From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 27048 invoked from network); 16 Feb 2022 00:12:03 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 16 Feb 2022 00:12:03 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C0A459D070; Wed, 16 Feb 2022 10:12:02 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CDEFE9D036; Wed, 16 Feb 2022 10:09:28 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=algebras-org.20210112.gappssmtp.com header.i=@algebras-org.20210112.gappssmtp.com header.b="nOHg7qWv"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id A148E9D036; Wed, 16 Feb 2022 10:09:26 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lf1-f47.google.com (mail-lf1-f47.google.com [209.85.167.47]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 47FC29D035 for ; Wed, 16 Feb 2022 10:09:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lf1-f47.google.com with SMTP id g39so659653lfv.10 for ; Tue, 15 Feb 2022 16:09:25 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=algebras-org.20210112.gappssmtp.com; s=20210112; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=HQD2qWbcKZM5Uq2gqN15ZJqxvGESTKHTwtTd7ft0VLE=; b=nOHg7qWvOhxFx4y3fF9XbXfuhWU6BTP62mtPOlqCZXDfNort8TSUS3oAHMRMWHehjh WR/Vte/S3FaJUaSRLNDr8fLR1bdHN1QaQ0m8m6R0pI8CbglZsxTgiJI84bFbwIqodAyz 8lWWYvrRQ5yELxQu10iYVTHlHs/slN4kfhHMMikkllj5ny3SNe7akGa7F7l9h7YwoacB OMe7RPVEenF1rR5e8wsQuVYvJw0udJ8AuSWpBfC9HYMdp7Ztoxpff39JesrFSGZoqjud Qq2O5DkCKpxn/tHMHyHC25hlncglFjOuqnG1I7McctwqZRcUUJ6dHETcKD7SQ234UwO0 MLMw== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=HQD2qWbcKZM5Uq2gqN15ZJqxvGESTKHTwtTd7ft0VLE=; b=IJo6WOHG/2H9wvszQtsnJMyGknAYEXp2DCLQ31yP3Whw6KUy9krMAoBRQ52xe14Bis IUCiZGy+HvpA/PPhdkI25UtM6WFkqf1rRHC128B5wYesfWrZ8UoFYp5SyTx8kF+BYcVq 3qeK6qqZfwuVad9CqUu7lhv6IHljPqrYgYCW0FDcLpJuIKndY0xcdua2A7rgEYh6n1vo uAKROoi6N7R9rgxrcj5px/hEX9Es9wKQl07NtlZgt4GQ2AefLDHPMCGsyGFdfHdha6c4 q4JjqCeK6OH54oymyIGQN5ivch6PJgAZBShFIbDNSpQpTSsEJrh7YM7uZWB5mzCI1Qsf BOgw== X-Gm-Message-State: AOAM530hB4XZ7vniGhpIsIUEWjuJTDSbPZUD9CREL7M0dH3s6hOK4Wbc 7FlFnOpXMf0n2QU5BE1f5rAM31N8SRkTKfhudnpxyPUoRTn/jQ== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ABdhPJxmVOR30YJjGKI9JE0EjZGdyHcUmNThpnEmAG85k6pxTHww5+WQFSFM5v/c41cLz/ssx03V/1KwHMt8u0J3jiE= X-Received: by 2002:a05:6512:2807:b0:443:607c:263c with SMTP id cf7-20020a056512280700b00443607c263cmr160441lfb.416.1644970163417; Tue, 15 Feb 2022 16:09:23 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: George Michaelson Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2022 10:09:12 +1000 Message-ID: To: Douglas McIlroy Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Subject: Re: [TUHS] Lorinda Cherry X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" I wrote a major part of the UQ phone directory in EQN, to post process T/Roff output so the existing bromide-mechanical printing braces for grouping common phoneline holders could be done in the new phototypesetter. Eqn was the tool which got me out of a self-dug hole over-promising delivery of "print-equivalent" outcome here. I use BC as a daily driver like most people. I never quite got DC, and wondered at the duality of them. Very interesting to have the background explained. The trigraph spelling checker sounds wonderful. Thanks for posting this. _G On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 8:35 AM Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > Lorinda Cherry, a long-time member of the original Unix Lab > died recently. Here is a slightly edited reminiscence that > I sent to the president of the National Center for Women and > Information Technology in 2018 when they honored her with > their Pioneer in Tech award. > > As Lorinda Cherry's longtime colleague at Bell Labs, I was > very pleased to hear she has been chosen for the NCWIT Pioneer > Award. At the risk of telling you things you already know, > I offer some remarks about her career. I will mainly speak of > things I saw at first hand when our offices were two doors > apart, from the early '70s through 1994, when Lorinda left > Bell Labs in the AT&T/Lucent split. Most of the work I describe > broke new ground in computing; "pioneer" is an apt term. > > Lorinda, like many women (including my own mother and my wife), > had to fight the system to be allowed to study math and science > in college. She was hired by Visual and Acoustics Research > at Bell Labs as a TA--the typical fate of women graduates, > while their male counterparts were hired as full members of > technical staff. It would take another decade for that unequal > treatment to be rectified. Even then, one year she received > a statement of benefits that explained what her wife would > receive upon her death. When Lorinda called HR to confirm that > they meant spouse, they said no, and demanded that the notice > be returned. (She declined.) It seemed that husbands would not > get equal treatment until AT&T lost a current court case. The > loss was a foregone conclusion; still AT&T preferred to pay > lawyers rather than widowers, and fought it to the bitter end. > > Lorinda moved to my department in Computing Science when > the Unix operating system was in its infancy. Initially she > collaborated with Ken Knowlton on nascent graphics applications: > Beflix, a system for producing artistically pixillated films, > and an early program for rendering