Volunteer Information Exchange Sharing what we know with those we know Volume 3 Number 10 August 23, 2013

Contribute To The VIE In Memoriam Congratulations to Jake Feinler on receiving the Postel Carl Clement award from the Society for her many contributions to the Internet. Jake is a member of the 1921 - 2011 Internet Hall of Fame. I note that a committee is reviewing our docent library with an eye toward a “Suggested Reading List” for the new class of docents which will start this fall. That ought to be a source of book reviews as you complete your task. Or if not full book review, you will have some educated recommendations for us. Please share what you have with all of us. A word of apology, in the last issue, in the picture associated with the article on docent training, we identified the good looking guy on the right incorrectly. He is Emily's Lacroix's husband, Matt, Sorry Matt. Thanks to Bud Warashina for alerting us to the passing Carl Clement, Silicon Valley pioneer in design and of Carl Clement whose industrial designs continue to technology, died on June 7. influence the valley. Jim Strickland [email protected] Mr. Clement's influence on modern-day product design began as Corporate Design Director of Hewlett- Packard company from 1951 through 1963. He also taught product design at both Stanford and San Jose State Universities. He was instrumental in moving Silicon Valley product designs from a random cosmetic approach to an approach which balanced technological constraints, user-efficiency and esthetic elegance. CONTENTS His design of the, the Xerox Alto, is retained in the 1 Contribute to the VIE permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute. And In Memoriam – Carl Clement 1 David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard was quoted, "...our products had an elegance and finish CHM Blog: New Posts 1 which will be hard to duplicate. For more on Carl Clement and his contributions. Jake Feinler Receives Postel Award 2

Most Abused Social Security Number 2

Technology or Art 3 CHM Blog: New Posts The Second Supercomputer (?) 4 Recent CHM Blog Entries Kirsten Tashev keeps us up-to-date on our new CHM More Links You May Enjoy 5 Blog. Recent Entries are: SAGE: Light Gun Firefights 5 • 08/15 – Chris Garcia on computers and comedy Coming Events 5 • 07/31 - Alex Bochannek on the Totalizer which revolutionized race track betting

• 08/21 – Jenny De La Cruz on The contractor that built Silicon Valley.

Page 1 Elizabeth Feinler Receives 2013 Jonathan B. Postel Service Award

Internet Society recognizes her significant contributions to the early development and administration of the Internet Berlin, Germany -- 31 July 2013 The today announced that its prestigious Jonathan B. Postel Service Award was presented to Elizabeth “Jake” Feinler for her extensive contributions to the early development and administration of the Internet through her leadership of international award committee, comprised of former the Network Information Center (NIC) for the ARPANET Jonathan B. Postel award winners, places particular and Defense Data Network (DDN). emphasis on candidates who have supported and From 1974 to 1989, Ms. Feinler ran the NIC under enabled others in addition to their own specific actions. contract to the Department of Defense at the Stanford The award is focused on sustained and substantial Research Institute (SRI). The NIC oversaw the use of technical contributions, service to the community, and Internet addresses, and developed the first Internet leadership. “yellow-” and “white-page” servers, as well as the first The Internet Society presented the award, including a query-based network host name and address (WHOIS) US$20,000 honorarium and a crystal engraved globe, server. Her group managed the Host Naming Registry, during the 87th meeting of the Internet Engineering and developed the top-level domain-naming scheme Task Force (IETF) held in Berlin, Germany, July 28 - of .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, and .net, which is still in August 2, 2013. use today. About the Internet Society “Jake is a true Internet pioneer and one of a small The Internet Society is the trusted independent source group of researchers and scientists who helped shape for Internet information and thought leadership from the early direction of the Internet,” said Lynn St. Amour, around the world. With its principled vision and President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society. “During her tenure, Jake collaborated often Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, with on many critical programs and this technology, and future development among users, award is a testament to her selfless devotion, companies, governments, and other organizations. exceptional leadership, and technical contributions to Working with its members and Chapters around the the global data communications community.” world, the Internet Society enables the continued o o o evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone. For The Postel Award was established by the Internet more information, visit www.internetsociety.org. Society to honor individuals or organizations that, like Media Contact: Wende Cover, Internet Society Jon Postel, have made outstanding contributions in [email protected] 703-439-2773 service to the data communications community. The

Most Abused Social Security Number A vice-president of the company chose to replicate the JIM STRICKLAND Social Security card of his secretary, Hilda Whitcher and put one in every new wallet they sold. And they I met a visitor, named Steve, who told me he had been sold thousands through Woolworth, alone. with the Social Security division's IT department in the early 70's. They had huge installation with 13 IBM /360 Over the years, over 40,000 people adopted, - Model 65's and much, much more. I asked him to tell intentionally or unintentionally, this number as their me a Social Security story and he did. own. You know how, when you buy a wallet, it comes “pre- Even into the 70's, those /360- 65's had to have traps loaded” with pictures and ID cards. Well, in the late to look for her number and handle it specially. 30's, a wallet manufacturer, decided to put a replica of The SS Dept. gave Hilda a new number. one of those “new” social security cards in every wallet Here is the full story direct from the SS Dept. to show how they fit.

