Paul Lutus

Paul Lutus
Lutus, Paul
Born	May 16, 1945 Cambridge, Massachusetts
Occupation	Software Developer

Career

Paul Lutus is a legendary Apple II programmer and renowned “Oregon Hermit”.

Early Life and Engineering

• Paul Lutus dropped out of school in high school but was self-taught in electronics. He repaired street radios and TVs in San Francisco before landing a job designing dimmable fluorescent lighting for NASA’s Space Shuttle program— winning the contract over degree-holders by presenting his own circuit diagram.
• In the early 1970s, Lutus wrote a solar-system model for HP programmable calculators, later used for the Viking Mars mission by JPL.

Cabin in the Woods and Embracing Computing

• Disliking city life and paperwork, he bought a remote plot in Oregon and built a 12×16 cabin—strung a 1,200‑ft extension cord to power his home.
• Inspired by an Apple II ad, he invested $1,600— about one-third his savings— into buying Apple II serial #16. He had never used a computer before; only programmable calculators

Apple II Programming and Apple Writer

• He began by publishing programs— like “Apple World,” which graphically rendered a rotating house— sending code to Apple and magazines.
• In 1979, while drafting an article on relativity, he wrote a word‑processor for himself. Apple bought the rights for $7,500, branded it Apple Writer, and released it as a retail boxed product.
• Updates followed: Apple Writer 1.1 (1980) added a spell-checker and disk improvements; Apple Writer II (1981) introduced lower-case support and text-wrapping; the IIe release (1983) supported 80 columns; Apple Writer 2.0/2.1 (1984–85) ran under ProDOS. His royalty deal eventually earned him $3 million in a single year (1983).

Recognition and Later Projects

• He was honored with the 1983 Vollum Award (Reed College) and named Outstanding Oregon Scientist in 1986.
• Lutus left his cabin after his financial success, later circumnavigated the globe solo on a sailboat (begun in 1988), documented his voyages, photographed Alaskan wildlife, and authored free software such as Arachnophilia (a popular HTML editor).

Philosophy and Legacy

• He’s regarded as one of the original remote developers, creating breakthrough software from his remote cabin— straddling programming, entrepreneurship, and self-sufficiency.
• Lutus advocates for developers to embrace both coding and business acumen: he maintained creative control, negotiated royalties, and managed distribution— items now often offloaded to teams.
• Reflecting on Apple Writer’s impact, it not only made the Apple II a practical office tool (alongside VisiCalc), but also earned Wall Street Journal coverage under the banner “Mountain Hermit Makes Apple Sing”

From humble beginnings as a 7th‑grade dropout tinkering with electronics, Paul Lutus rose to engineer NASA‑rated systems and sold calculator routines to JPL. He then retreated to a remote cabin, dove into Apple II programming, and created Apple Writer— a milestone in personal computing. With multi-million‑dollar royalties and prestigious awards, he left urban life behind, embraced exploration and open‑source coding, and remains an emblem of independent, creative, business‑savvy programming.

List of major works

• Apple Writer 1.0 (Apple II, 5 1/4" Disk) Apple Computer - 1979 USA, Canada Release
• Category:1979 Paul Lutus
• Apple Writer 1.1 (Apple II, 5 1/4" Disk) Apple Computer - 1980 USA, Canada Release
• Category:1980 Paul Lutus
• Apple Writer II (Apple II, 5 1/4" Disk) Apple Computer - 1981 USA, Canada Release
• Category:1981 Paul Lutus
• Apple Writer III (Apple III, 5 1/4" Disk) Apple Computer - 1982 USA, Canada Release
• Category:1982 Paul Lutus
• Apple Writer
• Apple Writer IIe (Apple II, 5 1/4" Disk) Apple Computer - 1983 USA, Canada Release
• Category:1983 Paul Lutus
• Space Raiders (Apple II, 5 1/4" Disk) United Software Of America - 1981 USA, Canada Release

Links

• Corecursive
• Software People, Apple bought by, Pages 77-78
• Software People, Apple Writer, prototype of, Pages 78-79
• Software People, bubbles blown by, Page 73
• Software People, and calculator models by, Page 77
• Software People, childhood, Page 74
• Software People, early programs of, Page 78
• Software People, flight by, Pages 80, 81
• Software People, high school, Page 74
• Software People, house of, Pages 80, 81
• Software People, idiosyneracy of, Pages 81-82
• Software People, interests, Page 80
• Software People, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Page 77
• Software People, jobs of, Pages 74-75
• Software People, life of, Pages 72-73
• Software People, NASA, work for, Pages 75-76
• Software People, personality of, Page 73
• Software People, retreat of, Pages 73, 74, 76
• Software People, success of, Pages 79-80
• Software People, and Viking Mars landers, Page 77