[COFF] "Hot Spot" High Performing Centres in Computing

[steve jenkin <sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au>]

Bell Labs Dept 1127 / CSRC qualifies as “Very High Performing” to me (is there a better name?)

Before that, John von Neumann and his team were outstanding in the field.

DARPA, under Licklider then Bob Taylor & Ivan Sutherland and more people I don’t know,
went on to fund game-changing technologies, such TCP/IP, including over Wireless and Satellite links.

Engelbart’s Augmentation Research Centre was funded by DARPA, producing NLS, the "oN-Line System”.

Taylor founded Xerox PARC, taking many of Engelbart’s team when the ARC closed.
PARC invented so many things, it’s hard to list…
Ethernet, Laser printers, GUI & Windowing System, Object Oriented (? good ?), what became ’the PC'

Evans & Sutherland similarly defined the world of Graphics for many years.

MIPS Inc created the first commercial RISC processor with a small team, pioneering using 3rd Party “Fabs”.
At 200 Mhz, it was twice the speed of competitors.

Seymour Cray and his small team built (with ECL) the fastest computers for a decade.
I heard that CDC produced a large, slow Operating System, so Cray went and wrote a better one “in a weekend”.
A hardware & software whizz.

I’ve not intended to leave any of the "Hot Spots” out.
While MIT did produce some good stuff, I don’t see it as “very high performing”.
Happy to hear disconfirming opinion.

What does this has to do with now?

Google, AWS and Space-X have redefined the world of computing / space in the last 10-15 years.

They've become High Performing “Hot Spots”, building technology & systems that out-perform everyone else.

Again, not intentionally leaving out people, just what I know without deeply researching.

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Is this a topic that’s been well addressed? If so, sorry for wasting time.

Otherwise, would appreicate pointers & comments, especially if anyone has created a ‘definitive’ list,
which would imply some criteria for admission.

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Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin