The History of the Fuzzball

Ages ago, when I was an undergrad (1981-85), a friend of mine, Steve Slivan, had this really funny piece of artwork on his dorm door. It was the fuzzball. He got it from a newspaper ad from his hometown, North Tonawanda, NY, paper. I really liked it, and made a photocopy, and put it on my dorm room door, too . Well, it travelled along with me, moving from door to door, and finally into my office, where it had a prominent spot on my bulletin board.

One day, I was really bored, and decided to draw a bitmap verion of the thing. This is before the days of easy access to scanners and whatnot, so, yes, I drew the bitmap by hand. (I was *really* bored that day. :)

The fuzzball hung around my account, and I did stuff like use it for my screensaver icon, etc. Some folks must have seen it, and scarfed a copy (my homedir was publicly readable) and used it for the Great Athena Fuzzball Hack in 1989. Completely without my prior knowledge, of course -- though I was, needless to say, very amused.

And then, sometime after the hack, the SIPB seems to have appropriated the thing for their unofficial mascot. Which I think is great.

Steve is also still here at MIT, and he and I find all of this endlessly entertaining, actually. Who would have thought our little fuzzball would travel so widely, and gain such fame?

Anne <lavin@mit.edu>