tallest recepient, towering over Charles William his co-winners at 6 feet 4 inches. Dec. 11th Bachman III Born: Dec. 11, 1924; Carl Eddie Hewitt Marconi Public Manhattan, Kansas Demo Died: July 13, 2017 Born: Dec. 11, 1944; Bachman has been called the Massachusetts Dec. 11 (or 12), 1896 “father of databases”. He Hewitt is best known for developed the Integrated Data designing the Planner language Guglielmo Marconi (1874 - Store (IDS) at General Electric in 1937) had been experimenting and proposing the actor model the early 1960's, which was later of concurrent computation. with wireless telegraphy since adopted by the CODASYL [April the summer of 1895 (and 8] Data Base Task Group as its Planner was a hybrid of the perhaps earlier) at the Villa recommended data model. procedural and logical Griffone, his family's home in Bachman also created the first paradigms, combining pattern- Bologna. He had successfully multiprogramming network directed programmability with transmitted signals from the (built around the IDS), and an logical reasoning based around attic over the nearby Celestini early online transaction forward and backward chaining. hill, a distance of some two processing system called A subset called Micro-Planner kilometers. Their reception was WEYCOS. communicated back to Marconi was implemented by Gerry by his assistant firing a gun into Sussman [Feb 8], Eugene the air. Charniak and Terry Winograd [Feb 24] in the early 1970's, and In 1896 he came to England with used in Winograd’s natural- his mother, looking for financial language understanding support to commercialize his program SHRDLU. ideas. In the meantime, he applied for the very first radio Around this time, Hewitt patent, which was issued on developed the actor model, June 2, 1896. which views concurrent computation as a collection of Having shown off his system to simple “actors”. In response to a the navy, army, and Post Office, received message, an actor can Marconi arranged a make local decisions, create demonstration to accompany a more actors, and transmit public lecture on telegraphy messages to other actors. given by William Preece, chief engineer at the Post Office. It The actor model greatly was held in Toynbee Hall, an influenced the development of a educational and charitable Charles Bachman (2012). Photo range of message passing institution in London’s East End, by Dennis Hamilton. CC BY 2.0. languages and mathematical on this day. Preece operated the notations (e.g. Scheme [Dec 22], Tony Hoare’s [Jan 11] CSP, and transmitter and the signal was His seminal 1973 paper, “The Robin Milner’s [Jan 13] CCS and received by a small box that Programmer as Navigator,” -calculus). Marconi carried around the described database technology lecture room. Each signal as a tool for navigating through triggered a bell, much to the data as if following a path in a amazement of the audience. forest, and proposed the Williams-Kilburn Nevertheless, Oliver Lodge had “Bachman diagram” as a visual been working on wireless map of that data. This approach Tube Patent systems before this [Aug 14], was hugely influential until the Dec. 11, 1946 and had demoed his work rise of the relational database and SQL [May 1]. earlier as well, which led to Freddie Williams [June 26] and priority disputes. From 1978-82, Bachman chaired Tom Kilburn [Aug 11] filed a the American National patent application for the first Standards Institute (ANSI) and high-speed, entirely electronic, ISO [Feb 23] committees that random memory device, the standardized the OSI Williams-Kilburn tube. networking model [Feb 28]. They had started work on the Bachman was the first Turing device in late 1946 at the Award [June 23] winner to have Telecommunications Research a Ph.D., and may also be the Establishment (TRE) in Malvern after Williams had succeeded in 1 storing one bit on a cathode ray library, and many other GNU include a stopover in tube. tools [Sept 27]. Before joining Albuquerque, where he met with FSF, he had written the Amacs Ed Roberts [Sept 13], the Their tube design was refined text editor, a faithful re- president of MITS. Roberts through 1947 at the University implementation of Emacs for the encouraged Melen to start of Manchester. In March, Kilburn Apple II, and at FSF he became developing add-on products for suggested an improved method the GNU Emacs maintainer for a the Altair, and back in California, for storing bits, and by the end time. Harry Garland and Melen of 1947 the tube was able to formed Cromemco to do just store 2048 bits as dots on the Fox's Bash has since become the that. Cromemco was an acronym screen’s surface. Each dot was lit most popular programming based on their former college up for a fraction of a second shell for Linux and