// cleaned transcript · Oct 22, 2026
Katherine W. Prawl: the conversation
This is the cleaned publication copy: noise, private topics and figures are removed and marked [redacted]. Line numbers match the original recording transcript.
L1[redacted: private, lines 1 to 32]
L33Kat: Okay. Well, the first computer I saw, actually, was a breadboard, uh, contraption that filled up an airplane hangar at a tracking station in Florida.
L34[redacted: private, lines 34 to 41]
L42Nix: Okay.
L43Kat: But, of course, I couldn't touch the computer.
L44Nix: Right.
L45Kat: Nobody was allowed to touch it except the Air Force guys that were working on it. Later a PDP-8 went to the local community college.
L46Nix: Okay.
L47Kat: And so I actually got to play with that very briefly.
L48Nix: Right.
L49Kat: So that was the— a PD— a DEC PDP-8 was the first computer I got to touch.
L50Nix: That's so cool.
L51Kat: And it was before the tape— the cassette drive computers that actually saved your data to a paper tape. There was a paper— uh, teletype was how you entered data, and the paper tape reader was on the side, reader-writer on the side. The tape drives were big nine-track tape drives that only held the operating system.
L52Nix: Wow.
L53Kat: Not— not data. It was quite, quite a contraption. Now, interestingly enough, I currently have a friend nearby who collects vintage computers, and he has three working PDP-11s.
L54Nix: Wow.
L55Kat: But he doesn't have any PDP-8s. But I understand somebody is actually building, uh, emulators of— of PDP-8s that— that look like they're real things.
L56Nix: Right.
L57Kat: You know.
L58[redacted: style]
L59Kat: I'm not really interested because that wasn't really my first computer. That was just the first one I got to touch.
L60Nix: Okay.
L61Kat: My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 3.
L62Nix: Okay.
L63Kat: Which was a cassette drive to begin with, although I did get some— upgraded it to— to floppy drives. So, uh, so that was in 1981. I— I bought my— that first computer.
L64Kat: And I— I just never looked back. I was, uh, I was hooked.
L65Kat: I taught myself basic and, uh, I— I built my first, uh, printer, was an old Selectric typewriter that I bought used and got a kit to, uh, that had actuators that actually physically pressed the keys on the typewriter. And that was my first printer.
L66Nix: That's amazing.
L67Kat: It— it plugged into the back of the TRS-80-3.
L68Nix: All right.
L69Kat: And.
L70Nix: So let's— let's keep— I wanna keep you moving, and I don't wanna interrupt you.
L71Kat: Okay.
L72Nix: But I— I know how the frame— I know how the format works. I wanna keep— 'cause this is awesome. You've got a great start.
L73Nix: So then move into, like, the Pentium years, maybe a little like, what were you doing in that time? Did you go the Windows route?
L74Nix: Did you go linux early? Like, where were you and all that?
L75Kat: Okay. I never bought a— in the early days, I never got into Windows. I— I bought an Amiga instead.
L76Nix: Just one.
L77Kat: I had an— the first Amiga, and then I later bought an Amiga 3, I think it was.
L78Nix: Okay.
L79Kat: Um, and— but before I got the Amiga, I bought my first laptop, which was the TRS-80 Model 100. The— the little— it had a, uh, a four-line, uh, 40-carat— 20-character screen. I upgraded it.
L80Kat: I put in a new firmware chip that made it eight lines and 40 characters. And it had a built-in modem, 300 baud.
L81Nix: Ooh.
L82Kat: I could type— I could type fast.
L83Nix: And read along with it?
L84Kat: And look it up.
L85Nix: That— well, 300 baud.
L86Kat: Right.
L87Nix: Write then was right at the edge of where you could read it, just about as fast as you could read it.
L88Kat: That's right. And— and that's a good thing because the screen was so small that if it.
L89Nix: Right.
L90Kat: If it went any faster, I wouldn't have been able to read it. But with that little computer, I got on, uh, CompuServe. I got onto what was the Dow Jones thing.
L91Kat: I got onto the first commercial node of the internet. I was an alpha tester.
L92Nix: Come on.
