Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:16:02 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: John Ahlstrom 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> The PBS Show: Slipping a memory cog
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <599831846361.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834765966.001


Sender: John Ahlstrom 
Subject: Re: CM> The PBS Show: Slipping a memory cog


My memory is a good or bad as anyone else's but
I distinctly remember selling Apple ][s from our
store in Dallas which opened in the spring of 1977.

Whether we sold them in the spring of 1977 or 1978
I cannot say.

We sold serial number 11 and were told/believed that
it was the first ][ sold at retail.


John Ahlstrom                   jahlstrom@cisco.com
408-526-6025                    Using Java to Decrease Entropy
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:21:51 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Memories of the 1977 Computer Faire.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <971996162710.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834772181.000


Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> The PBS Show: Slipping a memory cog

Nelson Winkless wrote:
>I attended only one West Coast Computer Faire...in April 1977, at Nourse
>Auditorium in San Francisco.

It was at the Civic Center, in what was then called Brooks Hall (they
renamed it a couple years ago to honor rock promoter Bill Graham).  I've
never heard of "Nourse Auditorium" but possibly that's the name of one
of the halls in the same building?  Anyway, the April 1977 Faire was in
fact the _First_ West Coast Computer Faire, as you said.

Nelson also wrote about recollections of the Apple booth at this Faire.

My college roommate and I rode a Greyhound bus from Stockton so we could
be at the First West Coast Computer Faire, April 1977.  We both stopped by
the National Semiconductor booth and got our "free Scamp Computer", which
was actually not free ($5 I think) and was something called the "SC/MP
microprocessor".  I wound up giving mine to my roommate, and he wound up
designing and building an S-100 card around the bloody thing -- generating
all the proper 8080 (and 8228 and etc.) signals was the biggest challenge.
I helped him with some of the design before I dropped out of college.  I
also recall meeting a nice guy name of Dave Dutra who had a board for sale
that let you plug a Z80 into your 8080 processor board.  I was *fascinated*
by this idea, and spent some hours after the show working out the circuitry
to do it without buying his card.  I never got 'round to actually building
it, as I didn't own my own S-100 chassis until many years later.

I do recall an Apple booth, but I quite honestly don't remember what was
in it or if the ][ was there.  It's possible that I, and you, are mixing
memories of the 1977 First show with the 1978 Second show, but I don't
think so.  One of my favorite memories from the 1978 show was this guy
who was standing in the aisle looking at an Atari machine and muttering
to himself "but that's impossible".  As he walked away, I asked someone
who he was and what he meant and they explained that he'd worked on the
design of the machine in the booth, and he was looking at the screen and
seeing more colors on the screen at once than could be selected at one
time.  The trick, of course, was that the selected colors could be changed
on every scan line, as the booth owner was happy to explain to me.

Those were some great times.  We all knew that the world was changing, even
if we didn't have a clue in what direction, and on top of that the whole
hobby was so damned interesting and engrossing and so on and so on.  Real
fun stuff.

--
  Robert Bickford          rab@well.com
  http://www.well.com/user/rab/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:35:23 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: chris@envex.demon.co.uk (Chris.P.Burton)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Earliest transistorized computer
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <935662372522.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834767283.000


Sender: chris@envex.demon.co.uk (Chris.P.Burton)
Subject: Re: CM> Earliest transistorized computer


> I recall seeing a Bell Labs transistorized computer at the Eastern
> Joint Computer Conference in Philadelphia in 1954, which I suspect was
> the earliest.

A fully transistorised computer utilising a drum store was operational
and successfully ran a program in November 1953. Built by R.L.Grimsdale,
part of Tom Kilburn's team at the University of Manchester. Photo in the
book "Early British Computers" by Simon Lavington. Enhanced and adapted
by Metropolitan-Vickers, a British engineering company, and several sold
as the MV950. First production model completed in 1956.

--
Chris P. Burton,  Wern Ddu, Llansilin, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY10 9BN, UK
Tel+fax: +44 1691 791274    A member of The Computer Conservation Society
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:40:53 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Efrem Lipkin 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> SDS 940 & the original Community Memory.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <498656042852.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834783549.003


Sender: Efrem Lipkin 
Subject: 40 users?

>Sender: Ken_Pier.PARC@xerox.com
>Subject: Re: CM> A Fragment re: Tymshare & SDS

As an undergraduate I was an engineering aid on the SDS 940 project at
Berkeley.  It did not become a "product" by SDS until, I recall, at least 1968.

>The first 940 was created by modifying an SDS 930 commercial computer so that
>it could be used for timesharing.
> ...
>It served about forty or fifty users at a time,

I thing the SDS 940 we had at Resource One (initial home of Community
Memory) topped out at about 16 users, which is still amazing, because if I
remember correctly, it was actually a 3-bit computer pretending to be a 24
bit computer and ours only had 64K of memory.

Which makes it rather a mystery why my 64-bit sparc with a 128 Meg of memory
runs one user poorly. Is there some kind of relativistic time-dilation
between now and the ancient past?

Efrem Lipkin
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:44:20 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Bernie Cosell" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the word hacker?
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <138526840559.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834772426.000


Sender: "Bernie Cosell" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word hacker?

On 12 Jun 96 at 14:37, Akira wrote:

>Many people have drawn analogies between this system of switches and
> the phone system (which basically also runs on switches, or did in the
> 1960s anyway) that these same hackers later explored with ferver.

As a minor historical note, the TMRC layout essentially *WAS* a small
phone system.  It used basically the same steppers and such that the
campus dorm-phone system of that time used.  The 'cabs' [the places from
which you did things] had dials and you could throw switches by dialing
their number and stuff like that.

  /Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell                     Fantasy Farm Fibers
bernie@fantasyfarm.com            Pearisburg, VA
    -->  Too many people, too few sheep  <--
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:47:35 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Bill Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> The Jewish Talmud and the origins of hypertext.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <542635992254.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834783549.008


Sender: "Bill Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> Questions of the Day.

This is a hard question to briefly answer, the hyper-text concept
applies to the entire collection of Jewish literature and not just the
Talmud. Before the advent of printing and standardized page numbers,
cross-referencing was accomplished through key phrases. With the advent
of printing, marginal notes cross-referencing to other sources appeared
as marginal comments. The result is that you can start working on one
topic, divert to another topic to find how a particular arguments works
to solve a problem, divert to a totally different area for additional
discussion related to another problem, and eventually wind up with the
information that give you the clue to answer the question you are
currently working on. This method of study is till used in Yeshivas
today and it really is hyper-text. Jewish literature is a vast
inter-related commentary on the Hebrew Bible. It is a great test of
eye-sight as many of the notes are written in microscopic print using
standardized abbreviations for references to other works.

Bill Anderson

On Jun 13,  9:06am, CM Moderator wrote:
> Subject: CM> Questions of the Day.
> Sender: arcady@well.com (Marc Weber)
> Subject: Roots of Hypertext?
>
> It seems I'm always reading vague allusions to ancient
"hypertext-like"
> techniques; a number of histories mention the Talmud and that
annotations
> there are hypertext-like, but give no specifics as to when they
appeared,
> where, etc. People also make vague allusions to cross-referencing and
page
> numbering appearing in 16-18th century texts. Does anyone have any
specific
> pointers for this stuff, or know if there were even earlier uses of
> cross-linking? On clay tablets, whatever?
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:50:59 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: brett@hpcm.dren.net (Brett Berlin)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> SDS 940 & Tymshare
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1252820940458.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834783549.012


Sender: brett@hpcm.dren.net (Brett Berlin)
Subject: Re: CM> SDS 940 & Tymshare

Peter Deutsch's aside about the pricing of the 940 in such a way as to
obtain a de facto "grant" to cover R&D costs from ARPA highlights a side of
the picture that is rarely discussed in terms of history, but which has far
more impact than we often care to admit.  I am curious, for example, how
the pricing of the SDS 940 compared to other systems of the day.  Does
anyone have specifics on that side of the equation?  Have there been any
good books that dealt with that issue, both on the business and scientific
data processing sides.

I recall one excellent Rand study published around 1968, entitled The
Economics of Computers (I think), by Sharp (if my memory serves me
correctly), but I don't recall whether that study included scientific or
the early time sharing systems.  There also have been lots of simplistic
analysis tracking, for example, IBM hardware according to "Grosch's Law".

There has been much discussion of SAGE & IBM, for example.  It might be
interesting to find individuals who were in the corporate structure at the
time, who actually made the business cases and pricing decisions.
Likewise, for Zerox and the early timesharing machines.  How did the
investment community analyze the business case at that time?  What about
the impact of the IBM/LANL "STRETCH" (which led to the IBM 360/195, among
other things)?  What was the relationship, if any, between the SAGE
experience and the LANL experience -- particularly at the corporate
decisionmaking level?  As we follow the technology and terminology, let's
see if we can find the folks who made the financial decisions along the way
-- some of which helped and some of which got in the way.  Also, the VCs
and other investors who actually developed the business plans for major
primary and secondary investment should be part of this conversation.
Finally, it would be interesting if we could find the actual
government/industry program managers who were on the paying end of the
discussions such as the SDS 940 that Peter was discussing.

F. Brett Berlin

brett@hpcm.dren.net     tel: 703-812-8205       fax: 703-812-9701
                  (or   tel  703-998-5888       fax: 703-820-7181  )
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:56:37 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> XEROX Star.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1388538845796.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834772181.007


Sender: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: CM> XEROX

> There were a few Mac-like interfaces at Xerox in the late '70s when I
> was there. Smalltalk of course is still around. Some of the research
> went into a project called "STAR" which attempted to be an all-in-one
> document publishing system. It was a bomb, as you probably remember.

The "Star" was a technically wonderful system, far superior to the Lisa
let alone the Macintosh. What killed it was the >$10,000 per workstation
baseline price... exactly the same thing that killed the Lisa.

I played with the Star at NCC '82 and it had an overall system integration
level that I haven't seen since.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 08:59:48 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: davidsol@panix.com (CM Moderator)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the word hacker (4 posts)?
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1443520696987.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834783549.017


Sender: "Blair Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word hacker?

On Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:48:40 -0700, Bob Bickford wrote:

> Robert Bickford      "A Hacker is any person who derives joy from
>  rab@well.com        discovering ways to circumvent limitations." rab'86
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>"I recognize that a class of criminals and juvenile delinquents has
>taken to calling themselves 'hackers', but I consider them irrelevant
>to the true meaning of the word; just as the Mafia calls themselves
>'businessmen' but nobody pays that fact any attention."            rab'90

I come from a country where the systemic usage of the word "hacker"  had
its origins in a "determined" attitude. A
hacker,  was patient and hard working.. but strangely proficient, at
"hacking" a way thru bush. Our country was
covered in trees.. dense rainforest, and undulating country.. roads went
after some one "hacked" a path out. A
"hacker" had "first to do it" connotations. In further analysis, the verb
"hack" has onamatapaic (sp) origins, not unlike
"thwack"...  "hack";  the sound of irreversable decision making.  (you cant
glue a branch back on!)

I wonder if this explaination has merit or its origin hasen't got a more
international profile.. ??

(just a thought)


Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word hacker?

Blair Anderson wrote:
[some interesting musings about another derivation for "hacker"]
>
>I wonder if this explaination has merit or its origin hasen't got a more
>international profile.. ??

One thing I've learned over the last ten years is the word has a *lot* of
roots and older meanings.  _The Hackers' Dictionary_ gives it as "originally,
one who makes furniture by chopping wood" if I've remembered the entry
correctly here.  (Follow the link at the bottom of my _Are You A Hacker?_
web page to the Hackers' Dictionary if you want to see for yourself.  My
page's URL is http://www.well.com/~rab/ayah.html)  In English the word can
also mean a person who operates a car-for-hire, aka taxi, cab, or taxicab:
the driver thereof is sometimes called "a hack".  Then there's the verb
usage, as in "He hacked at the foliage." which sounds like it's related to
your example.

The only thing I've protested is those who accept the attempt by juvenile
delinquents and criminals to co-opt the word.  I'm a hacker in the true
sense and I resent the underage thieves who arrogantly call themselves
"hackers" just because they've figured out how to defeat copy protection
on a fifty dollar game.  When they've learned how to do real-time programming
and extensions to the operating system that _work_, then I'll stop arguing
with them, because then they're really hackers.

--
Bob Bickford          rab@well.com
"Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary"
Coordinator, National Libertarian Party's Anti-CDA Campaign

Sender: "Blair Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word hacker?

On Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:51:45 -0700, Matthew Murphy wrote:

> such as the exact replica of a
>campus police car that was built on top of the dome

I touched this very car, "exact replica" is a misnomer... cardboard and
duct tape is more "suited"... (grin)

We did much the same at Canterbury University... Ford Prefect, on top of
the Govt. Life Building, Morris Mini on top
of our Hostel.. I think it was "fashionable"..  along with "streaking", it
died, other than to immortalise the art of campus
stunts!

In a sense these actions are outward manifestations of the internal world
of the Hacker... as we might know one today.

Hackers are for the large part benign creatures.. undeserved of the
attentions, they some times get. I liken it too, and I
think the media sees it as a firestarter syndrome...   a spate of fires,
must be a arsonist. A lot of crashes, must be a
hacker/virus. I notice that the media uses very emotive and disparaging
associations when dealing with "computer
hacking" issues.  The guile of the poor ol' public!

Cheers,

Sender: Alex McLean 
Subject: Origins of the word hacker?


The 'original', highly respected meaning of the word is making a big come
back.  Look at all the fine free software available - for example Linux,
FreeBSD and all the associated applications and tools.  These are people who
write tight code and give it away for free, so others can use and improve
it.  They quite rightly call themselves Hackers, and have much in common
with the MIT Hackers.

And still, if you use the word Hacker in a derogatory way on many USENET
groups, including comp.security.*, you're highly likely to get flamed.
Hackers have their own rich culture made up from weird foods, unique
language, ethics, drugs (mostly caffiene), and a quirky sense of humour.
Using the word hacker when you mean a computer criminal is therefore as
good as racist.

Personally I think computing students and lecturers should all know a little
about the history of Hackers - there is a lot to be learned from their
ideals and triumphs.  The computer industry would still be way back in the
dark ages without them.

The jargon file can be found at ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/gnu/jarg* ,
among other places.

Alex
--
http://area51.upsu.plym.ac.uk/~alex/

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 09:03:05 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: John Ahlstrom 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: Re: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE. (fwd) & BUIC
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <582846611184.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834783549.006

Anybody out there know anything about BUIC?

I think it was somehow SAGE related,
had Burroughs military machines (D830?) and
stood for Back Up Intercept Computer or Command ?


JKA

Sender: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
Subject: Dec System 10/20


Les Earnest wrote:

" Ken Olsen, who was one of the engineers on the TX-0 project and on a
fancier 37 bit machine called TX-2, later used the knowledge derived
from those projects as a basis for founding Digital Equipment Corp.,
whose first computer (PDP-1) resembled TX-0 and whose later PDP-6 and
DecSystems 10 and 20 resembled TX-2. "

The first timesharing machine I ever used was the DecSystem 20 newly
installed at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in the fall of 1980.
It was a 36 bit machine. From what I was told, WPI had traded in it's
DecSystem 10 yet was able to keep the machine and sell it to MIT for
parts.

I also recall DEC was working on a followup machine to the 20 called
Jupiter(?), but by then the VAX had taken off.

I wonder whatever happened to that machine after I graduated in 1984.

