* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research @ 2020-07-12 20:38 Norman Wilson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Norman Wilson @ 2020-07-12 20:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs John Linderman: Every "divestiture" had an adverse effect on critical mass. The split between AT&T and Bellcore was a big hurt. The split between AT&T and Lucent was another. When I joined the Labs in 1973, it was an honor to work there. ==== Maybe I'm blinded because I wasn't there earlier, but to me, joining Bell Labs in 1984, just after the original divestiture that split off Bellcore, was still an honour. There were certainly good people I never had a chance to work with because they went to Bellcore, but in 1127 at least, morale was good, management stayed out of our way and encouraged researchers to work on whatever interested them, and a lot of good work was done even if that group was no longer the source of All UNIX Truth. (In fact I think we missed the boat on some things by being too inwardly-focussed, TCP/IP in particular, but divestiture didn't cause that.) It seemed to me that the rot didn't really begin to show until around 1990, the time I left (though not for that reason; this is hindsight). Upper management were visibly shifting focus from encouraging researchers to do what they did best to treating researchers as a source of new products to be marketed. The urge to break the company up further seems to me to have been a symptom, not a cause; the cause was a general corporate shift toward short-term profits rather than AT&T's traditional long-term view. AT&T was far from alone in making this mistake, and research in the US has suffered greatly all over as a result. I remember visiting a couple of years after I left, and chatting with my former department head. He said 1127 was having trouble convincing new researchers to join up because they'd heard (correctly) that the physics and chemistry research groups were being cut back, and feared computing science would have its own reckoning soon enough. In fact the corporate direction of the time was to cut back on the physical sciences and push to expand software research and development, but I don't blame the new researchers for being concerned (nor did my ex-DH), and in the long term they turned out to be more right than wrong. Nothing lasts forever, but the classic Bell Labs lasted a long time. We have nothing like it now. I don't think we'll have anything like it any time soon. That's sad. Norman Wilson Toronto ON ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] AT&T Research @ 2020-07-11 1:08 John P. Linderman 2020-07-11 1:32 ` Larry McVoy 2020-07-11 15:36 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: John P. Linderman @ 2020-07-11 1:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 170 bytes --] I'm hearing that 50% of what's left of AT&T research got the axe today. I'm hoping to hear from friends about details. God's gift to google, as we have said in the past. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 381 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 1:08 John P. Linderman @ 2020-07-11 1:32 ` Larry McVoy 2020-07-11 1:51 ` John P. Linderman 2020-07-11 15:36 ` Clem Cole 1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2020-07-11 1:32 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John P. Linderman; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Well that sucks but Bell Labs has not been Bell Labs for a long time. I think most of us here know what Bell Labs contributed to the world, you youngsters who don't know, look it up, it is one of the greatest research/business stories in history. On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 09:08:51PM -0400, John P. Linderman wrote: > I'm hearing that 50% of what's left of AT&T research got the axe today. > I'm hoping to hear from friends about details. > God's gift to google, as we have said in the past. -- --- Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 1:32 ` Larry McVoy @ 2020-07-11 1:51 ` John P. Linderman 0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: John P. Linderman @ 2020-07-11 1:51 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1344 bytes --] Every "divestiture" had an adverse effect on critical mass. The split between AT&T and Bellcore was a big hurt. The split between AT&T and Lucent was another. When I joined the Labs in 1973, it was an honor to work there. I don't see anything special about any of the remaining fragments, and they seem to be determined to make themselves less and less attractive. ("Come work for AT&T instead of Google and we'll allow you to spend several weeks each year training for strike duty for which you'll have to be prepared to show up on 48 hours notice, and, by the way, that vacation time you cannot take because you have to have to remain available cannot be carried over.") -- jpl On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 9:32 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > Well that sucks but Bell Labs has not been Bell Labs for a long time. > I think most of us here know what Bell Labs contributed to the world, > you youngsters who don't know, look it up, it is one of the greatest > research/business stories in history. > > On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 09:08:51PM -0400, John P. Linderman wrote: > > I'm hearing that 50% of what's left of AT&T research got the axe today. > > I'm hoping to hear from friends about details. > > God's gift to google, as we have said in the past. > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com > http://www.mcvoy.com/lm > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2304 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 1:08 John P. Linderman 2020-07-11 1:32 ` Larry McVoy @ 2020-07-11 15:36 ` Clem Cole 2020-07-11 20:30 ` Warren Toomey 1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2020-07-11 15:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John P. Linderman; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 298 bytes --] https://spinroot.com/pico/watertower.jpg On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 9:10 PM John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm hearing that 50% of what's left of AT&T research got the axe today. > I'm hoping to hear from friends about details. > God's gift to google, as we have said in the past. > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 917 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 15:36 ` Clem Cole @ 2020-07-11 20:30 ` Warren Toomey 2020-07-11 20:36 ` Jon Steinhart ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Warren Toomey @ 2020-07-11 20:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole; +Cc: tuhs On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:36:35AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: > https://spinroot.com/pico/watertower.jpg So there's a question. Obviously all the anecdotes I've heard about Bell Labs have come from Unix people. But there were many others working and researching there. How was the interaction between the Unix people and the non-Unix people at the Labs? Especially when Unix became "big"? Did the non-Unix people also pull pranks like the watertower? Cheers, Warren ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 20:30 ` Warren Toomey @ 2020-07-11 20:36 ` Jon Steinhart 2020-07-11 21:58 ` Rob Pike 2020-07-23 4:13 ` scj 2 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Jon Steinhart @ 2020-07-11 20:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Warren Toomey writes: > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:36:35AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: > > https://spinroot.com/pico/watertower.jpg > > So there's a question. Obviously all the anecdotes I've heard about > Bell Labs have come from Unix people. But there were many others > working and researching there. > > How was the interaction between the Unix people and the non-Unix people > at the Labs? Especially when Unix became "big"? Did the non-Unix people > also pull pranks like the watertower? > > Cheers, Warren That's kind of a strange question. I was never a "UNIX person" when I was there because UNIX just wasn't that big a deal then (versions 3-6). I worked on other stuff, and used UNIX for documentation. I was intrigued and learned a lot more about it, and hung out in the UNIX room late at night because it was the place to be, but UNIX was a negligible blip compared to everything else going on there. Astonishingly enough, people worked on things related (even if tangentially) to telephony. Jon ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 20:30 ` Warren Toomey 2020-07-11 20:36 ` Jon Steinhart @ 2020-07-11 21:58 ` Rob Pike 2020-07-11 22:29 ` Larry McVoy 2020-07-23 4:13 ` scj 2 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread From: Rob Pike @ 2020-07-11 21:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Warren Toomey; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1455 bytes --] The interactions were great. Research at least was a multidisciplinary utopia, in my experience. People knew what was going on in other departments, talks were open to anyone who wanted to attend, and doors were always open. During my time there, I worked or at least had substantive conversations with mathematicians, physicists, statisticians, astronomers, acoustics researchers, and many others. Various eople in 1127 had longer-term collaborations with essentially every other group in Murray Hill at one time or another. It was an environment of sharing progress, ideas, and advancements. Not everyone played with the rest, and we didn't do as much work with development was management asked, but that world was very special. I miss it every day. But to answer your question: Yes, there were many pranks by many pranksters, but the water tower was undoubtedly the most visible. -rob On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 6:32 AM Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:36:35AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: > > https://spinroot.com/pico/watertower.jpg > > So there's a question. Obviously all the anecdotes I've heard about > Bell Labs have come from Unix people. But there were many others > working and researching there. > > How was the interaction between the Unix people and the non-Unix people > at the Labs? Especially when Unix became "big"? Did the non-Unix people > also pull pranks like the watertower? > > Cheers, Warren > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1998 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 21:58 ` Rob Pike @ 2020-07-11 22:29 ` Larry McVoy 2020-07-12 7:55 ` Ed Bradford 0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2020-07-11 22:29 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Rob Pike; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 07:58:01AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > Not everyone played with the rest, and we didn't do as much work with > development was management asked, but that world was very special. I miss > it every day. I'm super jealous of your experiences there. I've told anyone who would listen that Bell Labs held more of what I'd call my heroes than any other place. I went to Sun because it was as close as I could get in my day, and it was good, but Bell Labs seems like it was magic. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 22:29 ` Larry McVoy @ 2020-07-12 7:55 ` Ed Bradford 0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: Ed Bradford @ 2020-07-12 7:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Larry McVoy, TUHS main list [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3510 bytes --] 2020-07-12 Indian Hill, Columbus, Whippany, Holmdel, and other BTL sites worked on automating the Telephone system. A lot of the software was designed, implemented, and deployed into the telcos and AT&T Longlines on Unix. Operating telcos welcomed all Unix based systems. I worked on the NOC (Network Operating Center) in Bedminster, NJ, and the LMOS (Loop Maintenance Operations system) both of which were designed, implemented, and deployed using Unix as the operating system. Unix was a huge thing throughout the labs for developing solutions for the Telcos from 1976 onwards. I was at BTL from 1976-1983 and traveled to Murray Hill often. I met and engaged with many of the folks (Feldman, Chesson, Aho, Bourne, Thompson, Ritchie, Lesk, Weinberger, and even Doug). All of them were welcoming and extremely patient with me and to this day I remember all of them. Unix was a godsend to me after having to deal with IBM operating systems for scientific calculations. I arrived into BTL in 1976 in Columbus, Ohio and all I had ever used before was punched cards and OS/360 systems. (cbunix uber alles :-). "Messages" and "semaphores" were what was in the Unix (cbunix) we used and I don't recall who implemented them.