L93Kat: It was called— uh, it was called Aloha Net. It was started by a couple of professors. We were living in Hawaii.
L94Kat: And a couple of professors at the university had gotten unhappy with the local IT people who kept— wouldn't give them enough time on the main frames.
L95Nix: Right.
L96Kat: So they decided to start their own node of the ARPANET and, uh, turned it into a commercial, uh, thing after it was tested and so forth. And so they got a grant to— to do this, and so they had their own servers. And— and I— I heard about it on one of the local BBS things that I was, uh, connected to.
L97Kat: And so I got into that. That was my first taste of— of Unix, not— this was before linux.
L98Nix: Okay.
L99[redacted: private, lines 99 to 101]
L102Kat: And, uh, so I joined the local computer club, of course, and— and that was lots of fun. And, uh, then I went back to school. I went back and finished my— my bachelor's degree in linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
L103Kat: And, uh, I was the first person on campus who had a laptop computer to take notes. And so all my professors knew my name, even the ones in the 100-plus, you know, team PTs.
L104Nix: Sure.
L105Kat: Core curriculum students. Uh, they all knew who I was. And I got complaints from other students who probably were jealous, but they said, "Oh, the— the— the clicking of the keyboard."
L106Nix: Right.
L107Kat: You know, was too distracting. But I kept going. And I did get a pretty decent GPA out of— out of all that because I had good notes.
L108Nix: Right.
L109Kat: I even sold my notes to some of the people.
L110Nix: Nice.
L111Kat: Some of the other students. So anyway,
L112[redacted: private, lines 112 to 117]
L118Kat: It was linguistics with an emphasis on artificial intelligence. So I was actually involved in AI back in the late '80s and early '90s.
L119Nix: Wow. And so.
L120Kat: Uh, and of course.
L121Nix: What does AI do? Like, talk to me about maybe three years ago what you were doing with computers, and then, like, go a year— a year apiece. And, like, you got ChatGPT where you could cut and paste stuff in and out of it and, like, do that whole— and then bring it all the way to three years ago to right now.
L122Kat: Yeah.
L123Nix: What you're— what you're running.
L124Kat: Well, if I can go back a bit further. In 1995.
L125Nix: Okay.
L126Kat: I— I started my first website called the cdinfo.com.
L127Nix: Wow.
L128Kat: I was involved with the compact disk industry because when I left Boeing, I started my own business. And then I— I got involved with a company called the One-Off CD Shops. We made CD-ROMs.
L129Kat: I had the first Philips CD-D521 CD recorder that was sold in the United States. I actually got it through my— our company in Canada.
L130Nix: Right.
L131Kat: Because they weren't importing them to the US yet. And so I ran a— a CD-ROM, uh, or, yeah, CD-ROM, uh, service bureau for a couple of years and was part of— you know, I was a shareholder in the, um, corporate business. We had— we started out with three shops, two in Canada and one in the US, nine.
L132Kat: And, uh, in a year, we had 13 shops in three countries: the US, Canada, and Mexico. And the next year, we were out of business.
L133Nix: Right. That's how it goes.
L134Kat: Because— yeah. Well, CDs became a commodity. They were originally really, really expensive.
L135[redacted: style, lines 135 to 138]
L139Kat: And then they were giving them away.
L140Nix: Right. So— so bring me— let's go skip to three years ago when ChatGPT came out and you could cut and paste. And then.
L141Kat: Okay.
L142Nix: I'm just.
L143Kat: Well, I— I never— I never got involved with ChatGPT. I didn't trust the company.
L144Nix: Okay. Fair enough.
L145[redacted: private, lines 145 to 146]
L147Kat: It's— it's— right now, it's rebuilding MediaWiki for me because after the PHP debacle.
L148Nix: Right.
L149Kat: Which was not the first PHP debacle. I mean, they've had security problems for years and years.
L150Nix: Sure.
L151Kat: I finally decided I'm— I'm through with MediaWiki and PHP. And so I set out to build something that acted like MediaWiki but doesn't use PHP. And it's done it.
L152Kat: I've already tested it this morning. And, uh, it's— it's still got a few rough edges, but it's gonna work.