ball-and-stick molecular > models. > > She then joined the (self-organized) Unix team, collaborating > on several applications with Bob Morris. > > First came "dc", an unlimited-precision desk calculator, > which is still a Unix staple 45 years on. Building on dc, > she would later make "bc", which made unlimited precision > available in familiar programming-language notation and became > the interface of choice to dc. > > Then came "form" and "fed", nominally a form-letter generator > and editor. In fact they were more of a personal memory > bank, a step towards Vannevar Bush's famous Memex concept--an > interesting try that didn't pay off at that scale. Memex had to > sleep two more decades before mutating into the Worldwide Web. > > Lorinda had a hand in "typo", too, a Morris invention that > found gross spelling mistakes by statistical analysis. Sorting > the words of a document by the similarity of their trigrams > to those in the rest of the document tended to bring typos to > the front of the list. This worked remarkably well and gained > popularity as a spell-checker until a much less interesting > program backed by a big dictionary took over. > > Taken together, these initial forays foretold a productive > computer science career centered around graphics, little > languages, and text processing. > > By connecting a phototypesetter as an output device for Unix, > Joe Ossanna initiated a revolution in document preparation. The > new resource prompted a flurry of disparate looking documents > until Mike Lesk brought order to the chaos by creating a macro > package to produce a useful standard paper format. > > Taking over from Lesk, Lorinda observed the difficulty of > typesetting the mathematics (which the printing industry counted > as "penalty copy") that occurred in many research papers, > and set out to simplify the task of rendering mathematical > formulas, Brian Kernighan soon joined her effort. The result > was "eqn", which built on the way people read formulas aloud > to make a quite intuitive language for describing display > formulas. Having pioneered a pattern that has been adopted > throughout the industry, eqn is still in use forty years later. > > Lorinda also wrote an interpreter to render phototypesetter > copy on a cathode-ray terminal. This allowed one to see > typeset documents without the hassle of exposing and developing > film. Though everyone has similar technology at their fingertips > today, this was genuinely pioneering work at the time. > > You are certainly aware of Writers Workbench, which gained > national publicity, including Lorinda's appearance on the Today > Show. It all began as a one-woman skunk-works project. Noticing > the very slow progress in natuaral-language processing, she > identified a useful subtask that could be carved out of the > larger problem: identifying parts of speech. Using a vocabulary > of function words (articles, pronouns, prepositions and > conjunctions) and rules of inflection, she was able to classify > parts of speech in running text with impressive accuracy. > > When Rutgers professor William Vesterman proposed a > style-assessing program, with measures such as the frequencies > of adjectives, subordinate clauses, or compound sentences, > Lorinda was able to harness her "parts" program to implement > the idea in a couple of weeks. Subsequently Nina MacDonald, > with Lorinda's support, incorporated it into a larger suite > that checked and made suggestions about other stylistic issues > such as cliches, malapropisms, and redundancy. > > Another aspect of text processing that Lorinda addressed was > topic identification. Terms (often word pairs) that occur with > abnormal frequency are likely to describe the topic at hand. She > used this idea to construct first drafts of indexes. One > in-house application was to the Unix manual, which up until > that time had only a table of contents, but no index. This > was a huge boon for a document so packed with detail. > > In her final years at Bell Labs, Lorinda teamed up with AT&T > trouble-call centers to analyze the call transcripts that > attendants recorded on the fly--very sketchy prose, replete > with ad-hoc contractions and misspellings. The purpose was > to identify systemic problems that would not be obvious from > transcripts considered individually. When an unusual topic > appeared at the same time in multiple transcripts, those > transcripts were singled out for further study. The scheme > worked and led to early detection of system anomalies. In one > case, it led AT&T to suspend publication of a house organ that > rubbed customers the wrong way. > > Lorinda was not cut from the same mold as most of her > colleagues. First she was a woman, which meant she faced > special obstacles. Then, while there were several pilots > among us, there was only one shower of dogs and only one car > racer--moreover one who became a regional exec of the Sports > Car Club of America. For years she organized and officiated > at races as well as participating. > > Lorinda was always determined, but never pushy. The > determination shows in her success in text analysis, which > involves much sheer grit--there are no theoretical shortcuts > in this subject. She published little, but did a lot. I am > glad to see her honored. > > Doug McIlroy