Leslie Pearson

----------------------- Message requiring your approval ----------------------
Sender: Ron Smallwood 
Subject: Info on Grace Murray Hopper

I will be teaching course on women and technology and I could use some good
references on Adm. Hopper.  Thanks.

At 08:41 AM 6/13/96 -0700, you wrote:
>.... The first programming class was conducted by their director of
>programming, Grace Murray Hopper....

Ron Smallwood    Instructor/Network Manager | P.O. Box 860   5504 Simpson Trail
Northern Lights College  Fort Nelson Campus | Fort Nelson, B.C.  V0C 1R0 Canada
Phone: (604)774-2741        (604)774-3038         Fax:(604)774-2750
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 09:06:44 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Austin Meredith 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Roots of Hypertext?
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1342425693403.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834783549.011


Sender: Austin Meredith 
Subject: Re: Roots of Hypertext?

I am responding to an inquiry by Marc Weber , as follows:

> It seems I'm always reading vague allusions to ancient "hypertext-like"
> techniques; a number of histories mention the Talmud and that annotations
> there are hypertext-like, but give no specifics as to when they appeared,
> where, etc. People also make vague allusions to cross-referencing and page
> numbering appearing in 16-18th century texts. Does anyone have any
> specific pointers for this stuff, or know if there were even earlier uses
> of cross-linking? On clay tablets, whatever?

The Talmud is a good _argument for_ hypertext, nothing more. Various
portions of each leaf are set aside for different kinds of cross-reference
notations. Consider as an analogy to this, some scholarly paper monograph
issued today, which has 1.) footnotes at the bottom of each page,
2.) endnotes at the back of the volume, 3.) an extensive bibliograph,
4.) a table of contents with chapter summaries, and 5.) an elaborate
alphabetical index. The most one could say about such a monograph,
and what one would have to say as well about the Talmud, is that they
push -push -push this old "book" technology beyond the maximum extent to
which it can be extended.

If the Talmud pioneered in "hypertext-like techniques," then so did I.

In the 1977 timeframe I built myself a cabin up in the Sierra Nevada
mountains, that was all bookshelf along three walls, floor to ceiling,
and was all desk along the fourth wall. I had five different work areas
on my 15-foot-long desk, at which I could lay out five different sets of
work materials. My study chair was on rollers, so I could push myself from
work layout to work layout. Nailed to the fronts of the shelves, floor to
ceiling, were wooden clothespins. My work arrangements were, I would type
my materials on an IBM Selectric with a correction ribbon, one paragraph
per page, and arrange it on the wall under these wooden clothespins.
Then, as my three walls filled with various typed paragraphs, I would
approach the wall with bright orange kite cord, and make connections
between various clothespins. Then I would stand back and look at this,
and consider ways to rearrange the pieces of paper so as to minimize the
use of orange cord. Then I would apply scissors and rubber cement in
order to consolidate pieces of paper, and, going over to a Xerox copier,
make fresh copies of consolidated paragraphs. Then I would post this fresh
material under the clothespins, and start over with the orange cord.

What was I doing? Like my Harvard peer Ted Kaczynski (pronounced
Ka-CHIN-ski), I was trying to figure out what was wrong with civilization.
Evidently, at this same time as it now turns out, he was in his own cabin,
building his first bomb. Well, some of us go wrong!

This went on and on, cycle after cycle, iteration after iteration.
Had I invented hypertext? No. But, like the Talmud, I had before me a
material simulacrum of hypertext, more or less a "breadboard" or a
"concept study," and this would have constituted --had anyone other than
myself known about it, of course-- an excellent argument for the eventual
_creation_ of hypertext technology. Now that the hypertext (and
transclusion) technology is available within a computer box, this Kouroo
project does, entirely inside a neat black NeXT workstation, _exactly_
what I used to do in 1977, hard at work in the mountains, at my elaborate
"physical-simulacrum" cabin-setup....

\s\ Austin Meredith , "Stack of the Artist of Kouroo" Project
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 13:59:13 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: cobbjw@ornl.gov (John W. Cobb)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: Bogus etymology: "Bug" and "Spam"
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <829058345952.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.000


Sender: cobbjw@ornl.gov (John W. Cobb)
Subject: Bogus etymology: "Bug" and "Spam"

John Taber commented:
>Sender: "John K. Taber" 
>Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "software" & "bug."
>
About the perils of poor scholarship in the etymology of the term bug and
that a reasonable explanation may be misleading.

A similar incidence is the term "Spam"

I first became familiar with the term in the late 80's (revealing my youth here)
as used on Usenet groups that were dealing with continual phenomenal growth
and accomodating "newbies" who didn't understand "netiquette".

There the term "Spam" was used to describe the action of a less than
courteous poster who blasted a message (often long) to many newsgroups. The
message were often off-topic as well. This is perhaps best represented by
the more recent spam wars with Cantor and Siegal offering Green Card on
every newsgroup.

In terms of the origin of the term "Spam" I had always assumed that it was
derived from the widely popular Viking Spam skit from Monty Python. It made
sense to me since the couple in the cafe could not hold a conversation over
the din of vikings yelling and singing "sam, spam, spam, spam". It seems
quite analogous to the problem of having intelligent conversation on a
newsgroup when there is a mass of unrelated trash to wade through.
Moreover, there seems to be a large overlap between Python fans and
computer-folk.

As I said, I assumed this was the meaning, although it's use certainly
pre-dates my awareness of this subculture.

However, the humourous part is that people even newer to the net than
myself have taken it upon themselves to often write histories or
explanations without any real knowledge about the topic and without any
humility about their lack of knowledge. Their explanations of the roots of
terms and customs are often very funny.

I think it was an airline magazine that started carrying articles about
computers and the net where an author proceeded to explain to the reader
the meaning of "spamming" pretty accurately, and then explained that its
origin was that it is analogous to throwing a chunk of spam at a fan. It
goes everywhere and gets all over everything. I really chuckled because I
am famous for mixnig metaphors myself. It's not spam that hit the fan, it's
a term that surfwatch filters out.


The etymology of such words is interesting in and of itself, but it is,
IMO, a useful way to understand this subsculture. We've already talked
about bug, software, surfing, and smilies (or emoticons). Other terms that
might be useful to comment upon are:

grepping
bot-posting/cancel-bots
kibo
foo and bar as generic variable/function names
Gnu (was Stallman the first? did he listen to the Smother's brothers?)
trolling
lurking

and of course a history of the growth of abbreviations (IMO,RTFM,YKYHB***,...)


The lesson for us all here, however, is that we should be careful in
commenting on our community history to separate the different levels of
confidence we place in the accounts posted here. We should note which
sources are primary and which are secondary, etc. Otherwise, this collected
memory will be much less useful because we may make it difficult to
separate fact from poor memories. Let's try to write history, not create
urban myths.

-john .w cobb
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:05:55 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Jay Hosler 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: Re: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE. (fwd) & BUIC
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <228331699354.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.001


Sender: Jay Hosler 
Subject: Re: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE. (fwd) & BUIC

>
> Anybody out there know anything about BUIC?

BUIC was a SAGE derivative that ran on the Q-8.  I believe it had
significant amounts of code in JOVIAL (SAGE was all in Q-7 machine
code).  BUIC was rising as SAGE declined, about the time I left SDC
(early 1962).

Jay Hosler
jhosler@cisco.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:10:37 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Richard Brodie 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> XEROX Star.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <443482241636.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.006


Sender: Richard Brodie 
Subject: RE: CM> XEROX Star.

peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva) wrote:

>The "Star" was a technically wonderful system, far superior to the Lisa
>let alone the Macintosh. What killed it was the >$10,000 per
>workstation
>baseline price... exactly the same thing that killed the Lisa.

Well...it took 5 minutes to boot and you couldn't create a document
longer than something like 20 pages, but it was certainly ahead of its
time. The research projects that it was based on, though--Alto, Bravo,
and Laurel (the mail system)--were far superior.

It's taken almost 20 years to bring the masses up to that level via
Win95, Word, and Exchange.

Richard Brodie  RBrodie@brodietech.com  +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is?  http://members.gnn.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:16:13 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Joshua S. Hodas" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> XEROX Star.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <294733029972.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.019


Sender: "Joshua S. Hodas" 
Subject: Re: CM> XEROX Star.

[~snip~]

While it is true that the Star was a major achievement and a crucial
milestone, memory has probably been generous to it. In particular,
while the integration was, as Peter says, excellent, the user interface
is not as clean as many remember.

It is a standard myth that Apple lifted the user interface of the Lisa
and Mac in whole from the Star. This is simply not true. Many core
interface features that we now take for granted were not present
in the work produced at Xerox. In particular, the notion of
click-drag-release was developed at Apple. Similarly, the Star
was not able to draw in windows that were partially obscured; they
had to be brough to the forground to be updated.

Bruce Horn (a student at the Xerox LRG and later co-developer of the early
macintosh system software) recently posted a note to the MacWay
mailing list outlining some of the development history of the Mac
interface. This note was followed-up by one from Jeff Raskin filling
in some gaps. Both notes are available at:

http://wais.sensei.com.au/archives/macarc/macway/9604/0056.html

---------

Josh Hodas                                              hodas@cs.hmc.edu
Assistant Professor                             http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~hodas
Department of Computer Science          (909) 621-8650
Harvey Mudd College                             (909) 621-8465 (fax)
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:19:14 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Ken_Pier.PARC@xerox.com
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> SDS 940 & the original Community Memory.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1259027645153.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.014


Subject: Re: CM> SDS 940 & the original Community Memory.

>I thing the SDS 940 we had at Resource One (initial home of Community
>Memory) topped out at about 16 users, which is still amazing, because if I
>remember correctly, it was actually a 3-bit computer pretending to be a 24
>bit computer and ours only had 64K of memory.
>

"The computer in this system is an SDS 930, a 24 bit, fixed-point machine with
one index register, multi-level indirect addressing, a 14 bit address field,
and 32 thousand words of 1.75 microsecond memory in two independent modules."
        -- Lampson, B. et. al. "A User Machine in a Time-Sharing System."
Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 54, No.12, December, 1966.

>Which makes it rather a mystery why my 64-bit sparc with a 128 Meg of memory
>runs one user poorly. Is there some kind of relativistic time-dilation
>between now and the ancient past?

Try limiting all of your interaction to the console and see if that speeds
things up.

Ken
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:22:40 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <400667102358.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.025


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE. (fwd)

I'm pleased to see Severo's perspectives on SAGE, which are a bit
different from mine.  He says:
   Yes, like Les (whom I know from later contacts at the Stanford AI lab and
   elsewhere - Hi Les!) I cut my teeth at Lincoln Lab on SAGE. Of course in
   retrospect Les' evaluation is quite correct, but clearly neither of us
   believed it back then. In those days (1950's) it wasn't so apparent that
   SAGE was such a silly thing.  Many people worked in good faith believing
   that it was not only exciting and ground-breaking (which it was), but also
   important. [. . .]

There was no question that it was technologically important -- I was
amazed that such a complex system could work at all and was intrigued
by the opportunity to play with the biggest toy I had ever seen!
However, I would argue that the impracticality of SAGE was visible
quite early, though we didn't want to see it.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, the three main inadequacies of
SAGE were its extreme vulnerability to electronic countermeasures, the
fact that the computer centers were not put underground and that they
were sited in such a way that they would have been bonus targets if an
attack had occurred.  I will argue that these things were all known
fairly early but were deliberately ignored.

                    Electronic Countermeasures

When I arrived at MIT Lincoln Lab in late 1956 I found that my office
mate specialized in processing digitized radar data.  Being from the
Boston area he pronounced that as "rada' dater."  He explained to me
how returns from multiple scanning radars were digitized, transferred
by phone line to the computer center, queued on a magnetic disk, then
correlated and tracked by the computer, so that it could keep track of
the positions and velocities of multiple aircraft over a large area.
When I asked what would happen if incoming manned bombers actively
jammed the radars or dropped chaff, he candidly replied that it
wouldn't work under those circumstances.

Having just come from being an aviation electronics officer in the
Navy for three and a half years I was aware that electronic
countermeasures were standard tactics for bombers, so I found this
puzzling.

I later learned that MIT's Whirlwind computer, which was the precursor
of SAGE, was originally designed as a flight simulator, but that MIT
had a lot of radar experts left over from the Radiation Lab that had
been based there in World War 2 and they were intrigued with the idea of
connecting radars with computers.  Some of them were interested in
building an air traffic control system, but they were unable to obtain
funding for that.  Meanwhile, the Defense Department was riding the
wave of paranoia that followed advances in nuclear weapons by the
Soviet Union and there was plenty of money available for anything that
could be called a defense system.

With Air Force funding, MIT put together the Cape Cod System, which
connected a number of radars in the Boston area to the Whirlwind
computer and demonstrated that they could track aircraft (as long as
they didn't jam) and could direct manned interceptors to their
vicinity.  This was essentially an air traffic control demonstration
masquerading as an air defense system.  The Air Force brass certainly
knew or should have known that enemy bombers would not be so
cooperative, but the whiz-bang technology blew their socks off and
they decided to go ahead with developing a large system, ignoring that
"minor" problem.

                         Bonus Targets

As mentioned in my earlier article, the decision of the Air Defense
Command to put most of the SAGE control centers at SAC bases, where
they would became bonus targets in any manned bomber attack, was made
in the interests of maintaining an excellent lifestyle for their
officers.  This major blunder was pointed out by Herman Kahn, who was
then at Rand Corp., when he gave a classified briefing to an
auditorium full of Mitre staff members around 1959.  I believe that he
gave the same briefing to various Air Force authorities.
Nevertheless, the deployment of SAGE systems continued to follow their
absurd siting plan.

That was a pretty strong indication that SAGE was intended to be a
"peacetime" air defense system.  It provided an enjoyable lifestyle
for its operators and gave some assurance to the public that we had an
air defense system, but it would have disintegrated under an actual
attack.

                          No Hardening

To their credit, MIT did tell the Air Force that the SAGE centers
should be placed underground in hardened facilities to minimize
vulnerability to attack.  However, when the Pentagon bean counters
figured out how much that would cost they decided that it would be
much more economically sensible to put them in concrete blockhouses
above ground.

MIT administrators tried to insist on hardened facilities and
periodically wrote rather nasty letters to Air Force officials,
pointing out the foolishness of that decision and a number of others,
and threatening to withdraw from the project if the government didn't
start doing things right.  While the Air Force generals did make a few
accommodations, they became increasingly annoyed with these academics
who were trying to tell them how to do their job.  They ultimately
decided that they needed a more responsive organization to oversee the
development of SAGE.

Earlier, after MIT Lincoln Lab staff members had developed a
preliminary version of the SAGE software, they realized that
completing and maintaining the real-time operating system would be a
major task, so they recruited the System Development Division of Rand
to take over that work.  Rand, in turn, decided that the SAGE software
project would end up dominating their organization, so they spun off
their System Development Division as the nonprofit System Development
Corporation (SDC).

The Air Force noticed that SDC was substantially more compliant than
MIT, which was not suprising in view of the fact that SDC's entire
income at that time came from this one project.  The Air Force asked
MIT to spin off a similar nonprofit company to handle system
integration on SAGE and the follow-on development of other command-
control systems, as they were called then.  The MIT administration,
who by this time wanted to distance themselves from this project,
breathed a sigh of relief and complied.  Thus Mitre was born.

There was, of course, an abrupt change in the working relationship
between the MIT staff members who moved to Mitre and the Air Force.
Mitre was now a captive organization that could not afford to threaten
a pull-out if the Air Force continued to screw up.  A number of subtle
and not-so-subtle mechanisms came into play to suppress dissent from
the engineers.

