of Shannon's well-polished skills at schmoozing his vast network of friends and colleagues in the IT industry, and of astutely combining information they provided.

Shannon's use of the "Charlie Matco" nom de plume is said to have originated when, after drinking with friends in Massachusetts, Shannon walked out of a bar and saw a Matco Tools truck at a service station across the street.

"Charlie Matco" was usually depicted as a cartoonish, "private eye" sort of figure, after the fashion of Nick Danger, but without any facial features (i.e., just a fedora, a trenchcoat, and a cigarette in one hand). That logo, which appeared next to the "Charlie Matco" byline on every "Rumor Roundup" article, was also depicted on the coffee mug, which Shannon would send to anyone who (intentionally or otherwise) provided useful information. According to Jeffrey Steinberg, former Technical Editor of Digital Review, the signature on the mug was in the handwriting of Deborah McDonald, the publication's managing edtior at the time. In fact, a "Charlie Matco" mug now lives in the Computer History Museum.

Over the next two decades, Shannon wrote about trends in the IT industry. An advocate of the VMS operating system, he wrote the first version of the VMS user guide, Introduction to VAX/VMS through Professional Press in May 1985 (ISBN 096147291X). This ran for five editions. According to those associated with its original publisher, Professional Press, the first edition of the book sold more than 100,000 copies. The latest (5th) edition was called Introduction to OpenVMS (ISBN 1878956612). It is required reading for some Computer Science college courses.

Shannon began to publish a newsletter in 1994, Shannon Knows DEC, which eventually became Shannon Knows Compaq, after the firm's acquisition, and then Shannon Knows HPC. His insider knowledge constantly frustrated those he wrote about, and HP pursued a love/hate relationship, occasionally citing him in press releases. The newsletter ran until his death in 2005.