John T. Draper

John T. Draper
Draper, John Thomas
Born	March 11, 1943
Occupation	Software Developer

Career

Early Life and Education

John Thomas Draper is an American computer programmer and former phone phreak, famously known by his nicknames Captain Crunch, Crunch, or Crunchman, derived from the Cap'n Crunch cereal mascot. The son of a U.S. Air Force engineer, Draper displayed an early aptitude for electronics, building a home radio station from discarded military components as a child. He faced challenges in school, including bullying, and briefly received psychological treatment. After taking college courses, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1964, where his technical skills began to take shape.

Military Service and Entry into Phone Phreaking

While stationed in Alaska during his Air Force service, Draper devised a method to access a local telephone switchboard, enabling fellow service members to make free phone calls home. In 1967, while at Charleston Air Force Station in Maine, he created WKOS, a pirate radio station in Dover-Foxcroft. After his honorable discharge as an Airman First Class in 1968, Draper moved to Silicon Valley, working briefly as an engineering technician at National Semiconductor and Hugle International, where he contributed to early designs for a cordless telephone. He also attended De Anza College part-time through 1972 and worked as an engineer and disc jockey for KKUP in Cupertino, California, adopting the countercultural lifestyle of the era.

In 1969, Draper was introduced to phone phreaking through a call from Denny Teresi, a blind teenager and fellow pirate radio operator. This connection led him to a group of phone phreaks, many of whom were blind and used cassette recordings and organs to replicate tones for manipulating telephone networks. Draper discovered that a toy whistle from Cap'n Crunch cereal boxes emitted a 2600-hertz tone, precisely matching the frequency used by AT&T to signal an available trunk line, allowing free long-distance calls by tricking the system into operator mode. Leveraging his electronics expertise, he built a multifrequency tone generator, known as a "blue box," which became a tool for phone phreaks to explore and exploit telephone systems. This discovery, credited to a phreaker named Sid Bernay, brought Draper notoriety after a 1971 Esquire article by Ron Rosenbaum, which led to his 1972 arrest for toll fraud and a five-year probation sentence.

Contributions to Apple and Early Software Development

Draper’s technical acumen caught the attention of Steve Wozniak, who, along with Steve Jobs, met him to discuss blue box designs. In 1977, Wozniak hired Draper as an independent contractor for Apple, tasking him with developing a device to connect the Apple II computer to phone lines, predating widespread modem use. Draper designed the "Charlie Board," intended to dial toll-free numbers for large companies, envisioning computers as early answering machines. Although the project did not achieve commercial success, it demonstrated his innovative approach to integrating hardware and telecommunications.

EasyWriter

Draper’s most notable contribution to commercial software was the development of EasyWriter, one of the first word-processing programs for the Apple II, released in 1979. While serving nights in Alameda County Jail under a work furlough program, Draper hand-wrote the code for EasyWriter during the day at Receiving Studios, where he had access to a computer. EasyWriter was a pioneering word processor, offering a user-friendly interface for text editing and formatting, which was groundbreaking for personal computing at the time. The software was later adapted for the IBM PC, marking it as a significant early commercial software product that competed with contemporaries like WordStar. EasyWriter’s development showcased Draper’s ability to create practical software solutions despite challenging circumstances, contributing to the early personal computer software market.

Later Career and Roles in Technology

From the late 1970s to the 1980s, Draper worked intermittently for companies like Apple and Autodesk, contributing to various software engineering projects. From 1999 to 2004, he served as Chief Technical Officer for ShopIP, a computer security firm that developed The Crunchbox GE, a firewall device running OpenBSD. Despite endorsements from Wozniak, the product did not achieve commercial success. In 2007, Draper was named CTO of En2Go (formerly Medusa Style Corp.), a software company developing media delivery tools, but the company also failed to gain commercial traction, and his involvement ended around 2009.

Controversies and Legacy

Draper’s career was marked by both innovation and controversy. His phone phreaking activities, while technically impressive, led to legal troubles, including his 1972 arrest. In 2017, he was banned from several hacking and security conferences (DEF CON, HOPE, and ToorCon) following allegations of inappropriate behavior, which he partially denied. Despite these setbacks, Draper remains a colorful figure in Silicon Valley history, known for influencing early Apple pioneers like Wozniak and Jobs and for his contributions to personal computing through EasyWriter. His work on voice-activated telephone menu technology and early telecommunications devices also laid groundwork for later innovations in computer-telephone integration.

Draper’s legacy is that of a maverick whose technical ingenuity helped shape the early personal computer era. His contributions, while sometimes overshadowed by his phone phreaking notoriety, reflect a unique blend of countercultural exploration and practical software engineering that influenced the trajectory of personal computing.

List of major works

External links

Wikipedia
Software People Pages 11-12, Pages 103-08
Software People, Draper, John, appearance of Page 103
Software People, Draper, John, blueboxes of Page 106
Software People, Draper, John, as Cap'n Crunch Pages 104-05
Software People, Draper, John, and EasyWriter Page 108
Software People, Draper, John, initiation ceremony by Page 103
Software People, Draper, John, jailing of Pages 106-07
Software People, Draper, John, and Jobs Page 106
Software People, Draper, John, learning of Forth Page 108
Software People, Draper, John, personality Pages 103-04
Software People, Draper, John, phreaking by Page 106
Software People, Draper, John, and WATS numbers Page 107
Software People, Draper, John, whistle used by Page 106
Software People, Draper, John, and Wozniak Page 106