In the end, the Air Force got what it wanted, but not what the public
deserved.

        -Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:26:55 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "L. Peter Deutsch" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> SDS 940 & the original Community Memory.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1552007351614.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.022


Sender: "L. Peter Deutsch" 
Subject: Re: CM> SDS 940 & the original Community Memory.

> >Which makes it rather a mystery why my 64-bit sparc with a 128 Meg of memory
> >runs one user poorly. Is there some kind of relativistic time-dilation
> >between now and the ancient past?
>
> Try limiting all of your interaction to the console and see if that speeds
> things up.

And make sure that that console is a Model 33 or 35 Teletype.  It's amazing
how much better a computer performs relative to your expectations if your
expectations are lower.

I've been told that Unix was not designed, and as far as I know was never
redesigned, specifically to optimize interactive use.  The 940 OS was.  For
example, the scheduler strongly favored interactive over compute-bound
processes, and the swapper would write dirty pages back to the paging device
during idle sectors (doing many redundant writes because of this) just so
clean memory pages would be available to load code required to process
interactive input.

Modern OSs are bloated horrors compared to the early time-sharing systems.
They do a lot more, but not *that* much more.  The 940 OS kernel was written
in assembler and was limited by the machine architecture to an address space
of 16K 24-bit words, including code *and* data.  (It did do some page frame
manipulation to stretch this to 24K or so, and 2K of the data was
per-logged-in user.)  The kernel included a process scheduler, paged memory
manager with swapper, disk file system, device drivers (terminals, mag tape,
paper tape, punch cards), and some other odds and ends I've forgotten.  The
early Unix kernels were of comparable size, because they had to fit into a
PDP-11.

I have considerable sympathy for the viewpoint that says that with all the
wonderful advances in hardware, programmers no longer have to spend so much
time squeezing cycles and bytes out of their software -- except that in my
experience, it mostly isn't true.  It only really applies to the very top
level of the software pyramid: inefficiency at lower levels has a
multiplicative effect at higher ones, so system programmers still *do* have
to squeeze the cycles and bytes to produce good products.  Unfortunately,
too many current-day programmers have bought the myth about hardware
advances, and so the result is systems that don't do useful work any faster
on 50 MIPs processors than their ancestors did on 0.5 MIPs processors.

                                                L. Peter Deutsch
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:29:37 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE & BUIC
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1586793765776.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.018


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE. (fwd) & BUIC

John Ahlstrom writes:
   Anybody out there know anything about BUIC?

   I think it was somehow SAGE related,
   had Burroughs military machines (D830?) and
   stood for Back Up Intercept Computer or Command ?

That was an air defense system that attempted to use azimuth-only
radar data such as would be avaible if incoming bombers employed
jamming.  It was developed sometime in the 1960s after it was
semi-officially recognized that SAGE didn't work.  However, SAGE
continued to operate in order to sustain the lifestyles of those who
ran it and to avoid outward acknowledgment of its failure.

I don't know much about the details of BUIC -- that happened after I
switched to military intelligence systems.  As it turned out, though
SAGE was useless, computerized military intelligence systems of that
era were worse than useless, but that is another story.

        -Les Earnest


______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:33:00 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Original "Daisy"
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <662744209980.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.020


Sender: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: Original "Daisy"

Greetings.  I've just located a tape of the original instrumented
"Daisy" synthesis--the one that served as the model for Hal's shutdown
sequence in "2001".  I'm preparing to bring it online, but I can't
find my original references to the date, programmer, and equipment on
which it was produced, though I recall it was a Bell Labs effort.
Specific references would be useful and appreciated.

I'll let the list know when it's available for playing.  Thanks.

--Lauren--
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:36:00 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: footage@well.com (Rick Prelinger)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Apple Prehistory
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <870000569159.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834852961.027


Sender: footage@well.com (Rick Prelinger)
Subject: Apple Prehistory

I was happy to be at UC Berkeley in 1972 but unlucky enough to be a
resident of one of the dormitories, filled with freshmen away from home for
the first time.  One night, acting on a lead from a mutual friend, two
young men known by the names "Hans" and "Gribble" came to my room for a
visit.  ("Gribble" also went under the name Oaf Tobar.)  They were really
named Jobs and Wozniak, and they were selling blue boxes.

The night turned into a fantastic phreaking demonstration that lasted for
several hours.  I frantically took notes on the many numbers and codes they
punched into their blue boxes and, of course, found $80 somewhere with
which to buy one.  I recall Jobs using the box to call Dr. Arthur Janov
(therapist and author of _The Primal Scream_) and leave some kind of
message, and calling Pioneer Electronics in Tokyo only to say, "Is this
Pioneer Electronics?  Yes?  Thank you."

Later, they reached an inward operator in the United Kingdom and practiced
a variety of social engineering techniques, which derailed when they
started calling him a "Limey", prefaced by other, ruder epithets.  He
started laughing and said, "Now, you ain't one of those blue boxers, are
you...we've got better ones than you do...".

The demo ended when one of my neighbors took it on himself to practice a
little social engineering and called saying that he was from the telco and
aware of what was going on, and that there was a black-and-white on the
way.  The "instrument", as its builders called it, was packed up very
quickly and everything ended.

What's special about this vignette (I imagine many other readers
experienced similar events) was the quality of the equipment that the Apple
team was building even at that early date.  The audio oscillator was
crystal-controlled and used special ICs that they claimed were otherwise
unavailable.  The box contained a magnetic reed switch that made it
unusable unless a small refrigerator magnet was placed just right.  The
human factors and ergonomic design was excellent.  All sixteen CCITT tones
then in use were supported on the keyboard.

When I donated this piece of equipment to The Computer Museum in Boston, I
stated that I thought this artifact embodied the linkage between the hacker
community and the development of the early PC, especially the Apples.  It
was a user-friendly and well-thought-out, plug-and-play appliance.

BTW, this whole event was audiotaped by a friend, but I don't know where he
is now.

Rick Prelinger
Prelinger Archives
430 West 14th Street, Room 403 / New York, NY 10014 USA
212 633-2020 / Fax: 212 255-5139
footage@well.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 09:04:16 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Bogus etymology
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1712387633655.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834855113.000


Sender: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information
Security)
Subject: Bogus etymology


>foo and bar as generic variable/function names

Believe these derive from the same source as RTFM: the WWII "SNAFU"
("Situation normal, all f*cked up") for gentle audiences it was
rendered as "fouled" but everyone knew what the real usage was.

By Vietnam, this had expanded to FUBB ("...beyond belief") and FUBAR
("...beyond all recognition". This was pronounced "foo bar" hence the
emergence of the separate terms (and not an oriental watering hole).

My personal favorite was "IHTFP" rendered for superiors as "I have
truely found paradise".

ANFSCD

>BUIC was a SAGE derivative that ran on the Q-8.  I believe it had
>significant amounts of code in JOVIAL (SAGE was all in Q-7 machinecode).
>BUIC was rising as SAGE declined, about the time I left SDC (early 1962)

Do not think the Jules Own Version is that old (Mil-Std-1889 ?), more like
mid-late '70s. Was a perfect match for the Mil-Std-1750A processor, neither
had any real provision for I/O (I used to refer to the 1750 as a "co-
processor in search of a processor in later days).

Is an interesting bit of hystery there - in the late '70s the military
saw a need for standardized computing and came up with two standards:
the USAF developed Mil-Std-1750 as a 16 bit airborne processor and the
Mil-Std-1862 was assigned to the Army for a 32 bit ground computer.

Somewhere along the way 1862 got canceled which left 1750 as the *only*
standard processor and during the '80s *every* DoD program required it
(including user-based applications. Since the 1750 could only address
16 bit words and not bytes, this made ASCII string manipulation
"interesting").

I consider one of the high points of my career to have been a two year
sucessful effort to convince the USAF to allow use of a microVAX in
place of a 1750.
                                        Warmly,
                                                Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 09:12:29 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> West Coast Computer Faire & Apple II.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1286798923147.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834860945.000


Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: CM Re: West Coast Computer Faire & Apple II

It's a relief to know that John Ahlstrom is also uncertain about
whether the Apple II appeared at the 1977 or 1978 West Coast Computer
Faire. The TV show must have been right to say 1978...they have heaps of
people to check things, but...

...Merl Miller (dilithium Press) said today that he remembers being at the
show (one of the books they were offering there was just a cover with
blank pages inside...but they got a bunch of orders in anticipation of words
on the pages), and he leans to the 1977 Apple II theory.

By the way, Nourse Auditorium is/was the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, a
big hall up at ground level, with stairs and a tunnel connecting to
the exhibit hall located under the civic plaza across the street. That
underground exhibit hall was constructed about 1957, and there was a big
debate at the time about naming it.

During the thirties, in the middle of the depression, when the city was
building a big livestock exhibition hall, somebody commented bitterly that
people were hungry, and the government was building a palace for cows. The
name stuck, and the building is still called the Cow Palace. (Working on PR
for WESCON at the Cow Palace in 1963, I was amazed to see an "integrated
circuit" in a TO5 case that contained an incredible 300 transistors.)

The Cow Palace was remembered ruefully when somebody suggested Mole Hall as
the name of the exhibit hall under the civic plaza, and they quickly took
action to announce Brooks Hall as the official name before the fun one took
hold. Have they really changed that?

In November 1968 I sat in an upstairs room in the civic auditorium, sorting
movies for the Computer Science Theater, which I was managing for the Fall
Joint Computer Conference that year, and I could look out a window through
the driving
rain at a band of political protesters whooping it up in front of City Hall
across the plaza. It struck me at the time that the revolution they were
hoping for to change things dramatically was represented not so much by
their activities out there in the cold rain as by the computer systems that
were being assembled for demonstration in Brooks Hall fifty feet beneath them.

--Nels Winkless

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 09:17:09 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Merry Maisel 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Roots of Hypertext?
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <563436679428.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834855976.000


Sender: Merry Maisel 
Subject: Re: CM> Roots of Hypertext?

Austin Meredith's post concerning his elaborate proto-hypertext
system reminds me that another person from early 1960s Cambridge
is usually credited with invention of the term and of the hypertext
system(s) now used qua "hypertext" on PCs and Macs.  That person is
Theodor Holm Nelson, apparently unreachable by e-mail these days
because he gets too many messages.  When I knew him in Cambridge
in 1961/2, his hypertext system consisted of 4 x 6 index cards,
each prestamped with a number.  He carried around a packet of these
secured by one of those squeeze-the-wire-handles index clips and
scribbled notes for his novel (I don't know if he ever wrote it)
on the cards.  He could then sort them by number or content.  The
numbers functioned rather like datelines, but were more inexact--
he might write five cards one day, ten the next, and so on.

I'm sure he wrote down every clever thing I ever said to him,
which took up space on two or three cards altogether.
He'd been doing this ever since he went to Swarthmore.  I lost
track of him over the years and only a few years ago found
that someone who looked just like him (only much older), by
the same name, was being interviewed on TV because he had
invented hypertext and coined the name "hypertext" for it.
Some people wonder what has become of all the cards from
library card indexes.  I sometimes wonder what Ted did with
all of his cards.  Bet it was a wrench, going from one system
to the other...

Merry Maisel
San Diego Supercomputer Center
maisel@sdsc.edu
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 09:21:00 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Irv Luckom 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> About Grace Murray Hopper
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1099597405659.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834861995.000


Sender: Irv Luckom 
Subject: About Grace Murray Hopper


Sender: Ron Smallwood 
Subject: Info on Grace Murray Hopper

I will be teaching course on women and technology and I could use some good
references on Adm. Hopper.  Thanks.

At 08:41 AM 6/13/96 -0700, you wrote:
>.... The first programming class was conducted by their director of
>programming, Grace Murray Hopper....

Sorry I can't help you with references -- only anecdotes from my personal
experiences with her.

As I indicated above I was part of her first class in programming for the
original commercial version of the Eckerd & Mauchly computer which
reached the market as the Univac I (how it got that name is another story).
When the four of us convened in Philadelphia at the E&M site, Grace
decided that there was too much noise in their conference room so she
adjourned the course to her apartment. I was a lovely place in one of the
upper floors of a very large apartment house overlooking the river.
Across from the apartment, on the other side of the river, was the
Philadelphia museum of fine arts (don't remember its official name). For
the next week we convened there every morning and learned assembly
language for the machine (it had no higher level language until several
years later).

I then lost track of Grace until many years later, approximately 1980,
when she had rejoined the Navy. (When she worked on the Aiken machine at
Harvard, she had been commission as a LTjg). This was after she had become
the driving force in the development of COBOL. I was in another Department
of Defense organization at the time, and she was trying to convince us to
adopt COBOL as our standard language. She didn't succeed but we kept in
touch for the next couple of years.

Grace was in great demand as a speaker and I attended a Washington, DC
area meeting of the ACM at which she spoke. One of her points was "what
is a microsecond?" She anwered this rhetorical question by pulling out of
her handbag, which was the size of a small suitcase, several pieces of
telephone wire. She explained that the phones in her office were being
replaced and while that was going on she asked one of the yeomen in her
office to go out in the hall to the telephone company's service cart and
"liberate" some of the scrap pieces of wire that they had. She then had
the individual wires cut to approximately 11" which she had determined was
the length of wire of that gauge which represented the distance that an
electron would travel in one microsecond. It was a a very effective
demonstration.

I wish I could give you some more scholarly information, but this is all
I can think of at the moment.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 09:23:17 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Ron Smallwood 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: Info on Grace Murray Hopper
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <743636233796.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 834857470.000

I will be teaching course on women and technology and I could use some good
references on Adm. Hopper.  Thanks.

At 08:41 AM 6/13/96 -0700, you wrote:
>.... The first programming class was conducted by their director of
>programming, Grace Murray Hopper....

Ron Smallwood    Instructor/Network Manager | P.O. Box 860   5504 Simpson Trail
Northern Lights College  Fort Nelson Campus | Fort Nelson, B.C.  V0C 1R0 Canada
Phone: (604)774-2741        (604)774-3038         Fax:(604)774-2750
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:17:51 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> XEROX Star.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <236502045270.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835029126.000


Sender: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: CM> XEROX Star.

> It is a standard myth that Apple lifted the user interface of the Lisa
> and Mac in whole from the Star.

Not a myth I've ever held to. There were significant differences, mostly
due to the limited resources of the Mac, some due to the strictness of the
desktop metaphor of the Star.

> This is simply not true. Many core
> interface features that we now take for granted were not present
> in the work produced at Xerox. In particular, the notion of
> click-drag-release was developed at Apple.

I think you're mistaken. As I recall from using it, the way you printed or
mailed a document was to drag it onto the mailbox or printer.

The biggest change in the user interface that Apple came up with was the
single-button mouse, and the permanent menus and double-clicking that went
along with that.

Creating a new document was slightly clumsy on the Star, using a model of
tearing off a page from a pad of "smart" paper that gave you a word processor
or whatever. Opening program explicitly dropped the desktop metaphor, but
was much more convenient.

> Similarly, the Star
> was not able to draw in windows that were partially obscured; they
> had to be brough to the forground to be updated.

I never noticed that, but it does explain why the Mac and Lisa carried
forward this "click to front" model that bedevils us to this day.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:27:30 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Lorrie Faith Cranor 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Roots of Hypertext, Ted Nelson.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <828115017849.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835030019.000


Sender: Lorrie Faith Cranor 
Subject: Re: CM> Roots of Hypertext?

