Writer was on cutting edge of computing

In the early 1990s, a guide was published that would help millions of Americans better understand a new technology that was roosting on their desks: personal computers.

That guide was “How Computers Work,” and it was written by San Antonian Ron White.

White, a journalist who worked at the San Antonio Express-News and the San Antonio Light, died Jan. 5 in a downtown hospital. He was 76 and had been suffering complications from heart disease.

First printed in 1993 with illustrations by Tim Downs, “How Computers Work” would sell 2 million copies and have 10 editions.

Published by Ziff-Davis as a trade paperback, it would become a bible for many who were trying to understand what was floppy about “floppy drives” or why you couldn’t play that expensive new software you had just bought that claimed to be “plugand-play.”

White introduced “How Computers Work” with a quote from Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” and then in short, easyto-understand paragraphs he explained the “magic” of computing.

One of the book’s dedications is to his children: “For Shannon and Michael, who always kept me honest in my explanations.”

Shannon Cogen of San Francisco, White’s daughter, recalls her father once used a family road trip as an opportunity to explain the workings of an internal combustion engine.

“He was a great explainer of things. He was a teacher and a mentor to other people,” she said.

“He taught me what a serif is; what a pixel is.”

In the 1970s and into the ’80s, White was an editor at the Express-News and Light, where he was an inspiration to many young writers.

One of those writers, who would go on to be an author, biographer and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, was Bill Minutaglio.

“Ron was a brilliant, thoughtful and goodhearted man — and one of the finest thinkers, writers and editors imaginable,” Minutaglio said.

“He gifted us with extraordinarily memorable articles, essays and books, and served as a consummate mentor to countless journalists,” he added. “There are hundreds of folks who owe their careers to him. I’m one. I never had a better, nurturing and inspiring editor. When I screwed up, he was encouraging, more than patient, and always filled with wisdom.

“Ron was a true Renaissance man — a warm and witty genius who could write beautifully on theater, music, technology, photography and everything under the sun. He had a big mind but never a big ego, even considering his great accomplishments.”

World music record producer and guitarist Ben King of Dallas, a former journalist, remembers White’s “ability to see the humor and irony in nearly any situation.

“A lot of it with the way he never took himself too seriously. At the same time, he could almost see any situation from your point of view,” King said.

White was born Nov. 4, 1944, to Lonnie and Madge White in San Antonio.

He earned a scholarship to Keystone School. White went briefly to Rice University before transferring to Saint Mary’s University where he met and married Sue Brown.

Cogen said her father’s first job out of college was as a photographer at the Light, which led to a love of photography and a career in journalism as a reporter, critic and features editor.

In 1973, he won a Robert F. Kennedy Award for Excellence in journalism for his series, Growing Old, his daughter recalled.

In the late 1980s, White was working as an executive editor at PC Computing Magazine where he wrote “How Computers Work” and later “How Software Works,” “How Digital Photography Works” and “MP3 Underground,” co-authored with his son, Michael.

After living in San Francisco, Cogen said her parents resettled in San Antonio in a home in Monte Vista. In retirement, White taught a course in cinema at Oblate College.

In addition to his wife and daughter, White is survived by his granddaughters Tess and Eliza, Cogen’s children.

Cogen said the family will hold a memorial for her dad once it is safe to gather.

“We will remember his joy in the beauties of life and the intricacies of technology; his righteous indignation at the unjust or close-minded; and the deep, abiding love that he always shared with his family and friends,” the family wrote in a posting on White’s Facebook page.

Ron White wrote “How Computers Work” in the early 1990s.