Video game designer Todd Hartley became ‘Tronster” for the love of the movie
by Michael Sragow (The Baltimore Sun, 12/15/2010)
The Parkville boy’s parents had deemed him too young for “Tron” when it played in theaters in 1982. But he loved it when he saw it several years later on a neighbor’s VHS tape.
Soon, he wanted to join the new frontier of electronic bulletin boards. To post, he had to pick a moniker.
“A lot of people chose aliases like Dark Knight or Thunder Hawk,” he said recently. “I logged on for a week as Tron.”
By the end of the week he realized there were seven or eight people in Baltimore alone using Tron. He wanted a different name that could include ‘Tron’ in eight characters or less.
“My 11-year-old self came up with Tronster,” he said.
The nickname stuck. For the past eight years it’s been his legal first name, too.
Tronster (formerly Todd) Hartley, 34, now designs video games for Firaxis Games in Sparks.
Continue reading “Tron Inspires Name Change” at The Baltimore Sun.
(Visit Tronster’s web site at tronster.com.)