In response to Merry Maisel's note about Ted Nelson....

There was a lengthy piece on Nelson in Wired last summer (see
http://www.hotwired.com/wired/3.06/features/xanadu.html).  Nelson
disputes the accuracy of some of the details, but the flavor it
conveyed of how Nelson works was consistent with what I observed when
I saw him at the 1993 Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference.

Nelson carried a tape recorder, video camera, and brief case full of
notebooks, color coded sticky pads, audio and video tapes, and various
writing utensils with him throughout the conference.  He always
appeared to be in motion, scribbling notes, then switching to video,
then audio, sticking colored sticky notes here and there....
According to the Wired article he stores his notebooks and tapes in
several rented storage spaces.  He is leaving the materials for
scholars in future generations to decipher.

The article says Nelson invented the term "hypertext" during his first
year as a graduate student at Harvard in 1960.  Ever since then he has
been working on his ultimate hypertext project: Xanadu.

Besides taking inspiration from the Talmud, hypertext also was
inspired by Vannevar Bush's 1945 essay, As We May think, which
described a hypothetical machine for storing and annotating documents.

Lorrie Cranor

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:32:31 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Brett J. Lorenzen" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Bogus etymology: "Spam"
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2035339360149.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.013


Sender: "Brett J. Lorenzen" 
Subject: Re: Bogus etymology: "Bug" and "Spam"

At 14:01 6/14/96 -0700, John W. Cobb surmised:

>>Sender: "John K. Taber" 
>>Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the word "software" & "bug."
>>
>In terms of the origin of the term "Spam" I had always assumed that it was
>derived from the widely popular Viking Spam skit from Monty Python. It made
>sense to me since the couple in the cafe could not hold a conversation over
>the din of vikings yelling and singing "sam, spam, spam, spam".

Stanton McClandish did a piece on this some time ago that was picked up by
the RRE list.  He came to the same conclusion, tracing it back through its
likely origins in the MUD, MOO, M** environment (which is where I first
heard it in the mid-80s).

For those interested in his contribution to this little entymological
escapade, that piece is likely still available in the RRE archives at:

http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/rre.html

(I have a copy handy if it isn't there, but it's a bit too long for the list
. . .)

Brett
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:34:53 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "John K. Taber" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Apple Prehistory - Captain Crunch.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2056999745292.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.010


Sender: "John K. Taber" 
Subject: Re: CM> Apple Prehistory

At 02:37 PM 6/14/96 -0700, Rick Prelinger wrote:
>
>Sender: footage@well.com (Rick Prelinger)
>Subject: Apple Prehistory
>
>I was happy to be at UC Berkeley in 1972 but unlucky enough to be a
>resident of one of the dormitories, filled with freshmen away from home for
>the first time.  One night, acting on a lead from a mutual friend, two
>young men known by the names "Hans" and "Gribble" came to my room for a
>visit.  ("Gribble" also went under the name Oaf Tobar.)  They were really
>named Jobs and Wozniak, and they were selling blue boxes.
>
[snip]

It's amazing. I ran into John Draper, otherwise known as Cap'n Crunch,
another renowned blue boxer. So two became multi-millionaires, and one
a jailbird. He got his teeth knocked out at Terminal Island because the
other prisoners thought he knew how to commit computer crimes from the
newspaper ballyhoo. He didn't, and the prisoners believed that he was
holding out on them, so they brutalized him.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:37:13 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "John K. Taber" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Bogus etymology, origins of "fubar."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <767809547432.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.003


Sender: "John K. Taber" 
Subject: Re: CM> Bogus etymology

[~snip~]

When I was in the Navy (54-57), FUBAR stood for F*cked Up Beyond All
Recognition. Note the similarity of ending to RADAR and SONAR.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:38:03 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: rab@WELL.COM (Bob Bickford)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Roots of Hypertext - Ted Nelson.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1895129520482.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.012


Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> Roots of Hypertext?

Merry Maisel wrote
  :  :  :
>Theodor Holm Nelson, apparently unreachable by e-mail these days
>because he gets too many messages.

He does get too many messages, but old friends tend to get through
the filters and to the top of the queue in considerably less time than
the usual 3 or 4 months, so you might drop him a note.

...[stuff about 4 x 6 cards deleted]...
>
>Some people wonder what has become of all the cards from
>library card indexes.  I sometimes wonder what Ted did with
>all of his cards.  Bet it was a wrench, going from one system
>to the other...

One of his archivists a few years ago told me that there were a *LOT* of
those cards in his collection.  These days he generates dozens of hours
worth of audio and video tape each week.  Yah, he has a few hours of me
from about 1989 or 1990 in there someplace; I'm hoping nobody ever finds
those segments.   ;-)

He's still just as scattered and non-linear and brilliant as ever.  As
you probably know, he's living in Japan these days, as the guru behind
something called "The Sapporo HyperLab".

--
Bob Bickford     rab@well.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:41:26 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: polly@WELL.COM (Jean Armour Polly)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Info on Grace Murray Hopper
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1298705604685.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.009


Sender: polly@well.com (Jean Armour Polly)
Subject: CM>Re: Info on Grace Murray Hopper

Hi, there is a lot about her on the web. The Past Notable Women in
Computing site at
http://www.cs.yale.edu/HTML/YALE/CS/HyPlans/tap/past-women.html#Grace Hopper
is very comprehensive. There is even a picture of the very first computer
bug, taped into her handwritten log.

Also some good quotes at
http://www.sdsc.edu/users/woodka/hopper.html

And don't forget the History of Math resources at
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/hopper.html
for the Wit and Wisdom of Admiral Hopper.

You'll find many other hits with a good Hotbot search or your favorite browser.

Best,
Jean Armour Polly

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:42:50 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: rab@WELL.COM (Bob Bickford)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> About Grace Murray Hopper
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1343772425768.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.015


Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> About Grace Murray Hopper

Irv Luckom wrote:
>  .   .   .   .   .    She then had the
>individual wires cut to approximately 11" which she had determined was
>the length of wire of that gauge which represented the distance that an
>electron would travel in one microsecond. It was a a very effective
>demonstration.

One foot of wire is roughly one NANO-second.  You've probably simply
mis-remembered Ms. Hopper's talk.  In 1979 I learned this relationship
the hard way: I was helping to find out where some ringing was coming
from in a core wire amplifier, and at one point we wasted an afternoon
trying to figure out where this glitch was coming from that always
appeared exactly three nanoseconds *before* the output signal.  Both
the design engineer and myself were utterly stumped, until one of us
(and I'd like to claim it was me, but I quite honestly don't remember)
noticed that one of our scope leads on the Tektronix 4-channel scope
was the extra-long 6-foot type, while the other three were the normal
3-foot type.  At that point a blinding light went on and we decided it
was time to go home for the day.  I still remember that engineer's name,
as he was one of the nicest guys I've ever worked with: Rick Takahashi.
Wonder what he's up to now........

--
Bob Bickford          rab@well.com
"Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary"
Coordinator, National Libertarian Party's Anti-CDA Campaign
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:44:23 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Jovial, Grace, and Nanoseconds
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <689633423863.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.017


Sender: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information
Security)
Subject: Jovial, Grace, and Nanoseconds

>She then had
>the individual wires cut to approximately 11" which she had determined was
>the length of wire of that gauge which represented the distance that an
>electron would travel in one microsecond.

That was a theoretical *nanosecond* (~186,000*5280*12*10^-9) & appropriate
for light, a microsecond would not fit in her purse.

Considering line capacitance et al, a real one would be somewhat shorter.
I generally use 6 2/3 nanoseconds per meter for figuring real world
propagation rates however all the times I saw that piece of wire, I never
heard a public challenge 8*).

re Jovial, I came across an old SOFTECH training manual and it had a
chronology in there.

Development started in rge 1959-60 timeframe with J0, J1, J-1 (I don't explain
them 8*), & J2.

J3 (Mil-Std-1588) came in 1967

J73 came in (surprise) 1973 and is what I knew as JOVIAL, first as Mil-Std-1889
(1974) and then as Mil-Std-1889A (1979). In response to Mil-Std-1750A, that was
also 1979 as was when Intel produced "The 8086 Family User's Manual"
(preliminary).
                                        Warmly,
                                                Padgett

ps didn't the first Trash-80's appear in 1977 ? ZX-80 in 1980 ?

pps Shades of Smith & Wesson: seems like I remember the Zylog Z-8000 and
    Motorola 68000 also being announced prior to 1980 but Motorolla got
    sidetracked by a rather large order from GM for 68xx chips. Was deep into
    AMD 2901's at the time (4x4=16).

ppps: was "flying" military gas turbine engines in the High Altitude Test
      chamber at Tullahoma in 1977-78 on 8080s
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:45:16 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Jay Hosler 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Dates on JOVIAL.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1972988804915.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.002


Sender: Jay Hosler 
Subject: Re: CM> Bogus etymology

The first version of JOVIAL was running at SDC in 1959.  A commercial version
built by CSC was offered by CDC in 1968-69.

Jay Hosler
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:46:17 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Carl Ellison 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Earliest transistorized computer
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2072980233976.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835041797.018


Sender: Carl Ellison 
Subject: Re: CM> Earliest transistorized computer

At 08:33 AM 6/13/96 -0700, Les Earnest wrote:

>Ken Olsen, who was one of the engineers on the TX-0 project and on a
>fancier 37 bit machine called TX-2, later used the knowledge derived
>from those projects as a basis for founding Digital Equipment Corp.,
>whose first computer (PDP-1) resembled TX-0 and whose later PDP-6 and
>DecSystems 10 and 20 resembled TX-2.

Les,

        I worked on the TX-2 (1966-69) and then later on a PDP-10 (at Utah,
1969-75) -- and they had little in common, IMHO.

        TX-2 was a remarkable machine -- the first ever to use paging, AFAIK
(1966 or before) -- with hardware time-slicing of I/O processes (each I/O
device having its own program counter and all I/O code being loops) --
parallel processing on subwords, optionally -- permutation of sub-words on
load or store -- a Xerox pre-laser printer -- a true radioactive ranno
generator -- superb graphics (refresh tube, displaying from a display
structure in user memory; storage tube; data tablet; shaft encoders) at each
workstation -- and much more -- including the ability to trap on data
fetches or stores at selected locations.

        Has anyone written up the TX-2 and its wonders?

        Perhaps I should take that on, if the real experts aren't around to
do it (or aren't inclined).


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Carl M. Ellison          cme@cybercash.com   http://www.clark.net/pub/cme |
|CyberCash, Inc.                              http://www.cybercash.com/    |
|207 Grindall Street           PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 |
|Baltimore MD 21230-4103       T:(410) 727-4288     F:(410)727-4293        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:09:57 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Ron Smallwood 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: Info on Grace Murray Hopper
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <15665208596.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.003

I will be teaching course on women and technology and I could use some good
references on Adm. Hopper.  Thanks.

At 08:41 AM 6/13/96 -0700, you wrote:
>.... The first programming class was conducted by their director of
>programming, Grace Murray Hopper....

Ron Smallwood    Instructor/Network Manager | P.O. Box 860   5504 Simpson Trail
Northern Lights College  Fort Nelson Campus | Fort Nelson, B.C.  V0C 1R0 Canada
Phone: (604)774-2741        (604)774-3038         Fax:(604)774-2750
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:13:10 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Rod Perkins" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Inventing the Apple Lisa; original paper. 1 of 2.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1730896846788.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.010


Sender: "Rod Perkins" 
Subject: Re: CM> XEROX

Although the Macintosh receives the recognition for creating Apple's desktop
metaphor, the development of Lisa user interface pre-dates the Mac.  Many of
the concepts developed for the Lisa were used in the Mac's design.  Other Li=
sa
features are creeping into the UI in 1996 as Apple implements multi-processi=
ng
and protected memory.  Although the Lisa was not a commercial success, witho=
ut
the early work done by the Lisa team, there would not be the Macintosh we kn=
ow
today.

I was among the first software engineers to work on the applications for the
Lisa and its user interface.  Myself, and two others from the Lisa "Filer"
team wrote a paper in 1989 that described how the Lisa's UI was designed.  T=
he
paper was to be a chapter in the  book, "The Art of Human-Computer Interface
Design", edited by Brenda Laurel, Addison-Wesley, 1990.  However, as someone
pointed out earlier, Apple was actively litigating against Microsoft at the
time, so it was though better not to have the paper published.

The paper included screen shots that pre-dates the legendary visits to Parc =
by
Steve and other people from Apple.  No doubt the Parc visits provided
inspiration but its was not "=8Astandard myth that Apple lifted the user
interface of the Lisa
and Mac in whole from the Star".

I included the text of the paper below.

------------

Inventing the Lisa Interface

=46rank Ludolph
Rod Perkins
Dan Smith


Today's familiar Macintosh user interface is a direct descendent of the
interface first developed and used on Apple's Lisa computer.  Instead of a
text-based system that presented the user with a blank screen and blinking
cursor, the Lisa gave the user a picture of an electronic desktop, a picture
that the user manipulated directly to tell the computer what to do.  The
electronic desktop with its windows, menu bar and icons wasn't part of the
original design, rather it was the end result of a three year long process o=
f
refining goals and developing, testing and synthesizing many alternative
ideas.   In fact, the iconic desktop was first tried in 1980 and discarded!
The final result, shown in figure 1, not only made computer` easier to use, =
it
made them fun!

We were three members of the software team that designed and implemented
Lisa's system software and applications, all of whom contributed significant=
ly
to the appearance and operation of the final interface.  Rod joined the team
shortly after the start of the project in early 1979 and mocked-up many of t=
he
early ideas about the appearance and workings of windows and menus and worke=
d
on the LisaCalc application.  Dan and Frank began working on Lisa in late 19=
80
and were responsible for what eventually became the Desktop Manager with its
folders and icons.
Goals and Guiding Principles

=46irst proposed in late 1978 by Steve Jobs, the new machine was to be desig=
ned
for general office use - a high quality, easy-to-use computer for secretarie=
s,
managers, and professionals to extend individual performance without
disrupting the office.  The ease-of-use goal evolved during 1979 as the
software team tried many ideas.  The Lisa Marketing Requirements Document fr=
om
early 1980, developed jointly by marketing and engineering, enumerated the
following goals which remained in force for the rest of the project and are
generally accepted today.

"Lisa must be fun to use.  It will not be a system that is used by someone
"because it is part of the job" or "because the boss told them to."  For thi=
s
reason, special attention must be paid to the friendliness of the user
interaction and the subtleties that make using Lisa rewarding and job
enriching.

"Lisa will be designed to require extremely minimal user training and
"handholding."  The system will provide one standard method of interacting
with a user in handling text, numbers, and graphics...

"The system will adhere to the concept of "gradual learning"...  A user must
be able to do some important tasks easily and with minimal instruction or
preparation...  The more sophisticated features will be unobtrusive until th=
ey
are needed.

"Errors will be handled consistently in as friendly a manner as possible, an=
d
the user will be protected from obvious errors...

"... A "Set-up" program will allow the user to customize several system
attributes in order to "personalize" interaction with the system... in order
to make the system uniquely personal for the user without interfering with t=
he
interface standards...

"(It should allow) a user to put whatever he/she is doing on "hold" in order
to answer the phone, look up an address, or respond to an asyncronous
interrupt (time for a meeting, mail received on the network, etc.)...

