caption birth_place birth_date image article_title name occupation
jennings in august 2002 boston , massachusetts 1955 tom_jennings . jpg tom jennings
 tom jennings faculty , irvine at calarts , technician at university of california
tom jennings

tom jennings -lrb- born 1955 as thomas daniel jennings in boston , massachusetts -rrb- is a los angeles-based artist and technician .
he is the creator of fidonet , the first message and file networking system for bbses .
originally , the fidonet protocols were implemented in a program named fido , authored by jennings , but they were ultimately implemented by other authors in other software to create a network using a multiplicity of platforms .
aside from creating the most influential protocol for networking computer bulletin boards , jennings built wired magazine 's first internet presence , wrote the portable bios that led to phoenix technologies bios , ran an early regional internet service provider , the little garden -lrb- later incorporated as tlgnet , inc -rrb- , and maintains an informal archive of cold war science and technology .
while he lived in san francisco from 1988 until 1991 , jennings was the publisher and co-editor , with deke nihilson , of `` homocore '' , one of the earliest queercore zines .
the name came from the pages of `` j.d.s '' zine , and featured musicians and writers such as the apostles , steve abbott , donna dresch , larry livermore , daniel nicoletta and g.b. jones .
the editors ' other activities , such as organizing `` homocore '' shows where bands such as fugazi and beat happening appeared , and writing for and creating other publications , were instrumental in popularizing the queercore movement , particularly on the west coast .
-lrb- deke also performed in films , such as `` the yo-yo gang '' , and had his own queercore band comrade in arms . -rrb-
internationally , `` homocore '' zine , throughout its eight -lrb- including the rarely seen issue # 5-1/2 -rrb- issues , along with `` j.d.s '' , was influential in the rise of queercore as the zines found their way into the hands of queer punk kids across north america , south america and europe .
jennings currently resides in los angeles , california , with his partner josh stehlik .
he is faculty at calarts art + technology program , and also works as a technician at the university of california , irvine 's arts computation engineering graduate program .
