So "4am" is a person? And "they" is the pronoun referring to that person? I couldn't parse the first two paragraphs after reading them three or four times over. Then I started skipping down the page trying to figure out if I (who was around in the eight-bit days, and is interested in hacker-history and nerd-archaeology type stuff, but not personally involved in any related "scene") would be able to make sense of it, or if it was purely written for "insiders". Eventually figured out enough context that, yes, the grammar checked out and I was able to read it and make sense of it. Only then did I come back to "But 4am is an engineer" that strongly implied (but didn't entirely confirm), we are talking about a person here and not a time of day or an abstract concept.

I'm not knocking people for choosing unusual names/handles, after all it's always been a part of hacker culture, or for choosing "they" as a pronoun, which is somewhat inevitable these days... but a little more careful writing of the article intro would make it soooo much easier for the casual reader to just cosy up and enjoy the story. Which was great, by the way. As hoped for - nothing I can act upon, but it tickles my nerd-gills and makes me feel enlightened.