macOS, and dorm at Stanford: CROthers before fading, so the data had to has been ported to MS Windows, MEMorial Hall + CO (for be constantly refreshed. The MS-DOS, and Android. The company). data was read from the screen shell’s name is an acronym for by a metal plate that detected "Bourne-Again SHell", as it was Cromemco’s microcomputer changes in electrical charge. intended as a replacement for firsts (all for the Altair) included the Bourne shell, and as a pun the first digital camera (the Kilburn published a progress on “born again”. Cyclops Camera [Feb 11]), the report on Dec. 1, 1947, entitled first color graphics card (the “A Storage System for use with Unfortunately, its popularity Cromemco Dazzler [Nov 12]), Binary Digital Computing meant that when a security hole the first programmable storage Machines”, which was widely was discovered in it in early (the Bytesaver), and the first circulated, and persuaded many Sept. 2014, it quickly led to a analog joystick. people to switch away from multitude of hacker mercury delay lines [Oct 31] as a attacks. The bug, dubbed memory device. That was hardly Shellshock, dated from surprising since delay lines were 1989. slower, heavier, more costly, and Aside from his GNU work, suffered from thermal and Fox found time to write toxicity problems. the first interactive online The Manchester Baby (or more US banking software for formally, the Small-Scale Wells Fargo in 1995, and Experimental Machine, or SSEM) collaborated with Alan [June 21] was principally Dechert and Brent Turner intended as a test-rig for the on building the first open Williams-Kilburn tube source election system in technology. It also made the 2008. Harry Garland and Roger Melen, Baby the first stored-program He is the grandson of artist shipping to China (1980). Photo computer (probably). Daniel Fox, creator of the by Cromemco. CC BY-SA 3.0 The tube design was later Monopoly mascot "Rich Uncle Much of the work emanated licensed to IBM for use in the Pennybags". from the grandiose-sounding 701 [April 7] and 702, and was Cromemco Research Lab (the also employed by the the IAS second bedroom of Roger [June 10] and the Whirlwind Melen’s apartment) and the [April 20]. However, the Cromemco Cromemco Production Facility advantages of core memory [Oct (Harry Garland’s garage). 21], as demonstrated in an Formed upgrade to the Whirlwind, spelt Dec. 11, 1974 Cromemco’s first computer was the end for this approach. the Z-1, released in Aug. 1976. It sported the same chassis as the Some historians point to Cromemco, along with Apple, as IMSAI 8080 [Dec 16], but used a the two Silicon Valley companies Z80 chip, and could run either Brian J. Fox that spawned the PC industry. At CDOS (Cromemco Disk Operating System) or CP/M Born: Dec. 11, 1959; its peak in 1983, Cromemco employed more than 500 people [June 22]. Multiuser capabilities Boston, Massachusetts and had annual revenues of $55 were added in later machines In 1985, Fox became the first million. via the first ever microprocessor paid programmer to work with port of UNIX, naturally called In 1974, Roger Melen was CROMIX [Oct 00]. Richard Stallman [March 16] at visiting the New York offices of his newly created Free Software Popular Electronics when he saw In the 1980’s, the US Air Force Foundation (FSF [Oct 4]). Fox a prototype of the MITS Altair chose Cromemco as its main authored the Bash shell, the 8800 [Dec 19]. He was so computer supplier, for which the TexInfo documentation system, impressed that he changed his company developed a special the indispensable readline return flight to California to 2 version of its CS-200 with a Indonesia had released two Y2K Bulger was a suspect in 21 removable hard disk. stamps the previous year, on murders in Massachusetts, who May 2: one depicting an had fled Boston and gone into In 1984, the Cromemco System exploding humanoid robot, the hiding on Dec. 23, 1994. On June One (CS1) was chosen by the other a robotic insect with steel 22, 2011, Bulger was finally “Ghostbusters” for their lab. and claws. arrested outside his apartment in 1985 Newsweek magazine in Santa Monica, but this was not reported that over 10,000 St. Kitts also issued two stamps, due to the wanted posters. Cromemco systems had been on Dec. 29, 1999, showing a sold to Chinese universities. humanoid bug-like creature The FBI’s "Ten Most Wanted destroying a PC on one, and a Fugitives" list crying world on the other. (https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/t opten) went online in 1995, and For more stamps, see [April 7], LaserDisc Released Leslie Rogge was the first [June 20], [Oct 8], [Nov 11]. Dec. 11, 1978 fugitive on the list to be captured in 1996 with help from The LaserDisc was the first the Internet.