Boxer results from the creative efforts of David Hamel, a 51-year-old Software Engineer based in Arizona. Hamel was born and raised in Connecticut, and moved to New Hampshire after studying at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he met his wife Maryann. He and his wife are now raising their two children in Scottsdale, AZ. Hamel mixes his interests in motorcycling and antique advertising with his programming efforts.

Hamel recalls his interest in text editors beginning over twenty years ago. “I first took an interest in text editor design early in 1985. I felt that developing a text editor would embody many interesting aspects of program design, and would make for a challenging project.” Hamel made a few false starts before beginning the editor that became Boxer/DOS in November of 1986. “Initially I had no idea how far I would go with Boxer, I just kept adding more and more features. I recall getting a real charge when the editor was first used to edit its own code.”

Boxer's developer continued to enhance the program — with near fanatical devotion — over the years that followed. In February 1991 he decided to release the product to the public. “It became obvious that I had created a superb editor, and that something had to be done with it. I really was not prepared for the reception that Boxer received. Within weeks of the release people were calling to tell me that Boxer was the best editor they had ever seen. I was quite surprised, but delighted!”

Hamel elected to market his text editor by issuing an evaluation version which could be freely passed among users. “Marketing Boxer in this way seemed a very natural decision to me. I wanted as many people as possible to benefit from my work. People deserve to be able to try a program before buying it.” Hamel encourages users to evaluate Boxer for up to 20 days before making a purchase decision.

Hamel has made the development and marketing of Boxer a full-time pursuit. At present he plans to continue enhancing the Boxer products in response to suggestions from his ever-growing user base. “I would like very much to continue developing and upgrading my text editors.” Hamel seems to have a knack for creating programs that excite people — it will be interesting to see what he decides to develop next.