* [TUHS] Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
@ 2024-09-15 2:06 George Michaelson
2024-09-15 2:33 ` [TUHS] " Henry Bent
` (3 more replies)
0 siblings, 4 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2024-09-15 2:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
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* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:06 [TUHS] Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967 George Michaelson
@ 2024-09-15 2:33 ` Henry Bent
2024-09-15 2:59 ` Tom Lyon
2024-09-15 2:33 ` Peter Yardley
` (2 subsequent siblings)
3 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Henry Bent @ 2024-09-15 2:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: George Michaelson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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On Sat, 14 Sept 2024 at 22:16, George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
> Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
>
> https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
>
I grew up as the son of a Bell Labs employee and knew several other adults
who worked there, so I find these sorts of things really fun to see. I
wonder which location this was - I did a little bit of clicking around but
the author doesn't seem to specify that anywhere.
-Henry
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* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:06 [TUHS] Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967 George Michaelson
2024-09-15 2:33 ` [TUHS] " Henry Bent
@ 2024-09-15 2:33 ` Peter Yardley
2024-09-15 2:48 ` Henry Bent
2024-09-15 2:34 ` Adam Thornton
2024-09-16 14:37 ` Dan Cross
3 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Peter Yardley @ 2024-09-15 2:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: George Michaelson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
Where I used to work we had a few of those oscilloscopes, picture right side middle. On those trolleys too. I remember that they were Tektronix, I looked them up and I think they were a model 547 (which rings a bell) https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/547.
> On 15 Sep 2024, at 12:06 PM, George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
>
> Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
>
> https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
.1.3.6.1.4.1.8852.4.2
Peter Yardley
peter.martin.yardley@gmail.com
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:06 [TUHS] Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967 George Michaelson
2024-09-15 2:33 ` [TUHS] " Henry Bent
2024-09-15 2:33 ` Peter Yardley
@ 2024-09-15 2:34 ` Adam Thornton
2024-09-16 14:37 ` Dan Cross
3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Adam Thornton @ 2024-09-15 2:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: George Michaelson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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Man, that one dude's hair and sideburns...unless he's trying to do Planet
Of The Apes cosplay...
On Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 7:16 PM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
> Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
>
> https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
>
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* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:33 ` Peter Yardley
@ 2024-09-15 2:48 ` Henry Bent
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Henry Bent @ 2024-09-15 2:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Peter Yardley; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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On Sat, 14 Sept 2024 at 22:41, Peter Yardley <peter.martin.yardley@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Where I used to work we had a few of those oscilloscopes, picture right
> side middle. On those trolleys too. I remember that they were Tektronix, I
> looked them up and I think they were a model 547 (which rings a bell)
> https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/547.
>
One time as a fairly young child I was sick and for some reason my mother
couldn't stay home with me, so I was sent to work with my father at the
Labs. Not really knowing how else to entertain a small child in that
workplace, I was placed in front of a cart with an oscilloscope and a
function generator, which provided hours of entertainment.
-Henry
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* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:33 ` [TUHS] " Henry Bent
@ 2024-09-15 2:59 ` Tom Lyon
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Tom Lyon @ 2024-09-15 2:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Henry Bent; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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I'm guessing this was Holmdel - they were deep into IBM stuff.
There's these 1973 videos about the Holmdel IBM computing center.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMYiktO0D64&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9aVOIuKVUc&t=231s
In summer of 1973, I was a high school snot attending an NSF program at
Stevens Institute, but my brother Dick was a summer intern at Holmdel. I
visited him and made a trek across all 6 floors of all 4 buildings and
counted about 100 PDP-11 systems! (based on peeking in the always-open lab
doors and looking for purple and red) I knew nothing about UNIX at the
time, so no idea how many UNIces there were.
On Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 7:33 PM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Sept 2024 at 22:16, George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
>
>> Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
>>
>> https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
>>
>
> I grew up as the son of a Bell Labs employee and knew several other adults
> who worked there, so I find these sorts of things really fun to see. I
> wonder which location this was - I did a little bit of clicking around but
> the author doesn't seem to specify that anywhere.
>
> -Henry
>
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:06 [TUHS] Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967 George Michaelson
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2024-09-15 2:34 ` Adam Thornton
@ 2024-09-16 14:37 ` Dan Cross
2024-09-16 16:46 ` John P. Linderman
3 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Dan Cross @ 2024-09-16 14:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: George Michaelson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 10:16 PM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
> Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
>
> https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
These came up a few years ago, in the halcyon pre-COVID "before" days
(aka, March 2019), and there was some discussion at the time.
This facility was in northern California (Oakland, I believe) and was
part of an experiment in making directory assistance both faster and
less resource intensive. Ralph Corderoy wrote to Larry Luckham and got
some more detail about the experiment; John Linderman subsequently
chimed in with some of the business and vision failures that led to
the overall effort being scuttled, as one of his early projects built
on the results of the experiment.
Links:
https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/thread/32BDNXR2TD7P6MTLS5HBHROGFCUKPCFV/
https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/thread/RNDFGAXB3LPLAWO46YZKXB5BWLN6GGYN/#RNDFGAXB3LPLAWO46YZKXB5BWLN6GGYN
- Dan C.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-16 14:37 ` Dan Cross
@ 2024-09-16 16:46 ` John P. Linderman
2024-09-17 12:16 ` Dan Cross
0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: John P. Linderman @ 2024-09-16 16:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Dan Cross; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
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On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 11:17 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 10:16 PM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org>
> wrote:
> > Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
> >
> > https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
>
> These came up a few years ago, in the halcyon pre-COVID "before" days
> (aka, March 2019), and there was some discussion at the time.