"In addition, the use of graphics in general user interaction will set Lisa
apart from its competitors and will go a long way toward making the system
friendly, easy and enjoyable to use.  "Intuitive icons" can be designed to
indicate certain messages to the user... "

During the same period the the engineering team also developed several
principles that would be used to achieve those goals.  Commands would be
visible on the screen, consistent across applications, and modeless. When
possible, commands would be replaced by direct actions using the mouse.  Dat=
a
was to be displayed WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get - the screen and
printed output should look the same) and easily movable between documents.
The interface would be 'intuitive,' modeled on documents and other
office-based objects instead of traditional and unfamiliar computer concepts=
,
and, like the office, the desktop would not be limited to showing only one
thing at a time.


The Beginnings of the Lisa

When we started the Lisa project in late 1978 our goal was to build a comput=
er
that would propel Apple in the business market of the 1980's.  We had plans =
to
build our own custom microprocessor that would be more powerful than the
established Apple II computer and could provide greater flexibility for futu=
re
machines.  The Lisa hardware would have an Apple II style bitmap screen and
graphics support for creating simple line drawings using Logo=81 style
instructions.  The hardware would also scroll the screen one line at a time =
to
give a smooth scrolling effect.  "Soft" function keys (softkeys) and cursor
keys appeared on the keyboard to be used by the applications.  We wanted the
Lisa hardware to be competitive with the specialized business equipment that
existed in 1978 but with the added distinction of being a general purpose
computer.

The early Lisa hardware limited the user interface that the Lisa application=
s
would have.  The graphics support would not allow us to distinguish the
applications through their use of graphics.  Fortunately we had envisioned
word-processing and database as our first applications, both of which we fel=
t
would not rely heavily on graphics.  The hardware did provide the softkeys a=
nd
cursor keys which the applications used to control the computer.  We wanted
the applications to be distinctive in their use of these keys to provide a
better interface to the user.  Early prototypes of the Lisa applications wer=
e
written on the Apple II until the new hardware could be used.

The Early User Interface

The first Lisa application was a Forms Editor that could create the forms us=
ed
by the database.  The Forms Editor could also be used to create simple line
drawings such as a business organization chart.  Even in this early
application familiar Lisa user interface concepts could be seen (Figure 2 -
7/79):

*       Direct manipulation.  The user could create text, lines, boxes and d=
ata
fields; move them on the screen; go back and edit them; all by using the
cursor keys and a special selection key.  The user would constantly receive
feedback as things were drawn which we felt would increase their feeling of
control.

*       Intuitive.  The softkeys displayed whatever options that were curren=
tly
available.  The user simply pointed to the option desired instead of typing =
a
command.   There was no need for the user to remember complicated command
sequences.  Likewise, there were no hidden commands as all choices were
clearly displayed on the screen.  We also provided an arrow display to show
what cursor movements were available.  This display would be useful for
drawing and while filling in a form.

*       Friendly.  The Lisa would prompt the user instead of waiting for a
command
to be typed.  The prompts could be answered in a special message area or
choices would be enumerated in the softkey display for user selection.  Any
errors would be reported in a status panel or in the message area using clea=
r,
friendly English; not computer jargon.  We prevented users from making commo=
n
errors by not allowing inappropriate commands to be selected from the
softkeys.

While consistent with the appearance of business equipment of 1979, the firs=
t
Lisa interface was not very exciting to use.  It showed that Apple was serio=
us
about being business-like but did not generate the same enthusiasm created b=
y
the emerging, highly graphic oriented, video game industry and similar
programs for the Apple II.  The progress on the first interface established
the correct goals but left most of us dissatisfied with our hardware and
softkey approach.  Many shared feelings that Apple could get better leverage
from the Lisa hardware especially from its bitmap display.  As these
sentiments were surfacing in late 1979, two major events occurred that helpe=
d
to change the thinking behind the Lisa hardware and software:  the
announcement of the Motorola 68000 microprocessor and visits by a small grou=
p
of Apple engineers to the Xerox research center in Palo Alto.

Outside influences

The Motorola 68000 had the performance to support both a higher resolution
bitmap display and a highly interactive user interface.  This power made the
68000 a natural replacement for our custom microprocessor and broadened the
vision of what people thought possible with Lisa hardware.  The Lisa softwar=
e
could make use of this powerful new platfore to expand on its user interface
concepts.  We all thought the Lisa would be so fast that it would be waiting
on the user most of the time!  The idle time could then be used to drive a
more elaborate user interface.

The visit to Xerox was prompted after a number of people read papers publish=
ed
by Xerox about their Smalltalk=81 environment [Goldberg 1978].  Smalltalk=81=
 made
extensive use of a mouse rather than the keyboard to control the cursor.  A
high-resolution bitmap display allowed Smalltalk=81 to prominently make use =
of
graphics to aid the user.  Smalltalk=81 was a friendly yet powerful environm=
ent
that used the concept of modeless commands which were reported to be less
confusing for the user.

There were two Xerox visits.  The first in December 1979 was originally to s=
ee
a demonstration of other programs under development at Xerox but not
Smalltalk=81 specifically.  However during that trip, the Apple group was ab=
le
to receive an impromptu Smalltalk=81 demonstration from Adele Goldberg, one =
of
the originators of Smalltalk=81.  Within a few weeks, a second Xerox visit w=
as
planned to see additional demonstrations as well as one more look at
Smalltalk=81.  We were very excited by what we saw at Xerox and sought to ma=
ke
the Lisa as exciting.  Enthusiasm from that visit caused us to further
re-think the Lisa's user interface.

A Shift in Thinking

In the months following the Xerox visits, we shifted to a more dynamic user
interface built around our new hardware.  We began experimenting with the
mouse and changed our interface to include windows (Figure 3 - 5/80) similar
to those we saw in Smalltalk=81.  We retained the softkey display from the
earlier interface but it was now attached to the window.  The softkeys
retained the keyboard control which we felt to be important for a business
oriented machine.  The interface became aware of the mouse as we began to
allow things to be drawn with either the mouse or the cursor keys.  Likewise
the user could select an option from either the keyboard or by pointing with
the mouse.  The decision to become completely mouse oriented was still hotly
debated.  A number of us felt we could not make radical changes to the
interface because the Lisa was scheduled to be announced later in the year a=
t
the National Computer Conference of 1980.

The interface was moving towards a standard which we called the Lisa look an=
d
feel.  All the applications would be similar in their appearance and use
commands that would be common to each of them.  We felt that this consistenc=
y
reenforced our previously defined interface concepts because the user would
interact with all the Lisa applications in the same manner.  This consistenc=
y
also made writing the applications easier because the software to create the
interface could be shared by all the applications.  The first Lisa hardware
that used the 68000 began to appear in the Spring of 1980.  For the first ti=
me
we could interact with our interface and see what it actually looked like as
well as how it felt to use it.

The Desktop Metaphor

We had developed a model to describe the typical Lisa user.  This user was a
business person whose day was constantly interrupted with spur of the moment
requests to do one thing or another.  From that user model we decided that t=
he
Lisa had to offer an environment which safely allowed several applications t=
o

[~continued~]

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:16:05 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Rod Perkins" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Inventing the Apple Lisa; original paper. 2 of 2.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <685460861964.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.009

[~continued from previous~]

be used simultaneously and would permit any of the user's work to be put on
hold.  It was the job of the user interface to depict this multi-tasked
environment in a manner that would make sense to the user (Figure 4 - 8/80).

After numerous experiments, we developed a new interface which became known =
as
the Lisa desktop metaphor.  The interface had multiple windows on the screen
to display the different kinds of work conducted by the user.  We called the
work within the windows documents, to use a concept already familiar to the
user.  We decided that the user should not have to worry about which
application went with which document.  Instead, users would select the
document containing what they wanted and the Lisa would determine which
application was needed.  Switching between different documents was as obviou=
s
as pointing at th` window containing the desired work.  We spruced up the
window appearance to look more like a file folder as we sought to create an
electronic equivalent of the user's real desktop.  The Lisa desktop would ha=
ve
objects already familiar from a real desktop such as documents, folders,
calculator, and other handy tools; everything short of an electronic
paper-clip to mangle.

The Role of User Testing

Controversy surrounded a number of the decisions on the user interface; the
introduction of the mouse being a good example.  We were very concerned that
our target users would not accept using the mouse.  We had investigated
alternatives to the mouse such as the softkeys and even a light pen but
neither proved as efficient.  Our own experience with the mouse agreed with
the research conducted by Douglas Engelbart [citation who at SRI created the
mouse], and by Xerox [Card 1978] that both discussed the virtues of the mous=
e.
 We knew that users would benefit by using the mouse but we had to make usin=
g
it as easy as possible.  We felt that a major obstacle to the acceptance of
the mouse would be the number of buttons it would have.  Factions developed =
to
push their choice for the "correct" number of mouse buttons.  What ensued
became known as Button Wars; one of many wars that developed over interface
issues.

Normally the user interface wars would end in a stalemate of opinions.  It w=
as
during these times we found it was best to test our opinions on the users fo=
r
which we were designing.  We would use as test subjects people culled from n=
ew
Apple employees who had no previous computer experience.  The tests were
conducted during the summer of 1980 by Larry Tesler and observed by
psychologists as well as ourselves. Many of the observations were recorded f=
or
later review and served as a form of d=E9tente between the waring factions. =
 We
followed this process throughout the Lisa's development to test new Lisa
concepts such as pull-down menus, the location of scroll bars, and many
others.  We felt this was an innovative approach because the user interface
was being designed from the user's perspective.

In the case of the mouse button, we discovered that with our user interface
the three-button mouse used in SmallTalk=81 had a slight, but not significan=
t,
advantage for the experienced users.  Similar results were observed for the
two-button mouse.  For beginners, the extra buttons were confusing as the
users sought to remember which button to press.  The extra buttons hindered
learning the Lisa user interface whose goal was to make a new user productiv=
e
within 30 minutes use.  We decided on the one button mouse to make the user
interface easier for the first-time user.

Arriving at an Interface

By the end of summer in 1980 the design of the Lisa user interface culminate=
d
with the release the Lisa User Interface Standards Document [citation]
(Figure 5 - 9/80). The document served as a guideline for what should be don=
e
as well as what should not be done in the user interface.  The document also
began to explore involving the hardware as part of the overall user interfac=
e.
 The scope of the user interface began to included items such as the keyboar=
d
layout, how the machine was turned on and off, how the machine would be
serviced, even whether there was a door on the disk drive.  These issues
became part of shaping user's perception of the entire machine and would
entice them to use it.  The interface would continue to evolve, but the
release of this document signalled the birth of what we see today as the Lis=
a
and Macintosh user interface.  Only after the user interface standards were
resolved did serious work begin on the applications. The earlier Forms Edito=
r
and word processor served as prototypes and provided the basis for other Lis=
a
applications.

The Early Days of the Desktop Manager

With the basics of the interface defined, including overlapping windows,
pull-down menus, scroll bars, grow boxes, and so on, work began on filling o=
ut
the rest of the user model of the system.  In late 1980, a small group of us
got together to design the interface for the filing functions of the Lisa
system.  The kinds of questions we were trying to answer included:

*  "How is are documents created or destroyed?"
*  "How are they located?"
*  "How are they returned to their filing homes?"
*  "How should their attributes be displayed?"

In considering each of these questions, we were guided by the desire for
consistency, ease of use, and efficiency.

Desktop Icons Rejected!

One of the first models considered used desktop icons for performing the bas=
ic
filing functions.  The interface to this point had only folder title tabs as
document and folder icons (figure x).  The title tabs could be moved into an=
d
out of filing folders in a nested manner.  Destroying an object was thought =
to
be accomplished by moving it into a wastebasket icon.  Diskettes were to
appear on the screen as desk drawers which could be opened to reveal folder
tabs.

Early in the discussion of this model a number of objections were raised.  T=
he
Lisa had only a 12" display and some thought that it was too small to displa=
y
full size documents and desktop icons simultaneously.  There was concern tha=
t
simple tasks, such as deleting a document by dragging it to a wastebasket,
would be overly cumbersome as the user tried to locate the wastebasket burie=
d
under open documents.  Locating documents in nested folders was also
considered too unwieldy.  The scenario of opening a series of nested folders=
,
accumulating more and more desk clutter along the way while searching for a
document, seemed to be less efficient than a real world paper filing system.
Some suggested that people would spend an inordinate amount of time
positioning icons and moving or resizing windows.  Others argued that
mimicking the office filing system would simply give people an electronic
version of a system that already had many problems.  With all these things
considered, but without a detailed mockup, we rejected the iconic, direct
manipulation filing human interface as too inefficient and set out to design
something superior!

A Document Browser

Our initial attempts at producing a more efficient human interface centered
around something resembling the browser from the Smalltalk=81 programming
environment.  The Smalltalk browser is a window with a top portion composed =
of
a few panes allowing the hierarchical selection of an object and a bottom pa=
ne
in which the contents of the selected object are displayed.  For our model w=
e
were interested in trying to avoid a strictly hierarchical filing system.  T=
he
document browser top panes contained various attributes which could be
selected to narrow the choice of objects.  In this model documents could be
located by type of document, keyword, author, etc.  The paper prototype
(figure x) seemed to work well for selecting an object, but became awkward
when trying to perform other operations such as moving, copying, or creating
something new.  It also lacked a certain approachability.  It's operation wa=
s
not at all obvious when first encountered.

The 20 Questions Filer

In an attempt to make the system easier to manipulate for the first time use=
r
we tried a more prompting, hierarchical browser (figure x).  Selecting
"Documents=8A" from the Desktop menu brought up a dialog window which prompt=
ed
the user to select a disk, folder, and document, with statements such as
"Choose a folder from the list below".  After making a selection, an "Action=
"
menu would appear with the items "Pull", "Refile", "Cross-file", "Discard",
etc.  This system was fast and a bit easier to understand than the previous
version, but still somewhat abstract.

We were running out of time on the project schedule and decided that despite
the problems this was to be our filing interface.  After many months of
implementation, and some early user testing, a few of us were still not
satisfied with the interface.  Users seemed confused about the relationship =
of
the selections in the top pane to the contents in the bottom pane.  They als=
o
had difficulty performing operations such as moving documents from one folde=
r
to another.  The system was fairly efficient, since the filing dialog could =
be
brought up easily from a menu and few mouse clicks were needed, but it
certainly wasn't fun.

"Son of DataLand"

In a clandestine effort, some of us decided to investigate the problem on ou=
r
own time a little more (we were quite late into the schedule at this point).
We decided to ask Bill Atkinson for some help with the interface.  Bill had
worked hard to help define many aspects of the global human interface and wa=
s
eager to turn his attention to this problem.  In vintage Bill Atkinson form,
he asked for a little time to think about the problem and then returned a fe=
w
days later with an idea and a smooth mock-up!  While thinking about the
problem, Bill recalled a trip to the M.I.T. Media Lab he had made earlier, i=
n
which he saw a futuristic data navigation system called "DataLand" [Negropon=
te
79].  In this system, a person sits in a chair with two hand controls and
faces a large screen.  The controls allow you to "fly" over some data space
projected on a large screen in front of you, in this case the Boston area, a=
nd
then to zoom in to very fine levels of detail, or zoom out to see a huge
geographical area.  Bill adapted this idea to the filing problem by creating
an enormous virtual desktop, perhaps a mile square, and then providing metho=
ds
for very quickly moving around and zooming in or out (figure x).  The idea w=
as
that icons would be used for documents, and that they would be organized
spatially, with related documents placed near each other.  The idea had
incredible simplicity, but placed quite a burden on the user's memory when t=
he
number of documents became large and also didn't work well when multiple dis=
ks
were on-line, representing several several flat filing spaces.