Page 2 This is Technology; This is Art JIM STRICKLAND Lily Tomlin had a great routine in which she held up a can of Campbell's tomato soup. She held it up and said, "This is soup" then she pointed to a reproduction of Andy Warhol's pop art representation of Campbells soup and said, "This is art." Throughout the bit, she would say, "This is soup, this is art." The Museum of Modern Art in New York (which happens to own a wallful of the Warhol soup can paintings) has an entire gallery devoted to the art of computer chips. They display quite a number of the large computer generated plots that are used to create the negative images used to make chips.

“Diagram of a Central Processing Unit Chip (Microprocessor) 1987 Computer generated plot on paper” Hewlett Packard

Here are a few of the pieces of art.

According Teresa Donnely, the artist who selected the items for the gallery, "They are artifacts of the origin of a universe."

The CHM, realizing the art of the chip, has several similar examples of "Chip/art" in the Digital Logic gallery At the right is a photo of a "Mask Rubylith Layer for 4K DRAM, Mostek corporation, US, 1976. "This is technology; this is art."

Page 3 The Second Supercomputer(?) Based on that new capability, Eckert had perhaps his JIM STRICKLAND greatest insight -- that a number of single-purpose IBM machines might be interconnected and "programmed" to In a previous article, The First Supercomputer (?), we perform complex scientific calculations without human noted the origin of the term “super computer” and the intervention, given a mechanism to coordinate their role of Benjamin Wood of Columbia University in actions and communicate results among them. He developing it. This article moves to his protege, Wallace designed such a mechanism and IBM built it for him. Eckert and his work in using punched cards for astronomical calculations. (Wallace Eckert is not related The critical phrase is “without human intervention.” The to Presper Eckert of ENIAC fame.) work of Dr. Wood and of L.J. Comrie in the UK had required considerable human intervention. Wallace Eckert was, a Columbia University astronomy professor from 1926 to 1970. He was the protege of Eckert's first multiple machine interconnection using the Benjamin Wood who had started Columbia's “Columbia switch” still required some manual Astronomical laboratory which used IBM equipment to intervention, but the stage had been set for further perform astronomical calculations. Eckert is best known developments which removed the intervention required. for the calculations that guided the Apollo missions to The setup was so successful that Eckert's laboratory the Moon and indeed, a Moon crater bears his name. became an international center for scientific He was also a true pioneer of computing. His work in computation. It was there that in 1940, he wrote celestial mechanics, particularly the construction of “Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation,” voluminous and precise tables showing the positions of widely considered the first computer book. celestial objects over long spans of time, required Eckert continued groundbreaking work when in 1940 he massive amounts of computation, more than could be joined the US Naval Observatory which he rapidly handled by the desktop calculators and tabulating "computerized" to create accurate air and sea machines of the prewar decades. navigation tables for the US Air Corps and Navy using In the early 1930s, Eckert continued and increased the techniques he devised at Columbia. His equipment Benjamin's Wood's special relationship with IBM. Based and process allowed design and production of the Air on that relationship, he was able to send specifications Almanac in record time (the first issue of the Air for revolutionary custom-built punch-card machines to Almanac appeared December 1st, 1940, produced speed his work. entirely by machine methods). In 1931, IBM introduced the 601 “Electric Multiplier and For additional information on Eckert's role with the Air Automatic Cross-Footing Multiplying Punch.” Almanac, see a previous VIE article, First Computer Typesetting.

Page 4 More Links That You May Enjoy

• Interesting post, ostensibly about when old computer stuff becomes valuable, but really more interesting in discussing the Xerox 16/8. • An award in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Computer scientist Lillian Lee named AAAI Fellow. • IBM Watson will begin to execute call center function • China retakes supercomputer speed record

SAGE: Light Gun Firefights JIM STRICKLAND Another story from Steve (Also, see page 2.) From an old Calvin and A former boss of his had once worked for IBM and was a Hobbs cartoon by Bill troubleshooter for SAGE systems. He was sent out to a SAGE Watterson installation where they were having an unusually large number of Calvin: I read that scientists are problems with the light guns. trying to make computers that What he found was that the console operators were terribly bored think. Isn't that weird?? (remember those SAGE knobs that say “Don't you feel useless" and "I If computers can think, then what can't stand it”). will people be better at than To combat boredom these operators were having light gun fights. They machines? would put a rubber band over the tip of the gun, pull it back and let fly. Hobbs: Irrational Behavior. Great fun, but the light guns weren't built to be in that particular battle. The tips bent and failed. Calvin: Maybe they'll invent a psychotic computer. The tech was going to go back to request a fix from IBM, but the commander of the site said, “Oh don't bother, we'll just order them to stop!”

Please contribute to the Computer History Museum Volunteer Information Exchange Share your stories, your interesting facts (and factoids) and your knowledge Send them to Jim Strickland ([email protected])

Coming Events (Click for details) Date Day Time Event 6:00 PM Member Reception Aug 27 Tues. America's Cup Comes to San Francisco: Technology Under Sail 7:00 PM Program 6:00 PM Member Reception An Evening with Intel’s Justin Rattner, corporate vice president and Oct 08 Wed 7:00 PM Program the chief technology officer (CTO) of Intel Corporation. 8:30 Adjourn 6:00 PM Member Reception Game Changers: Trip Hawkins with the New York Times’ John Oct 23 Wed. 7:00 PM Program Markoff 6:00 PM Member Reception Feb 06 Thur. 7:00 PM Program Regis McKenna in Conversation with John Markoff 8:30 Adjourn

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