L153Kat: I've got it on my home server right now. I'm— it's not— not on the open internet.
L154Kat: So, uh, we're still— still working on it, but it's going to replace MediaWiki for me.
L155Nix: Nice. So how did you.
L156Kat: I, I.
L157Nix: How did you discover Omarchy?
L158Kat: Uh, on X, of course. Uh, people started— when Omarchy 4 came out, there was all kinds of noise on X about it. And so I, uh, I installed it, um, when— in— so on September 6th.
L159Kat: And, uh, I was so impressed with it that I, uh, I decided to start the Omarchy, uh, newsletter.
L160Nix: Sure.
L161Kat: Omarchy for the rest of us.
L162Nix: Right.
L163Kat: So— and— and then, of course, I signed up for your, uh, Sunday Builders Club thing. And I guess I was— I actually spoke on the first, uh, edition of that.
L164Nix: I believe you did.
L165Kat: I talked about my newsletter and got some subscribers from that. And, uh, I haven't looked back.
L166Nix: Nice.
L167Kat: It— we're at, um, issue number two or number three just went out the day before yesterday. And the subscriber base keeps growing. And, uh, it— it gets better.
L168[redacted: private]
L169Nix: Sure.
L170Kat: I— I— that was my test platform, developing the newsletter. So within Monday evening, uh, I had the idea of ha— of creating this newsletter. By Tuesday night, I had a website.
L171Kat: I had the, uh, five draft issues. I had, uh, a Gro— uh, an X username.
L172Kat: I had, uh, an email address. And I had, um, had an account at, uh, Pombo Mailer for distributing it.
L173Kat: And we were off to the races. It was incredible. 24 hours, and— and we had everything in place.
L174Nix: Speed is incredible. So what, um, X handles do you want to have on your— on your feature?
L175Kat: Okay. The Omarchy FT or, uh, uh, whatever it is for the rest. FTROU.
L176Kat: Omarchy FTROU.
L177Nix: Yep.
L178Kat: Is— is the handle that I use on X for that. I do have another X account that preceded Omarchy, uh, at katprawl.
L179Nix: Yep.
L180Kat: Which is— which is fine. But I don't look at that nearly as much as the Omarchy FTROU because there's much more going on there.
L181Nix: Yeah. That's cool. And any websites you want to promote or projects you're working on outside of For The Rest Of Us?
L182Kat: Uh, not really.
L183Kat: I'm— like I said, my websites are currently all being transferred to my home server.
L184Nix: Right.
L185Kat: And I— I only have one really public website called rv-wiki.com.
L186Nix: Okay.
L187Kat: Uh, but that's— that's gonna be on my home server too.
L188[redacted: private]
L189Kat: And, uh, I— from that site, it links to another one, one of my wikis called Miscellaneous. Um, and I— I don't even remember the URL for that one.
L190[redacted: leave-out, lines 190 to 197]
L198Kat: Yeah. Uh, but there's a couple of other sites, but— but they're not— not really ready for— for primetime yet.
L199Nix: I gotcha. I gotcha.
L200Kat: Yeah.
L201Nix: It has been my pleasure to speak with you. And, uh, like I said, uh, is there anything else we want to omit from the record?
L202Kat: Uh, no. I think— I think, uh, I wouldn't have said it if I didn't care about having it in public.
L203[redacted: private, lines 203 to 205]
L206Kat: Yeah.
L207Nix: All right. Well, I—
L208Kat: Well.
L209Nix: Go ahead.
L210Kat: Oh, go ahead.
L211Nix: Um, I was just gonna say, um, it's been my pleasure as we wrap up. And, uh, the system will create your feature. It will automatically post.
L212Nix: And, uh, I'll tag both— both of your, uh, X accounts so that you get visibility on both. And I wish you the best.
L213Nix: This has been fun. I hope to hear you on Sunday.
L214Kat: Well, thank you. I will be there.
L215Nix: Awesome. Have a good day, Kat.
L216Kat: Have a good day.
L217Nix: You too.
L218Kat: Bye-bye.
L219Nix: Thank you. Bye-bye.