The IBM Contribution

We were drawn to the simplicity of DataLand, but thought that something more
familiar might be more effective.  We were slowly migrating back to using
icons for the sake of simplicity and approachability.  At about this time,
Bruce Horn in the Macintosh group was working on some some mock-ups for the
Macintosh Finder using icons.  Bill did some searching and found an IBM
Technical Report (need reference) that described an interface with icons for
all the objects in an office.  The "office" contained filing cabinets, a des=
k,
a wastebasket, etc.  Filing cabinets could be opened to reveal files, which
could in turn be opened to locate documents.  The desk contained drawers whi=
ch
also could be opened and a desktop for placing documents and other office
objects.  In considering this model, we created several mock-ups using an
early version of LisaDraw, a structured graphics editor (figure x).  Our mod=
el
presented two levels of detail to the user.  The first view was a forward lo=
ok
at the office as a whole.  In this view you could see the filing cabinets an=
d
desk.  To view documents it was necessary to place them on the desk.  The vi=
ew
would then change to one looking down on the desktop with documents at full
size.  After experimenting with this model for some time we realized that
having the two different views (or world swaps, as they came to be known) wa=
s
confusing and inefficient.

Today's Desktop Model

Eliminating the two view model brought us very close to the final design.  W=
e
quickly implemented a working prototype.  The prototype presented a single
desktop on which both small icons and full size documents were kept (figure
x).  Design discussions with Bruce Daniels and Larry Tesler helped to refine
some of the ideas as well as comparisons with the Xerox Star.  Revealing the
new interface to the rest of the team drew mixed reactions.  Some were
thrilled with the new look and simplicity, while others were concerned about
the lateness of the schedule and the break in the standard development
process.  Wayne Rosing, the engineering manager at the time gave the "go", a=
nd
we raced to catch up with the rest of the Lisa team.  After over a year of
looking for something more efficient, we had come full cycle, back to the mo=
re
approachable, iconic, direct manipulation interface!


Citations


Morgan, Chris; Lenmons, Phil; Williams, Gregg,  "An Interview with Wayne
Rosing, Bruce Daniels, and Larry Tesler".  Byte.  8(2):90-114; 1983 February

Negroponte, Nicholas, "Spatial Data Management" (DARPA
Order:MDA903-77-C-0037),
MIT, Cambridge, 1979.

Schmuker, Kurt J.  "The Complete Book of Lisa".  Harper & Row 1984

[Seybold 81] Seybold, Jonathan, "Xerox's `Star`".  The Seybold Report 10,16
(April 27 1981)  Seybold Publications, Inc., Box 644, Media, Pa 19063

[Seybold 83] Seybold, Jonathan, "Apple's Lisa, A Personal Office System".  T=
he
Seybold Report (Jan 23 1983)  Seybold Publications, Inc., Box 644, Media, Pa
19063

Smith, D.C.; Irby, C.; Kimball, R.; Verplank, B.; Harslem, E.  "Designing th=
e
Star User Interface".  Byte.  7(4):242-282; 1982 April.

Williams, Gregg,  "The Lisa Computer System".  Byte.  8(2):33-55; 1983
=46ebruary

IBM technical paper on  Desktop
Apple Computer Human interface guidelines
Mouse Paper by Card & Moran

{Small Talk paper reference}
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:17:46 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Phil Weinberg 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Info on Grace Murray Hopper
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <200999136165.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.004


Sender: Phil Weinberg 
Subject: Re: Info on Grace Murray Hopper

I took a course with Dr. Hopper in Operations Research at the University
of Pennsylvania Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1962-3.  She
was still associated with Univac at that time, if memory serves me right.
We used to walk over to the train station after class and she told me
a few stories of the "old days."

She was a mathematics major working at the Computation Lab at Harvard
under Howard Aiken.  She was approached by some people from U of P
and they convinced her to come to Penn to work on the ENIAC.  She
did some of the programming on ENIAC during the last days of WWII.
When Eckert and Mauchley left Penn to form UNIVAC she went with them.

While working on ENIAC she was approached by some "mysterious" visitors
and asked to try to program a solution to a Schroedinger wave equation.
She set up the basic equations, but when she was given the coefficients
she kept running out of range in the solution.  She had to keep scaling
down the factors until she was able to get the solution to run without
going off scale.  She submitted the solution to some obviously satisfied
observers.  She later found out that the "visitors" were from the
Manhattan Project and she had confirmed on the computer what their
manual and slide rule computations had projected for the first atom
bomb force fields.

Regards,
+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------+
| Phil Weinberg                     | Phone: 408-991-7385              |
| Motorola Semiconductor Products   | Fax: 408-991-7420                |
| Sunnyvale, CA  94086              | email: RWG170@email.mot.com      |
+-----------------------------------+----------------------------------+
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:19:33 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: magjo@tema.liu.se (Magnus Johansson)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Roots of hypertext, book.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1561316632172.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.001


Sender: magjo@tema.liu.se (Magnus Johansson)
Subject: Re: CM> Roots of Hypertext?

In response to Merry Maisel's note about Ted Nelson....

there is a book on Vannevar Bush and his information retrieval system:

Nyce, James M & Paul Kahn: From Memex to Hypertext. Vannevar Bush and the
Mind's Machine (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1991)

/Magnus

Magnus Johansson
dept of Technology and Social Change
Linkoping University
S-581 83 Linkoping
Sweden
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:21:33 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Another Grace Hopper Anecdote
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <322736171292.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.007


Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: CM; Another Grace Hopper Anecdote

This item was published in The ABQ Correspondent a few years ago:
                                ----------
NONE TOO PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY
Hearing that I'd be in L.A. one evening in 1976, George Glaser passed along
tickets to a meeting of the Digital Computer Association. The DCA, he said,
was formed in the fifties by computer people at places like RAND and SDS,
then isolated in remote and backward Southern California. The DCA did OK
until it was overwhelmed by rival ACM, the Association for Computing
Machinery. (Have you ever heard a dumber name in your life?) DCA functions
withered to an annual dinner meeting, the glittering event George's tickets
got me and Glenn Norris into that evening.

Wow. It was so loaded with famous folks in the computer field, that some
professors brought students to see the celebrities. Oddly, many attendees
furtively tucked bulging shopping bags under the dining tables. Dinner
featured lots and lots of wine.

Formal proceedings began with the presentation of a T-shirt to Grace Hopper,
identifying her as the Grandmother of COBOL. To cheers, she declined to put
the shirt on over her Navy Captain's uniform, and resumed her seat next to
me. Then somebody began a speech, signaling people to pull out those
shopping bags, which were full of wine corks, thousands of them.

Famous people began to throw corks at the speaker, who threw them back by
the handful. Corks rained on the tables. Captain Hopper didn't throw any;
she sat chain-smoking, and gathered corks into a pile in front of me, so I
could throw them for both of us, which I did, not quite randomly. I managed
to clip Glenn behind the ear with a couple at the next table. The students
stared. The waiters complained. The management invited us to leave.
Apparently that happened every year, and the Drunken Computer Association
had to find a
new hotel for the annual event each time.
                                -----------
George told me a few years ago that the DCA was still flourishing.

One can only hope.

--Nels Winkless
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:23:11 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Ken_Pier.PARC@XEROX.COM
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Earliest transistorized computer, books on TX-2.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <547668338389.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.000


Sender: Ken_Pier.PARC@xerox.com
Subject: Re: CM> Earliest transistorized computer

>Has anyone written up the TX-2 and its wonders?

If you meant literally written up, see

Forgie, J.W.: The Lincoln TX-2 Input-Output System.  Proc. 1957 WJCC:156-160.

Clark, W.A.: The Lincoln TX-2 Computer Development. Proc. 1957 WJCC:143-145.

(references obtained from "A History of Personal Workstations," edited by Adele
Goldberg, ACM Press, 1988.).
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:25:59 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Apple II Introduction Date, confirmed.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <138716419558.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.006


Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: Apple II Introduction Date

Not to clutter the list with trivia...well, really, it's all trivia, but...

The excellent Triumph of the Nerds television documentary on PBs the other
night referred, unless memory fails me, to 1978 as the date of introduction
of the Apple II. That didn't sound right, so I rummaged among the broken
tubas and 1955 tape recorders under the back stairs to find a computer
magazine of the era. Found it.

In Personal Computing Magazine for July/August 1977, is a report of the first
West Coast Computer Faire, a two-day event held in April 1977. On page 121,
in an article titled "A Fine Faire" this paragraph appears:

"Apple Computer Company brought a surprise to the show,
the Apple II. The system is novel both in performance
(BASIC in ROM, color video control built into the main
board, etc...) and construction. The Apple II case is
molded plastic of material and form suited for genuine
mass production. The electronics in the system are
remarkably simple, adaptable largely to automatic production
techniques - and the system comes with two control units
that allow players to use an array of game programs on any
television set driven by the computer. The games and computers
are in fact beginning to merge as computer projects."

Aha! Thought so.

Copyright on that paragraph probably belongs to whoever acquired
the magazine from Hayden, who acquired it from Reed (I think), who
acquired it from Benwill, the original publisher, who was publishing
the magazine in 1977. Their rights should be acknowledged here.
Since I wrote the article, I feel a small, but legally invalid
sense of proprietorship.

For those with old magazines squirreled away...that's the issue with a
golfer on the cover, taking a swing while the caddy leans indifferently
on a computer displaying information about the hole...one of Kim Behm's
first rate pieces of work.

--Nels Winkless

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo

[Moderator's Note: Copying portions of text from magazines and reposting
the text here, within the context of a post, is welcome and legal in the
USA under the "fair use" doctrine.]
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 17:27:11 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: davidsol@panix.com (David S. Bennahum)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Grace Hopper's Microsecond.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2014166360628.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835106395.005

[Moderator's note: I've received a lot of posts correcting the math
involved in the previous post on Hopper.  Here are two.]

Sender: John Cowan 
Subject: Re: CM> About Grace Murray Hopper

Irv Luckom wrote:

> [Grace Hopper] then had
> the individual wires cut to approximately 11" which she had determined was
> the length of wire of that gauge which represented the distance that an
> electron would travel in one microsecond. It was a a very effective
> demonstration.

Presumably this was a nanosecond, not a microsecond; the speed of light
is 3 x 10^8 m/sec, or .3 m (about 11.8 inches) in a nanosecond.
A microsecond worth of wire would be almost a thousand feet long!

--
John Cowan                                              cowan@ccil.org
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban

Sender: Jonathan BW Leonard 
Subject: Re: CM> About Grace Murray Hopper' microsecond


Irv Luckom wrote:
> She then had
> the individual wires cut to approximately 11" which she had determined was
> the length of wire of that gauge which represented the distance that an
> electron would travel in one microsecond. It was a a very effective
> demonstration.

I'm pretty the speed of an electron through wire more like one _nano_second
per foot.  Think about it.  Coast-to-coast is about 10 million feet.
Anybody who can remember making a long distance call 30 years ago (when it
was all copper wire and switches) might remember the lousy sound quality,
but there was nothing like a 10 second delay calling from New Jersey to
California.
\j
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Leonard                                              jbwl@umich.edu
UM - ITD Ed Services                                  +1 (313) 936-1723
"Everything we come across is to the point." - John Cage

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 07:14:47 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: davidsol@panix.com (David S. Bennahum)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Questions of the day.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <805365396286.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835108291.000

Sender: Scott Sibbald 
Subject: Calendars

Remember all those old Snoopy, Star Trek, etc. calendars created out of
alphanumeric characters on line printers?  Any idea when/where/who created
the first "computer graphic" of this type?

Scott

[Moderator's note: It appears these questions never made it out to the
list.  They are dated 6/14.]

Sender: JohnAhlstrom 
Subject: Re: CM> IBM/military links: SAGE. (fwd) & BUIC

Anybody out there know anything about BUIC?

I think it was somehow SAGE related,
had Burroughs military machines (D830?) and
stood for Back Up Intercept Computer or Command ?


JKA

Sender: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
Subject: Dec System 10/20


Les Earnest wrote:

" Ken Olsen, who was one of the engineers on the TX-0 project and on a
fancier 37 bit machine called TX-2, later used the knowledge derived
from those projects as a basis for founding Digital Equipment Corp.,
whose first computer (PDP-1) resembled TX-0 and whose later PDP-6 and
DecSystems 10 and 20 resembled TX-2. "

The first timesharing machine I ever used was the DecSystem 20 newly
installed at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in the fall of 1980.
It was a 36 bit machine. From what I was told, WPI had traded in it's
DecSystem 10 yet was able to keep the machine and sell it to MIT for
parts.

I also recall DEC was working on a followup machine to the 20 called
Jupiter(?), but by then the VAX had taken off.

I wonder whatever happened to that machine after I graduated in 1984.

Leslie Pearson

 David,

 For those of us who are reading Computer Memory with
 interest, but are not *quite* as steeped in the
 history as many of your eminent contributors, it would
 be helpful to have a brief account of the "famous"
 demonstration of fall '71 iteself, as well as stories
 about it. This reader who likes to
 think of himself as well-read in this area hadn't heard
 of it.

 The project is a great idea; a really good use of the
 technology, in my view.

 Andrew.

[Note: Andrew is refering to the "mother of all demos done by Doug
Engelbart in the Fall of 1968.  Is there anyone who was there first-hand?]

 --
 If our lives were ruled by logic, we'd all be in real estate. (Newsfront)>
 -------------------       Andrew Curry      ----------------------
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 07:38:38 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Marilyn Mantei 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Hypertext Systems - PROMIS, ZOG. 
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2071023849717.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835109215.000


Sender: Marilyn Mantei 
Subject: Hypertext Systems


The first working hypertext system I remember was PROMIS which was built at
the University of Vermont Medical Centre in the very early 70's.  This was
followed by ZOG, Allen Newell's project on the c.mmp (CMU's first parallel
processing machine) about 1975.  George Robertson and Don McCracken did the
programming work on it.  ZOG was eventually used to run the USS Carl Vinson,
the U.S's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. ZOG ran on the 3 Rivers
workstations known as the PERQs.  It contained the entire manual for running
the 20,000 person aircraft carrier plus all the updates.  Unfortunately 3 Rivers
went out of business and the PERQs were not as reliable as needed for the
vagaries of the sea.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 12:40:57 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Bruemmer, Bruce" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> BUIC
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <479090246856.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835133554.000


Sender: "Bruemmer, Bruce" 
Subject: Re:  BUIC

For those with an interest in BUIC (Back Up Interceptor Control), I have loaded
a fact sheet on BUIC taken from the Burroughs Corporation Collection.  You can
find the information at:

http://www.cbi.umn.edu/burros/buic.htm

Nine companies submitted proposals for the BUIC (including IBM, GE, Sperry and
Bendix), which Burroughs won in the summber of 1962.  An $8 million price tag
was suggested by the press releases.

Hope this helps.
Bruce H. Bruemmer
Archivist
Charles Babbage Institute
103 Walter Library
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN  55455

voice  612-624-5050
fax    612-625-8054
email  bruce@fs1.itdean.umn.edu
http://cbi.www.umn.edu/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 03:39:46 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Craig A Summerhill 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> ASCII art
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2006991144785.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835193164.029


Sender: Craig A Summerhill 
Subject: CM> ASCII art

Probably on June 14, 1996, Scott Sibbald  wrote:
>
> Remember all those old Snoopy, Star Trek, etc. calendars created out of
> alphanumeric characters on line printers?  Any idea when/where/who created
> the first "computer graphic" of this type?