("Messages" was interprocess messages. I even forget how they worked, but using "messages", I implemented inter-processor messages where processes on one computer could msg processes on a 2nd computer without any modification to the Unix source code.) The most depressing thing even to today is the deplorable lack of wisdom demonstrated by IBM, Microsoft, and AT&T in bringing computing to the public. LSX could have been deployed on the first IBM PC (1982). I suspect IBM and its vaunted research lab and Gates/Allen were singularly ignorant of the revolutionary ideas from 1127 even in 1981. AT&T was complicit by holding Unix close to its chest (in search of profit) while enjoying a government protected monopoly. Indeed, after spending 17 years in IBM, it is more than likely IBM was arrogant and dismissive of 'unix' (as was DEC - Digital Equipment Corporation) and especially the C programming language. One only needs to look at the source code of AIX to see that all of Doug's "principals" were missing and presumed dead in the IBM AIX software culture. No software invention in the world of computing compares to what Ken, Dennis and 1127 folks have given the world. Now, 50 years later, the world is embracing Unix. There is a political story here about excellence and profit and how they relate; not to be told by me, here. Ed PS: I spent approximately 2 hours trying to get the presentation of this post to look like what I produced in gvim (vi = Bill Joy). All formatting WORK is a direct result of Bill Gates (and Steve Jobs) not understanding or listening to Doug and his principles of text, simplicity, and pipes. On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 5:30 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > On Sun, Jul 12, 2020 at 07:58:01AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > > Not everyone played with the rest, and we didn't do as much work with > > development was management asked, but that world was very special. I miss > > it every day. > > I'm super jealous of your experiences there. I've told anyone who would > listen that Bell Labs held more of what I'd call my heroes than any other > place. > > I went to Sun because it was as close as I could get in my day, and it was > good, but Bell Labs seems like it was magic. > -- Advice is judged by results, not by intentions. Cicero [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6810 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] AT&T Research 2020-07-11 20:30 ` Warren Toomey 2020-07-11 20:36 ` Jon Steinhart 2020-07-11 21:58 ` Rob Pike @ 2020-07-23 4:13 ` scj 2 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread From: scj @ 2020-07-23 4:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Warren Toomey; +Cc: tuhs I think that's an interesting topic. I interned at BTL for three summers before coming on permanently in 1967. At the time, it was running an IBM 7090 (later 7094) with a home-grown operating system. Punched card decks were put on mag tape and fed to the system in batches. There was no memory protection, so after running one job the system would checksum itself to make sure it was sane. At one point, someone was testing a sort routine that ran amock and sorted a good portion of the OS, but not the checksum routine, which did an exclusive OR of the instructions and attempted to run the next job. The instruction core dump was quite amusing. One of the first computer games I became aware of happened on that mainframe. It was called "Darwin", and was a contest. Each contestant submitted a card deck, and there was a monitor that ran the program--its object was to attack other programs by returning an address. If the address was protected, you died and the other program reproduced itself in your place. Otherwise, they died and you reproduced yourself. The game ran for several weeks until a program described to me as "all teeth, claws and sex organs" proved to be unbeatable. In my opinion, the initial view of Unix at Bell Labs was quite negative. After all, these were the people who promised Multics with great hype and failed to deliver. When I started work in 1067, I was given a memo that began "In six months, we expect the dominant programming language at Bell Labs to be PL/1." There were some amazing simulation programs written in assembler with macros -- all of these were lost when the comp center pushed everyone on to FORTRAN. I actually think it was a good thing that Unix in the early days was not taken seriously. Having users is a mixed blessing when the rate of change was rapid. For example, the transition from B to C to C with strong typing would have driven most application developers bonkers when they were trying to serve their customers. One of the things that got me interested in management was visiting a number of groups with my then boss, Eliot Pinson, to try to "sell" Unix. It was amazing to me that some groups that urgently needed it were unwilling to try it, while groups that were doing just fine without it embraced it and ran with it. The technical people I met all seemed competent -- it must be the management that was the difference... --- On 2020-07-11 13:30, Warren Toomey wrote: > On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 11:36:35AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: >> https://spinroot.com/pico/watertower.jpg > > So there's a question. Obviously all the anecdotes I've heard about > Bell Labs have come from Unix people. But there were many others > working and researching there. > > How was the interaction between the Unix people and the non-Unix people > at the Labs? Especially when Unix became "big"? Did the non-Unix people > also pull pranks like the watertower? > > Cheers, Warren ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2020-07-23 4:23 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 11+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2020-07-12 20:38 [TUHS] AT&T Research Norman Wilson -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 2020-07-11 1:08 John P. Linderman 2020-07-11 1:32 ` Larry McVoy 2020-07-11 1:51 ` John P. Linderman 2020-07-11 15:36 ` Clem Cole 2020-07-11 20:30 ` Warren Toomey 2020-07-11 20:36 ` Jon Steinhart 2020-07-11 21:58 ` Rob Pike 2020-07-11 22:29 ` Larry McVoy 2020-07-12 7:55 ` Ed Bradford 2020-07-23 4:13 ` scj
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