>
> This facility was in northern California (Oakland, I believe) and was
> part of an experiment in making directory assistance both faster and
> less resource intensive. Ralph Corderoy wrote to Larry Luckham and got
> some more detail about the experiment; John Linderman subsequently
> chimed in with some of the business and vision failures that led to
> the overall effort being scuttled, as one of his early projects built
> on the results of the experiment.
>
> Links:
>
> https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/thread/32BDNXR2TD7P6MTLS5HBHROGFCUKPCFV/
>
> https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/thread/RNDFGAXB3LPLAWO46YZKXB5BWLN6GGYN/#RNDFGAXB3LPLAWO46YZKXB5BWLN6GGYN
>
> - Dan C.
>
I didn't participate in the California testing. I recall it ran on IBM
equipment,
but I have lost all contact with my then-supervisor, who did participate.
It's hard for me to understand why they set up a fairly elaborate operation
just to investigate directory assistance, why it would have been in
California, and why it took years to conduct (and then abort) the test.
It seems more likely to me that the center already existed, and the
directory assistance test just took advantage of it having some spare
cycles.
But that's just sheer speculation on my part. -- jpl
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* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-16 16:46 ` John P. Linderman
@ 2024-09-17 12:16 ` Dan Cross
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Dan Cross @ 2024-09-17 12:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: John P. Linderman; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 12:46 PM John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 11:17 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 10:16 PM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
>> > Forgive me if these predate the glory days, found them interesting
>> >
>> > https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
>>
>> These came up a few years ago, in the halcyon pre-COVID "before" days
>> (aka, March 2019), and there was some discussion at the time.
>>
>> This facility was in northern California (Oakland, I believe) and was
>> part of an experiment in making directory assistance both faster and
>> less resource intensive. Ralph Corderoy wrote to Larry Luckham and got
>> some more detail about the experiment; John Linderman subsequently
>> chimed in with some of the business and vision failures that led to
>> the overall effort being scuttled, as one of his early projects built
>> on the results of the experiment.
>>
>> Links:
>> https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/thread/32BDNXR2TD7P6MTLS5HBHROGFCUKPCFV/
>> https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/thread/RNDFGAXB3LPLAWO46YZKXB5BWLN6GGYN/#RNDFGAXB3LPLAWO46YZKXB5BWLN6GGYN
>
> I didn't participate in the California testing. I recall it ran on IBM equipment,
> but I have lost all contact with my then-supervisor, who did participate.
Right; what I had understood back in 2019 was that the project you got
roped into used some of the results of that experiment, but that you
were not directly involved. Apologies if that was unclear in my recent
message.
> It's hard for me to understand why they set up a fairly elaborate operation
> just to investigate directory assistance, why it would have been in
> California, and why it took years to conduct (and then abort) the test.
> It seems more likely to me that the center already existed, and the
> directory assistance test just took advantage of it having some spare cycles.
> But that's just sheer speculation on my part. -- jpl
Ralph Corderoy's repost of Larry Luckham's email to him went into some
detail here: https://tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/message/OEVIAPKUO4Q6UA5UN6F5AOTXSISWLFNV/
The gist of it is that the bay area was chosen as a representative
market for a large urban area, and CCA was contracted to do the
programming. Why IBM hardware? Unclear on my most recent reading.
Apparently PacBell provided some of the space.
- Dan C.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
2024-09-15 2:38 Douglas McIlroy
@ 2024-09-15 4:14 ` George Michaelson
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: George Michaelson @ 2024-09-15 4:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Douglas McIlroy; +Cc: TUHS main list
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True, and distressingly so. I moved from a tech role into comms and its
more equitable.
I didn't foresee the imbalance, and I had hoped it was passing through but
it feels like either not, or not within my working lifetime.
G
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* [TUHS] Re: Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967
@ 2024-09-15 2:38 Douglas McIlroy
2024-09-15 4:14 ` George Michaelson
0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Douglas McIlroy @ 2024-09-15 2:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: TUHS main list
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> https://retronaut.com/retronaut-capsules/1967-life-at-bell-labs
Luckham's introductory remark that all the programmers were men contrasts
with the situation 10 years before, when most of the programmers were
women. Women got shoved aside when it became apparent that programming was
an honorable and challenging engineering profession, not mere routine
translation of conceptual designd into machine language. It took almost 10
more years for the Labs to recognize that women programmers were engineers,
too.
Yet de jure recognition of women programmers has not yet become de facto.
Here at Dartmouth, as at many schools, women form a far smaller fraction of
computer science than they do of the engineering school. In engineering the
proportion of women reflects that in the general population.
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2024-09-15 2:06 [TUHS] Working at Bell Labs: photos by Larry Luckham, 1967 George Michaelson
2024-09-15 2:33 ` [TUHS] " Henry Bent
2024-09-15 2:59 ` Tom Lyon
2024-09-15 2:33 ` Peter Yardley
2024-09-15 2:48 ` Henry Bent
2024-09-15 2:34 ` Adam Thornton
2024-09-16 14:37 ` Dan Cross
2024-09-16 16:46 ` John P. Linderman
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