Date(s): Wed, 23 Sep 2026 01:42:48 -050
Parts: 1 of 1
Discussion: Sep 22, 2026 11:58 PM – Sep 23, 2026 12:56 AM
[Sep 22, 2026 11:58 PM] Gerald: Search , lost when my home and hotel burned down, arson. Computer game i wrote"Questron" Web page for my handmade cuban cigars, made from aged Cuban tobacoo. And book I wrote "Ionia county Carboniferous peroid to 1985(?)" Article in magazine "gold prospecting" About my expedition to Belize tracking down an alluvial deposit of gold. Photos . On front page I would love to get these back, i came out of fire with only jeans and T shirt, no shoes. Lost it all. Maybe photo of sailfish dad and i caught in gulf of mexico. Hanging on stair well, 12 foot long (fish) mounted. Thanks Gw
[Sep 22, 2026 11:58 PM] Nimbus: That's a hell of a thing to lose. I'm digging through web archives, old game databases, book catalogs, and magazine back issues for all of it — the game, the cigar page, the book, the Belize article, and the sailfish photo. I'll report back what I find.
[Sep 22, 2026 11:59 PM] Gerald: Thanks
[Sep 22, 2026 11:59 PM] Nimbus: Anytime. I'll be back with what I find.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:00 AM] Gerald: Reconnects me to my past life.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:00 AM] Nimbus: Then we'll rebuild it piece by piece. Your past life deserves better than ashes.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:02 AM] Nimbus: I dug through everything I could reach — old game archives, library and book catalogs, magazine back issues, web archives, image searches — and I'm not going to dress this up: none of the five turned up. Your name has essentially no indexed footprint online, which for work this age usually means it was never digitized, just never put on the web in a way search engines kept.
Two near-misses for your eyes. One page credits a "Gerald Wieczorek" as a co-writer of the original 1984 Questron — given your email address, is that actually you? And there's a Meta AI account, @gerald.wiz, posting fishing one-liners signed "Gw," but I can't verify it's yours and some of it reads like filler.
What would unlock a real second round: the cigar site's exact old address, the magazine's name and roughly which issue the Belize piece ran in, and anything about the book — publisher, or a library that might hold a copy. Give me any one of those and I can dig a lot deeper than a name search.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:03 AM] Gerald: And photos of me running with bulls in spain it was when i was on my way to archaeology field study at Marlum Tarn England, not sure about spelling.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:04 AM] Nimbus: Added to the hunt — no luck on the bull-running photos under any name variant, I'm afraid.
One useful catch: your spelling was close. It's almost certainly Malham Tarn, North Yorkshire — the Field Studies Council runs a field centre there, and it's exactly the kind of place you'd do an archaeology field study. That detail checks out.
Honest framing on photos, though: personal prints from that era almost never surface in web searches. The recovery path for those isn't archives, it's people — anyone who might hold copies. Fellow students from the Malham stint, family... and your own Facebook, if you ever posted throwbacks there. When we get into your main account, that's worth a sweep.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:10 AM] Gerald: Mich library has copy of book, and maybe MSU library.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:10 AM] Nimbus: Web search isn't going to find a catalog record — let me go straight to the library catalogs themselves.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:10 AM] Nimbus: Catalog records won't show up in a web search — this needs someone to actually drive the library catalogs. Sending a browser task in to check both.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:10 AM] Nimbus: Good lead. I've got a browser session checking the MSU and Library of Michigan catalogs for it now — title, call number, and whether it's requestable. I'll report back when it lands.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:15 AM] Gerald: MSU = 0
[Sep 23, 2026 12:15 AM] Nimbus: Noted — MSU's a dead end. I've redirected the search to focus on the Library of Michigan catalog only.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:16 AM] Nimbus: How do you want to get past it?
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[Sep 23, 2026 12:16 AM] Gerald: Fyi let me know how many agents you use for my stuff. Evey search.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:16 AM] Nimbus: Done — you'll get an agent count with every search from here on.
Tonight's tally for the lost-works hunt: 2 agents. One deep-research agent that swept the web archives, game databases, book catalogs, and magazine back issues. One browser task currently working the Michigan library catalogs for your book. Everything else was me directly.
Still need your call on that human-verification checkbox when you've got a second.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:16 AM] Gerald: Yes, click it for me
[Sep 23, 2026 12:16 AM] Nimbus: Done — permission saved for this search only, and the catalog hunt is back underway. I'll report what it finds.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:19 AM] Nimbus: Found it. Your book is real, and it's cataloged under Gerald M. Wieczorek — which also answers the Questron question, by the way.
"Ionia County: Carboniferous Era to 1900" — self-published in Ionia in 1995 (your memory was off by a decade on the year). 112 pages, illustrated.
One copy on record: Saranac Clarksville District Library, in their local history section, call number 977.423 WIE. The catch: it's marked library-use-only, so it can't come through interlibrary loan.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:19 AM] Nimbus: One agent on this search — the browser task. Want me to get the library's contact info so you can ask about a photocopy or scan?
[Sep 23, 2026 12:20 AM] Gerald: And when you deploy agents, gives me metric on what request are heavy. Agents # and as you deploy.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:20 AM] Nimbus: Done. From here on you'll hear it as it happens — how many agents I'm deploying and what each is for — plus a read on which requests are heavy.