Scott, I am unfamiliar with the calendars, per se, but your description
of the content as "computer graphics" suggests to me that you are
referring to what I believe is commonly called "ASCII art."  If I have
mistaken your query, please forgive me...  and enlighten me.

There are several Web sites I know of that have collections of ASCII art.
Some of the stuff I've seen is 3-D, sort of similar to those "magic eye"
books and posters you see from time to time.  The patience required to
create some of the most complex works I've seen must be incredible...
I really think this whole genre is a very unique artistic expression
founded in modern day life.

There is at least one Usenet news group dedicated to this subject,
probably more that cover the topic at least in passing.  I have a FAQ
on ASCII art I downloaded from someplace some time ago, and it states
that it is periodically distributed on:

   rec.arts.ascii
   alt.ascii-art
   alt.binaries.pictures.ascii
   alt.ascii-art.animation
   comp.graphics
   news.answers
   alt.answers
   rec.answers
   comp.answers

This FAQ doesn't really have a reference to the true genesis of ASCII
art.  I too wondered about this, from time to time, and would be interested
in stories from people on this list regarding their first exposure to such
things.  Personally, I remember seeing some of these types of ASCII
images printed on greenbar in the early to mid-70s.  I always suspected
their existence came into being about the same time that full-time
console operators became common (people with too much time, and too little
to do between 00:00 and 06:00).  B^)

If you are interested in this stuff more, I'd recomment you start
with these Web sites:

   Scarecrow's ASCII
     Art Archives


   Uncle Bob's Kids
     Page(s): Section One -- look for special section on ASCII Art


   Yahoo
     Major Heading for ASCII Art



P.S. -- In the last couple of years, I've subscribed to several lists
which were either dedicated to our collective Cyberspace memory or which
talked about such topics periodically in some larger context.  I've been
really impressed with knowledge and expertise demonstrated on this list
thus far.  Hope we can keep up the high signal/low noise ratio!  B^)
--

   Craig A. Summerhill, Systems Coordinator and Program Officer
   Coalition for Networked Information
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C.   20036
   Internet: craig@cni.org   AT&Tnet (202) 296-5098
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 03:43:06 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: bcaruthe@us.oracle.com (Graphics Addict)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Hypertext Systems - PROMIS, ZOG.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <647985511985.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835193164.033


Sender: bcaruthe@us.oracle.com (Graphics Addict)
Subject: Re: CM> Hypertext Systems - PROMIS, ZOG.

[On Tue, Jun 18, Marilyn Mantei wrote:]
>
>Sender: Marilyn Mantei 
>Subject: Hypertext Systems
>
>ZOG was eventually used to run the USS Carl Vinson,
>the U.S's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

    The Carl Vinson (CVN-70, circa 1988) was one of the later members of
    the Nimitz (CVN-68) class.  The US's first nuclear-powered carrier
    was the Enterprise (CVN-65), which set sail in the mid-60's.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 03:45:20 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Andrew Curry 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1764309861119.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835193164.032


Sender: Andrew Curry 
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 16

>
>Besides taking inspiration from the Talmud, hypertext also was
>inspired by Vannevar Bush's 1945 essay, As We May think, which
>described a hypothetical machine for storing and annotating documents.
>
Do readers of this list know if Bush's essay is available as a resource
on the Web? And what about other similar early ground breaking
contributions, such as Claude Shannon's early articles on information
theory?

Andrew Curry.
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:42:34 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Military Intelligence Systems
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1897299807353.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835197111.001


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: Military Intelligence Systems

In an earlier article I wrote:
   As it turned out, though SAGE was useless, computerized military
   intelligence systems of that era were worse than useless, but that is
   another story.

A reader has since asked for more information on the intelligence
systems.  Here are excerpts from articles about my experience in
that arena that I posted on comp.risks in 1989.

        -Les Earnest

-------------------------

Many command-control development projects were initiated by the Air
Force in the early 1960s.  Most were given names and each was assigned
a unique three digit code followed by "L."  Naturally, they came to be
called called "L-systems."  A Program Manager (usually a Colonel) was
put in charge of each one to ensure that financial expenditure goals
were met.  Those who consistently spent exactly the amounts that had
been planned were rewarded with larger sums in succeeding budgets.
Monthly management reviews almost never touched on technical issues
and never discussed operational performance -- it was made clear that
the objective was to spend all available funds by the end of the
fiscal year and that nobody cared much about technical or functional
accomplishments.

In 1960, after earlier switching from MIT Lincoln Lab to Mitre Corp., my
group was assigned to provide technical advice to a Colonel M., who was in
charge of System 438L.  This system was intended to automate the
collection and dissemination of military intelligence information.  Unlike
most command-control systems of that era, it did not have a descriptive
name that anyone used -- the intelligence folks preferred cryptic
designations, so the various subsystems being developed under this program
were generally called just "438L."

I had recently done a Masters thesis at MIT in the field of artificial
intelligence and hoped to find applications in this new endeavor.  I soon
learned that the three kinds of intelligence have very little in common
(i.e. human, artificial, and military).

IBM was the system contractor for 438L and was already at work on an
intelligence database system for the Strategic Air Command Headquarters
near Omaha.  They were using an IBM 7090 computer with about 30 tape
drives to store a massive database.  It turned out to be a dismal failure
because of a foreseeable variant of the GIGO problem, as discussed below.

The IBM 438L group had also developed specifications for a smaller system
that was to be developed for other sites.  Colonel M. asked us to review
the computer Request for Proposals that they had prepared.  He said that
he planned to buy the computer sole-source rather than putting it out for
bids on the grounds that there was "only one suitable computer available."
When I read it, there was no need to guess which computer he had in mind
-- the RFP was essentially a description of the IBM 1410, a byte-serial,
variable word length machine of that era.

When Colonel M. sought my concurrence on the sole-source procurement, I
demurred, saying there there were at least a half-dozen computers that
could do that job.  I offered to prepare a report on the principal
alternatives, including an approximate ranking of their relative
performance on the database task.  He appeared vexed, but accepted my
offer.

My group subsequently reviewed alternative computers and concluded that
the best choice, taking into account performance and price, was the Bendix
G-20.  I reported this informally to Colonel M. and said that we would
write it up, but he said not to bother.  He indicated that he was very
disappointed in this development, saying that it was not reasonable to
expect his contractor (IBM) to work with a machine made by another
company.  I argued that a system contractor should be prepared to work
with whatever is the best equipment for the job, but Col. M seemed
unconvinced.

This led to a stalemate; Colonel M. said that he was "studying" the
question of how to proceed, but nothing further happened for about a year.
Finally, just before I moved to another project, I mentioned that the IBM
1410 appeared to be capable of doing the specified task, even though it
was not the best choice.  Col. M. apparently concluded that I would not
make trouble if he proceeded with his plan.  I later learned that he
initiated a sole-source procurement from IBM just two hours after that
conversation.

In the meantime, the development project at SAC Headquarters was falling
progressively further behind schedule.  We talked over this problem in my
group and one fellow who had done some IBM 709 programming remarked that
he thought he could put together some machine language macros rather
quickly that would do the job.  True to his word, this hacker got a query
system going in one day!  I foolishly bragged about this to the manager of
the IBM group a short time later.  Two weeks after that I discovered that
he had recruited my hotshot programmer and immediately shipped him to
Omaha.  I learned to be more circumspect in my remarks thereafter.

The IBM 438L group did eventually deliver an operable database system to
SAC, but it turned out to be useless because of GIGO phenomena (garbage in,
garbage out).  Actually, it was slightly more complicated than that.
Let's call it GIGOLO -- Garbage In, Gobbledygook Obliterated, Late Output.

The basic problem was that in order to build a structured database, the
input data had to be checked and errors corrected.  In this batch
environment, the tasks of data entry, error checking, correction, and file
updating took several days, which meant that the operational database was
always several days out of date.

The manual system that this was supposed to replace was based on people
reading reports and collecting data summaries on paper and grease pencil
displays.  That system was generally up-to-date and provided swift answers
to questions because the Sergeant on duty usually had the answers to the
most likely questions already in his head or at this finger-tips.  So much
for the speed advantage of computers!

After several months of operation with the new computer system, the
embarrassing discovery was made that no questions were being asked of it.
The SAC senior staff solved this problem by ordering each duty officer to
ask at least two questions of the 438L system operators during each shift.
After several more months of operation we noted that the total number of
queries had been exactly two times the number of shifts in that period.

The fundamental problem with the SAC 438L system was that the latency
involved in creating a database from slightly buggy data exceeded the
useful life of the data.  The designers should have figured that out going
in, but instead they plodded away at creating this expensive and useless
system.  On the Air Force management side, the practice of hiring a
computer manufacturer to do system design, including the specification of
what kind of computer to buy, involved a clear conflict-of-interest,
though that didn't seem to worry anyone.

                             Subsystem I

Of the dozens of command and control system development projects that were
initiated by the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s, none appeared to
perform its functions as well as the manual system that preceded it.
I expect that someone will be willing to argue that at least one such
system worked, but I suggest that any such claims not be accepted
uncritically.

All of the parties involved in the development of C3 systems knew that
their economic or power-acquisition success was tied to the popular belief
that the use of computers would substantially improve military command
functions.  The Defense Department management and the U.S. Congress must
bear much of the responsibility for the recurring fiascos because they
consistently failed to insist on setting rational goals.  Goals should
have been specified in terms of information quality or response time for
planning and executing a given set of tasks.  The performance of these
systems should have been predicted in the planning phase and measured
after they were built so as to determine whether the project was
worthwhile.

Instead, the implicit goal became "to automate command and control," which
meant that these systems always "succeeded," even though they didn't work.
Despite a solid record of failure in C3 development, I know of just one
such project that was cancelled in the development phase.  That was
Subsystem I, which was intended to automate photo-interpretation and was
developed for the Air Force by Bunker Ramo.

The "I" in the name of this project supposedly stood for "Intelligence" or
"Interpretation."  This cryptic name was apparently chosen to meet the
needs of the prospective users in the intelligence community, who liked to
pretend that nobody knew what they were doing.  This pretense occasionally
led to odd conduct, such as when they assigned code names to various
devices and tried to keep them secret from outsiders.  For example, a
secret name was assigned to one of the early U.S. spy satellites -- as I
recall it was Samos -- but when that name somehow showed up in the popular
press they tried to pretend that no such thing existed.  In support of
this claim, everyone in the intelligence community was directed to stop
using that name immediately.

When I attended a meeting in the Pentagon a few days after this decree and
mentioned the forbidden word, the person operating the tape recorder
immediately said "Wait while I back up the tape to record over that!"
This was a classified discussion, so there was no issue of public
disclosure involved, just the belief that there should be no record of the
newly contaminated name.

Sometime in the 1981-82 period, the Air Force decided to terminate the
development of Subsystem I.  A group of about 30 people from various parts
of the defense establishment, including me, was invited to visit the
facility in suburban Los Angeles where the work was going on to see if any
of it could be used in other C3 systems.  We were given a two day
briefing on the system and its components, the principal one being a
multiprocessor computer.

The conceptual design of this Polymorphic Computer, as they called it, was
attributed to Sy Ramo, who had earlier helped lead Hughes Aircraft and
Ramo-Wooldridge (later called TRW) to fame and fortune.  The architecture
of this new machine was an interesting bad idea.  The basic idea was to
use many small computers instead of one big one, so that the system could
be scaled to meet various needs simply by adjusting the number of
processors.  The problem was that these units were rather loosely coupled
and each computer had a ridiculously small memory -- just 1K words.  Each
processor could also sequentially access a 1K buffer.  Consequently it was
very awkward to program and had extremely poor performance.

I sought out the Subsystem I program manager while I was there and asked
if our group was the only one being offered this "free system."  He said
that we were just one of a number of groups that were being flown in over
several months time.  When I asked how much they were spending on trying
to give it away, he said about $9 million (which would be equivalent to
about $38 million today).  The Air Force Systems Command seemed to be
trying desparately to make this program end up as a "success" no matter
how much it cost.  When I asked why the program was being cancelled, I got
a very vague answer.

I did not recommend that my group acquire any of that equipment and as far
as I know nobody else did.  The question of why Subsystem I was cancelled
remained unresolved as far I was was concerned.  It is conceivable that it
was because they figured out that it wasn't going to work, but neither did
the other C3 systems, so the reason must have been deeper (or shallower,
depending on your perspective).  My guess is that they got into some kind
of political trouble, but I will probably never know.

        -Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:48:52 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Original "Daisy"
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1805710885731.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835204171.001


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> Original "Daisy"

Lauren, you say:
   Greetings.  I've just located a tape of the original instrumented
   "Daisy" synthesis--the one that served as the model for Hal's shutdown
   sequence in "2001".  I'm preparing to bring it online, but I can't
   find my original references to the date, programmer, and equipment on
   which it was produced, though I recall it was a Bell Labs effort.
   Specific references would be useful and appreciated.

I don't have all that information, but I do know that I first heard it
played on approximately December 1, 1965, at the Fall Joint Computer
Conference in Las Vegas.  My impression was that it had just recently
been synthesized by the Bell Labs folks.

        -Les
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:52:45 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Apple Prehistory/Phone phreaking
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <316358076964.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835197304.000


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> Apple Prehistory/Phone phreaking

Rick Prelinger's account of buying a blue box from Jobs and Wozniak
reminds me that many people seem to think that phone phreaking began
with Captain Crunch and blue boxes.  While it is true that the
"phreaking" label is recent, the activity is much older.  Admittedly
this is a bit off-topic, in that it predates the computer era.

When I arrived at Caltech as an undergraduate in 1948, the second
thing I learned, just after how to pick locks, was how to make free
phone calls from the pay phones in the student houses.  Telephones
used simpler technology in that era and simple hacking tools sufficed.
Three different schemes were in common use among the students.

For local calls, which were supposed to cost just a nickel, the usual
solution was to drill small holes in two nickels and tie them together
with a thread about 10 inches long.  After lifting the receiver, you
would insert one nickel and leave the other one outside the phone, as
a counterbalance.  After making the call and hanging up, a relay
inside would go "click-click" as it tried to drop the nickel into the
coin box, but inasmuch as it was counterbalanced it stayed where it
was.  After that, you lifted the receiver, inserted the second coin
and hung up again, simulating an aborted call, and both coins dropped
out the coin return.  I used to worry about the thread getting caught
inside but that never happened.

More ingenuity was needed for long distance calls, which were always
operator-assisted.  The procedure was that you dialed "0," told the
operator the number you were calling, then she told you how much money
to deposit.  The operator counted the coins as you inserted them by
listening to the tones -- nickels made a "ding," dimes a "ding-ding,"
and quarters made a "dong."  However, given that the tones were all
the operator had to go by, it was possible to save a lot of money by
first making a tape recording of the "dings" and "dongs," then making
the call through the operator and, when she asked you to deposit the
money, play back the recording.

Unfortunately, operators would occasionally lose count and would tell
you to stop, then would return the coins already deposited and ask you
to start over.  In order to deal with that contingency it was
necessary to have a handful of coins ready to throw in the coin return
when you heard the relay go "click-click," so that it would sound
right to her.  It was then necessary to engage her in small talk until
the tape recorder could be rewound.  A bit complicated but it
generally worked well.

