COMDEX 1983, at the VisiOn launch cocktail party, hosted by Daniel Fylstra. There is Kewney. And there is Jerry Pournelle, science fiction writer and author of the "Chaos Manor" column at Byte Magazine. And Pournelle has had one or two too many. I don't remember who starts it, but suddenly amid the clinking of glasses and low-key nerd chatter, Jerry and Guy are going at it, debating which of them is the first real computer columnist, the first to use first person and a sociable style. "Well," says Jerry, while still in the conciliatory phase of the conversation, "you may have been the first *British* computer columnist to write in first person, but *I* was the first person *anywhere* to write in that style." (Or words to that effect.) "No," says Guy, "because I wrote my first column in [whatever the date was]." This does not sit well with Pournelle, and on it goes. As I recall, sometime later I leave with Kewney to have a drink or a coffee or somesuch, and as we wander out we can hear Jerry, still holding forth, still carrying on. Was it really over 25 years ago?