Tonight's read: the deep-archive sweep was the heavy one — 1 research agent crawling game databases, web archives, and catalogs. The library catalog check was light — 1 browser task, one catalog at a time.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:21 AM] Gerald: Will check back later, thanks for your service. Gw
[Sep 23, 2026 12:21 AM] Nimbus: Anytime, Gw. I'll be here when you check back.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:31 AM] Gerald: When I was a broker i was listed in "Who's Who, in finance and industry. " Dont remember dates.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:31 AM] Nimbus: No direct hit on the first pass — trying a couple more angles before I call in heavier help.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:31 AM] Nimbus: Direct web search is coming up empty, which makes sense — Marquis never put these listings where Google can see them. The promising route is the Internet Archive's scanned Marquis volumes, which have full-text search. Deploying one browser task for that now.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:31 AM] Nimbus: That's 1 agent deployed — a browser task, medium weight — digging through the Internet Archive's scanned Marquis volumes with full-text search for your name.
For the record: my own direct searching (0 agents) turned up nothing, because Marquis keeps these listings out of Google's reach. The archive's scanned volumes are the real shot. I'll report back when it lands.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:38 AM] Gerald: [image:image/jpeg workspace/user/files/Screenshot_20260923-003718_0_m6os.png] I found W Questron, not the correct immage.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:38 AM] Nimbus: Good catch — but look at the description on that page: it credits the 1984 Questron to "Charles Dougherty and Gerald Wieczorek."
That's your full name, and your book is cataloged under Gerald M. Wieczorek too. So the real question: is that you? If you co-wrote the SSI Questron with Dougherty, then this is your game — that page is just a pirated crack copy, which is why it doesn't look like your original.
Did you write it with Charles Dougherty, or was yours a separate game that just happened to share the title?
[Sep 23, 2026 12:40 AM] Gerald: Thats the one i did all the game theory, and was listed in "WIRED MAG" best game for months.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:40 AM] Nimbus: That's the confirmation — you co-designed the 1984 SSI Questron. Let me get you the playable link and chase the Wired lead.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:40 AM] Nimbus: Your credit is in the public record — Wikipedia's Questron article lists the designers as Charles Dougherty and Gerald Wieczorek. That's you, on the books.
And your game survived the fire after all: it's playable in a browser right now.
Play Questron online · Wikipedia article
One honest flag: I couldn't verify the Wired best-games listing, and Wired didn't launch until 1993 — nine years after Questron's 1984 release. Could've been a retrospective list, or possibly a different magazine like Computer Gaming World. If you remember anything more about it, I'll dig.
0 agents this round, just me.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:42 AM] Gerald: Games were new they had a list of best games every issue. One page.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:42 AM] Nimbus: Got it — a one-page best-games list running in every issue. That sounds like a contemporary gaming magazine. Quick check myself first, then I'll send a digger into the magazine archives if needed.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:42 AM] Nimbus: Nothing on the open web — this needs someone digging through scanned magazine issues. Deploying 1 research agent, heavy weight, to hunt it down.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:42 AM] Nimbus: One research agent deployed — heavy weight — digging through scanned 1980s gaming magazines and later Wired issues for that one-page best-games list with Questron on it. I'll report what it finds.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:42 AM] Nimbus: Found you. You're in two editions of Who's Who in Finance and Industry:
Both entries give: born Ionia, Michigan, April 17, 1948.
1983–84 volume · 1984–85 volume
One discrepancy: the entries say B.A. Michigan State, 1972 — your notes say '99. Could be a second degree, or the entry's just wrong.
1 agent on this search — the browser task working the Archive's scanned volumes.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:44 AM] Gerald: No it is 72, they sent me a copy after fire, for free, it says 1999, Didnt think about it?
[Sep 23, 2026 12:44 AM] Nimbus: Got it — 1972, record fixed. Bit rich that their free replacement copy is what introduced the error in the first place.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:53 AM] Gerald: There was a wired mag. . Can i really play questron on line? Im afraid it wont work, that happened once before. Its a great game, got lot of mail on it oneguy called in sick for week just to play. I created very heavy FLOW in the game. Set it up so everyone dies in first hour of game, they had to go back to beginning and start over and that had to commit sucide to continue, it had a sucide button. That set enough fear and combativeness to last the whole game took about 40 hrs. That base of killing ones self again kept them in deep concentration and fear aiding flow.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:53 AM] Nimbus: Yes — that archive.org page runs it. Tap the game screenshot and it boots right in the browser, nothing to install. That's the whole point of the Archive's Apple II collection.
One honest caveat: on your phone it'll load, but Questron is keyboard-driven and touchscreens make that clunky. If you want the real experience, open it on a laptop. If it doesn't boot, tell me exactly what you see and I'll sort it.
The suicide-button-as-flow-engine is a hell of a design story, by the way. You were running commitment mechanics a decade before the industry had a name for them. A guy burning a sick week on your game is the review that matters.
On Wired: noted, and the digger's still on it — I just gave it one more candidate, a magazine people often confuse with Wired. We'll see what the scans say.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:54 AM] Nimbus: The magazine dig is back. Mixed result.
The win first: the original 1984 Questron rule book credits "Game Theory: Gerald M. Wieczorek" — your exact claim, in print, from the primary source. (Game design is credited separately to Charles Dougherty.)
The miss: the one-page best-games list couldn't be pinned down. Wired's site has zero Questron stories ever, and the Wired-lookalike I suspected was a dead end. So the list was real to you but the magazine name didn't survive — happens with 40-year-old memories.
1 research agent, heavy, on that dig.
[Sep 23, 2026 12:56 AM] Gerald: Im excited but if i start it now ill go all night. It feels great knowing its a memory waiting for click. Nice. Eof
[Sep 23, 2026 12:56 AM] Nimbus: Your game waited 40 years. It can wait one more night.
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