David Hugh Bunnell (July 25, 1947 – October 18, 2016) was a pioneer of the personal computing industry who founded some of the most successful computer magazines including ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

'', ''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

'', and ''

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macint ...

''. In 1975, he was working at MITS in Albuquerque, N.M., when the company made the first personal computer, the

Altair 8800 The Altair 8800 is a microcomputer designed in 1974 by MITS and based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Interest grew quickly after it was featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics and was sold by mail order through advertiseme ...

. His coworkers included

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

founders

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

and

Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which h ...

, who created the first programming language for the Altair,

Altair BASIC Altair BASIC is a discontinued interpreter for the BASIC programming language that ran on the MITS Altair 8800 and subsequent S-100 bus computers. It was Microsoft's first product (as Micro-Soft), distributed by MITS under a contract. Altair BASI ...

Early life

David Bunnell grew up in the small town of

Alliance, Nebraska Alliance is a city and the county seat of Box Butte County, in the western part of the state of Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States. Its population was 8,151 at the 2020 census. Alliance is the home to Carhenge, a replica o ...

, the son of Hugh Bunnell and Elois (Goodwin) Bunnell. He had one sibling, Roger Bunnell, three years his junior. In high school, he was on the state champion cross-country team. He worked with his father, the editor of the ''Alliance Daily Times-Herald'' newspaper. During his senior year in high school, Bunnell served as the sports editor of the newspaper. Bunnell attended the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

from 1965 to 1969, where he graduated with a B.A. majoring in history. While at the university, he was active in the anti-Vietnam war movement and was elected president of the

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...

Family

He married Linda Essay, also of Alliance, in 1969. They had two children, Mara Rebecca (1971) and Aaron John Hassan (1974). The couple was divorced in 1978, but remained friends. In 1981, he married photographer, Jaqueline Dowds Poitier. They raised her daughter, Jennifer Poitier and subsequently her two daughters, Jamaica Poitier and Xaire Poitier in Berkeley, California. Jaqueline (Jackie) was a driving force behind his career in the publishing industry; the couple pioneered MacWorld Magazine in the bedroom of their rental house in San Francisco's Sunset Neighborhood.

Career

Bunnell worked as a public school teacher in Southside Chicago from 1969 to 1971, with wife, Linda, who was also a teacher. They transferred to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as teachers. He delivered food to the Native Americans who occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days beginning on February 27, 1973. The couple moved to Albuquerque, NM with their baby, Mara in 1973. In 1991, Bunnell founded ''BioWorld,'' the online business newspaper and print magazine for the Biotechnology Industry, which he sold to

Thompson Media Group Thompson Media Group, LLC, originally established as Thompson Publishing Group, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Richard E. Thompson. Thompson Media Group is an American privately held media company that specializes in providing compliance, regulatory, a ...

in 1994. From 1996 to 2002, he was CEO and Editor-in-Chief of ''

Upside (magazine) ''Upside'' was a San Francisco-based business and technology magazine for venture capitalists. It was published from 1989 to 2002. It had a circulation above 300,000. History Beginnings ''Upside'' was started by banker Anthony B. Perkins and techn ...

'' which became very successful during the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

. In 2007, Bunnell co-founded ''ELDR'' magazine with Chad Lewis. The magazine, which covers the boomer market, was named Best New Consumer Magazine by ''Folio Magazine'' in 2008. He died on October 18, 2016 at the age of 69 in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

Publications

Publications by Bunnell

*''Personal Computing: A Beginner's Guide.'' Hawthorne, 1978. *''Making the Cisco Connection.'' Wiley, 2000. *''Good Friday on The Rez.'' New York:

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...

, 2017. .

Publications with others

*''An Introduction to Microcomputers.'' With

Adam Osborne Adam Osborne (March 6, 1939 – March 18, 2003) was a British author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. He introduced the Osborne 1, the first commercially su ...

. McGraw-Hill, 1982. *''The eBay Phenomenon.'' With Richard Luecke. Wiley, 2007. *''Count Down Your Age: Look, Feel, and Live Better Than You Ever Have Before.'' With Frederic Vagnini. McGraw-Hill, 2007.

References

External links

PC Magazine, ''David Bunnell Remembers'', 01.24.02

Digerati: The Seer: David Bunnell

San Francisco Chronicle, ''Upside's downside Tech magazine's founder lost more than money during publication's rise and fall'', April 1, 2002

Mac Portable leak with David Bunnell 1988
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bunnell, David 1947 births 2016 deaths People from Alliance, Nebraska University of Nebraska alumni Businesspeople from Nebraska Journalists from Nebraska American computer businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople