John Draper

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What Does John Draper Mean?

John Draper is a famous phone phreaker and programmer. Draper first came to prominence as a proficient phone phreaker, earning his Captain Crunch moniker from his use of a Cap’n Crunch Bosun whistle to fool the phone systems. He later built blue boxes to mimic the tones used by phone systems. An article about his activities brought him to the attention of Steve Wozniak and eventually Steve Jobs. Draper also did programming work for Apple, including writing the first word processor for the Apple II, which was called the EasyWriter.

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Techopedia Explains John Draper

Draper has become a legendary figure in Silicon Valley lore. He started out as a pirate radio enthusiast, moved on to phreaking and then computers. He also spent some time in jail, among all his other activities. He belonged to the Homebrew Computer Club, which furnished Silicon Valley with many technical entrepreneurs. Draper remains an active programmer and entrepreneur. However, he never reached the levels of financial success of many of his compatriots.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.