A more sophisticated scheme that worked for both local and long
distance calls was used in a few places in the student houses, where
someone would pick the lock on the phone, get inside and insert a
reversing switch in series with the relay that dumped coins either
into the coin box or into the coin return.  By keeping this switch in
the normal position at the start of the call, then reversing it after
the call was completed, the coins would be returned at the end of the
call instead of going into the coin box.  If you got confused and had
it reversed when the call didn't go through, of course, the phone
company got the money even though the call was incomplete!

While the telephone company didn't have adequate technology to stop
these pactices, they quickly discovered what was going on by noticing
that the coin boxes were mostly empty.  They initially threatened to
remove the phones, but were talked into adopting a more pragmatic
solution: put a counter on each line at the central office to keep
track of how many local calls were completed.  They already knew how
much was supposed to have been inserted for long distance calls, so
each month they figured out how much money should have been in the
coin box, subtracted the amount that was actually there and billed the
student house for the difference.

The house Treasurers complained loundly to the residents whenever the
phantom phone bills became substantial, but the practice never died
out completely.  After all, it was necessary to periodically
demonstrate one's technological expertise to peers or girlfriends (but
generally not to parents).

        -Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:56:06 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Inventing the Apple Lisa; original paper.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1176770383165.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835202387.000


Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> Inventing the Apple Lisa; original paper.

The dates given in Rod's article appear to be actually contemporaneous
with the Xerox project, which I understand ran from early 1978 into 1981.
Perhaps this means that the feedback was bidirectional!  Can anybody give
some more solid dates for both the STAR project and the Smalltalk project?

--
  Robert Bickford           rab@well.com
    "Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary"
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:58:26 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: polly@well.com (Jean Armour Polly)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <516757957305.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835205972.000


Sender: polly@well.com (Jean Armour Polly)
Subject: Re: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."

>>Besides taking inspiration from the Talmud, hypertext also was
>>inspired by Vannevar Bush's 1945 essay, As We May think, which
>>described a hypothetical machine for storing and annotating documents.
>>
>Do readers of this list know if Bush's essay is available as a resource
>on the Web?

There are many versions of As We May Think on the web. The one I use is at
http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/

Last year I gave presentations called As We May Link. Here's the description:

As We May Link
Fifty years ago, Vannevar Bush, technology czar of the WWII era,
published "As We May Think" in Atlantic Monthly. In this landmark
article, he challenged scientists to put their minds to solving
humanity's problems rather than building machines of war. He lamented
the glut of information and the lack of tools for synthesizing
information into true knowledge. To deal with this, he posited various
high-tech solutions, including the notion of hypertext. In "As We May
Link" , Polly details her search for wisdom and knowledge on the WWW,
updating and extending  how far we haven't come.

and a pointer to a PDF version of the slides.:
http://www.well.com/user/polly/polly.pdf

Be advised that the WELL is moving its servers this week so service is
sporadic. Also, if this isn't the right path, go to
http://www.well.com/user/polly and click on the resume section. It's listed
there at the bottom, along with a pointer to Acrobat, if you don't have it.

Best,
JP

Jean Armour Polly       4146 Barker Hill Rd    Jamesville NY 13078 USA
+1 315-469 8670 (EST -5 GMT)    FAX-- +1 315 469-0176
http://www.well.com/user/polly/               polly@well.com
Net-mom  Consulting, Content, and Freelance Writing
Author of The Internet Kids Yellow Pages
Osborne McGraw Hill
$19.95 800 822-8158 (US order) 800 ISBN 007-882-197-5
609 426 5446 (International orders)
(UK ed: The Internet Kids Golden Directory )
ISBN 0-07-882217-3
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 08:00:50 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Apples, LISA, and the 68000
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1180004744449.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835206572.000


Sender: padgett@tccslr.dnet.mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information
Security)
Subject: Apples, LISA, and the 68000

>As these sentiments were surfacing in late 1979, two major events occurred
>that helped to change the thinking behind the Lisa hardware and software:
>the announcement of the Motorola 68000 microprocessor

That was what I remembered also - 1979

>The Motorola 68000 had the performance to support both a higher resolution
>bitmap display and a highly interactive user interface.

Ah yes, back in the days when we still believed vendors 8*). Do recall that
]the APOLLO computers seemed to get far more performance out of a 68000
than the Apples and thought at the time that it was the overhead of the
graphics that was slowing the Macs down.

One of the points that seems to have been ommitted from the paper was the
state of the art in memory at the time - 450 ns UVPROMS were common in
DoD work and 200 ns static RAM was common - we were using all kinds
of interleave and pipelining methods to try to grab larger chunks of
memory - knew how but it often cost power and heat was a problem (where
have we heard that...).

Remember hotrodding my ZX-81 with a prototype 90 ns 6116 that raised the
memory from 1k to 2 & with 768 bytes used by the operating system, this
was a big jump in programming space.

But one thing I have not seen mentioned was the impact of the GM buy on
Motorola. In the same period GM developed their Computer Command Control
that debuted in the 1981 Buick line and used the 6809 processor (might
have been 6802 but memory says 6809). GM bought *millions* of chips. This
held up production quantities of 68000's for several years since Motorola
was busy cranking out the last generation. AFAIR the pipeline did not fill
until about 1983.

Meanwhile Intel was still trying to flog the 8086 family with little
sucess. DoD was hooked on Z-8000's in the wait for 1750's so Zylog was
busy. Fairchild had the 9445 whiich never went anywhere but was reincarnated
as the 9450 as their 1750 entry. Intel had lost a lot of steam after the
Z-80 supplanted the 8080 with more of everything. Then a clueless
IBM came along. Assured that the 8088 could use the same data path
as the Z-80 (anyone remember the Chameleon from SEEQUA with both ?) an
offer that could not be refused was made.

Another point that seems to have been lost over time is the price of memory
in 1980 was A LOT. "Personal Computer"s were fully populated with 64k and
few started out that way. The original crispy IBM PC could hold 64k and soon
were upgradeable to 256k on the motherboard. What was forgotten was that
the SOA was 4164 DRAMS, nine were required for each 64k (eight bits plus
parity) and one of my references shows a 48k PC at $2235 in late 1981
and the same unit with 256k at $4735 - by 1985 it was down to $1995 -
hard to believe in these days of $99 8 Mb SIMMs.

To me it has always been just as important to remember why things were
happening as what happened.

                                        Warmly,
                                                Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 08:03:47 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: steven cherry 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <686271444626.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835204778.002


Sender: steven cherry 
Subject: Re: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."

On Wed, 19 Jun 1996, Andrew Curry wrote:

> Do readers of this list know if Bush's essay is available as a resource
> on the Web? And what about other similar early ground breaking
> contributions, such as Claude Shannon's early articles on information
> theory?

Bush's essay is available at several sites but pride of place should go to
The Atlantic Monthly, as they were the original publishers of the essay 51
years ago.

http://www.theAtlantic.com/atlantic/atlweb/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm

Interestingly, they do not claim a copyright on it, but also caution
inquirers that one reprints it at one's own risk. They do ask that one
include a statement such as "originally published in The Atlantic Monthly,
July 1945."

_interactions_ magazine, which has been kindly mentioned several times on
this list already, republished the essay in print this year to accompany a
report about the Brown/MIT Bush Symposium held last fall. We hope to mount
that article in the near future.

  steven cherry, executive editor, magazines            
  http://www.acm.org/interactions
  ACM, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036 212.626.0675  212.869.0481/fax
--
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great
  reliability, and something is bound to come of it.
                                       -- Vannevar Bush, 1945
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:23:25 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Who will be at INET '96 or IETF in Montreal next week?
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <768022297403.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835202387.001


Sender: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: Who will be at INET '96 or IETF in Montreal next week?

Will anyone else from this list who is interested in the History
of the Net be at the INET '96 (the Internet Society Conference)
in Montreal next week (June 25-28) or the IETF meeting which is
also in Montreal?

It would be good to meet others who are interested in the history
of the Net or who are pioneers who were part of buliding the Net.

It would be interesting to get see if we can arrange a time for
an informal get together to say hello and to discuss common
interests. Perhaps this will eventually lead toward a history
of the Internet and Usenet BOF at a future conference.

Please respond to rh120@columbia.edu as soon as possible as I will be
leaving for Montreal by the weekend.

It's good that there is now a history list to post this message on :-)

Ronda
rh120@columbia.edu
au329@cleveland.freenet.edu


--
Ronda Hauben           "The Netizens: On the History and Impact of
au329@cleveland.freenet.edu      Usenet and the Internet
     http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 14:52:14 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Robert L. Brueck" <74353.1551@CompuServe.COM>
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Claude Shannon.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1624474927133.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 835221820.000


Sender: "Robert L. Brueck" <74353.1551@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."

In answer to the question of Andrew Curry concerning the early work of Claude
Shannon.

I am sure there are more abundant references to the early work of Claude Shannon
(who I admire greatly) than I have, but here are a couple to get you started.
One of my favorite Shannon books is titled "The Mathematical Theory of
Communication", by C.E. Shannon and Warren Weaver, copyrighted in 1949 and
published in many printings by the University of Illinois Press.  It is
essentially a reprint of two earlier articles by Shannon, and my 1962
(ninth)printing has an interesting additional chapter on "Some Recent
Contributions", which included my introduction to the formal measure of
information--entropy, which, among other applications, was used to establish the
upper limit of the best coding for transmission of binary signals with
arbitrarily low frequency of error when given a relevant description of the
channel.

The references to the two earlier works are (1) a paper reprinted from the Bell
System Technical Journal, July and October, 1948 (vol.27, pp 379-423 and
623-656), and (2) a shorter version of part of the book that appeared in
Scientific American, July, 1949.  I have references to later published work of
shannon if they would be of interest to you, but I believe you could find them
in many later books relating to communication theory and coding theorems.

I hope you find that helpful.  Bob Brueck
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
To: history
From: Carl Ellison 
Subject: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 


Sender: Carl Ellison 
Subject: Re: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."

At 07:58 AM 6/19/96 -0700, Jean Armour Polly wrote:
>Last year I gave presentations called As We May Link. Here's the description:
>
>As We May Link
>Fifty years ago, Vannevar Bush, [...] posited various
>high-tech solutions, including the notion of hypertext.

Great article -- reads like Jules Verne.

However, his hypertext is one step beyond what we have today.  In his, the
reader can insert links at will.  Today, the reader has to save and edit
.html files in order to do that.  It might be interesting to have an
indirect .html which takes its body from another .html but adds links.  It
would probably have to be limited to work only when the body .html file
hasn't changed (e.g., by comparing cryptographic hashes), but link placement
might be by context so that small changes in format or additions to a page
wouldn't throw off old links, unless the text from them went away.

Needless to say, this would have to be recursive.


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Carl M. Ellison          cme@cybercash.com   http://www.clark.net/pub/cme |
|CyberCash, Inc.                              http://www.cybercash.com/    |
|207 Grindall Street           PGP 2.6.2: 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 |
|Baltimore MD 21230-4103       T:(410) 727-4288     F:(410)727-4293        |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com) 
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
To: history
From: edbark@cme.nist.gov (Ed Barkmeyer)
Subject: CM> ASCII "Graphics" -- character art
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 


Sender: edbark@cme.nist.gov (Ed Barkmeyer)
Subject: ASCII "Graphics" -- character art

To the discussion of "artworks" created with ASCII characters on line
printers of the 1960s and 1970s, I would like to add a scholarly 
component.

In late 1964, Prof. Azriel Rosenfeld of the University of Maryland
initiated a research program in "picture processing", i.e. image processing
on computers, using a scanner developed at the university under a grant
from NASA (if I am not mistaken).  Since Rosenfeld and his students were
using an IBM 7094 as the processor and the (offline IBM 1401-served)
line-printers did not have a "plot mode", Rosenfeld was stuck with
ASCII characters as the medium for representing the scanned and enhanced
pictures.  Accordingly, one of Rosenfeld's students studied the effective
visual intensity of ASCII characters, and combinations of ASCII characters
once overstruck, and from this study developed a mapping for 64 gray-levels
to character/overstrike combinations.  Rosenfeld's project thereafter
produced many enhanced images on the line-printer using one (overstruck)
character per pixel!

This work was published (in JACM, I think) but I can no longer find the
reference.  Perhaps someone whose archival resources are better than
mine can contribute further pointers.

-Ed
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edward J. Barkmeyer                             Email: edbark@nist.gov
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory
Building 220, Room A127                         Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899                          FAX: +1 301-258-9749
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com) 
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
To: history
From: Craig A Summerhill 
Subject: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 


Sender: Craig A Summerhill 
Subject: CM> Vannevar Bush "As We May Think."

On Wed, 19 Jun 1996, Steven Cherry  wrote:

[~snip~]

> Interestingly, they do not claim a copyright on it, but also caution
> inquirers that one reprints it at one's own risk. They do ask that one
> include a statement such as "originally published in The Atlantic Monthly,
> July 1945."

Steven,

I recently wrote an chapter/section for a monograph, and reviewed this 
work again as part of research.  

There is in fact a copyright statement on the bottom of the article at 
the URL you cite above.  But it attributes ownership to Bush, so I 
suspect he did not transfer *all* rights as an author to _The Atlantic 
Monthly_ (must have been unusal for the time period in question).  But 
this would be supported by the fact that just a few months after _The 
Atlantic Monthly_ published "As We May Think" it was republished in 
_Life_ in a slightly revised format and with some (presumably) contracted 
artwork to accompany it.

In the United States, the copyright would be the life of the author plus 
fifty years.  For some reason, I was thinking that Bush died very shortly 
after this article was published.  That would, of course, mean that 
1996/1997 would possibly be very near the term of the copyright.  However, 
in a quick look around some resources (net and non-net) I was unable to 
find a death date for Bush.  Apparently, the Library of Congress authority 
heading for Bush remains...

   Bush, Vannevar, 1890- 

Ususally, such an authority headings would be closed to reflect the date
of death of a well known author, especially if several decades have 
gone since his passing.  This made me curious.  Does anybody know when 
Bush died?  I suppose he could still be alive, but that's not what my 
memory tells me.  Also, does anybody know what he did in the years 
between this article and his death?  During WWII, he was director of the
Office of Scientific Research and Development for Roosevelt, of course.  
But I've never read much about his life *after* this article.

Just curious...
-- 

   Craig A. Summerhill, Systems Coordinator and Program Officer
   Coalition for Networked Information
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C.   20036
   Internet: craig@cni.org   AT&Tnet (202) 296-5098
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com) 
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
To: history
From: "Bryan P. Haynes" 
Subject: "Oscar Meyer Wiener Whistle" and Phone Phreaking
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 


Sender: "Bryan P. Haynes" 
Subject: "Oscar Meyer Wiener Whistle" and Phone Phreaking

All this talk of "Phone Phreaking" has reminded me of stories back in the
late '60's, early '70's, of people who could fake out the phone company
billing system on long distance calls by playing the appropriate tones that
the phone company used for billing on an Oscar Meyer Wiener Whistle.  Has
anyone heard of this, or was I just being set up?

Bryan Haynes
bhaynes@harborside.com
1 if by land, 2 if by sea.  Paul Revere - Encryption 1775
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com) 
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
To: history
From: "John K. Taber" 
Subject: CM> Early phone phreaking
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 


Sender: "John K. Taber" 
Subject: Early phone phreaking

The earliest phone phreaking I remember consisted of sticking a thumb
tack in the receiver cable of a pay phone. It must have shorted something,
giving you a dial tone. 

AT&T responded by armoring the cable.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com) 
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________