[Leica] Back ar work

[imra at iol.ie (Douglas Barry)]

Interesting piece of history, Herb. I'm glad to hear you're up and about and 
presumably red shirted again like the guys in the image. Keep healthy!!

Douglas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Herbert Kanner" <kanner at acm.org>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2016 11:45 PM
Subject: [Leica] Back ar work


> My mail program went nuts last week. Twice I sent a rather long piece of 
> mail describing the circumstances around a Gallery picture and each time 
> the mail went into a black hole and the text had to be composed again. 
> This time I'm being smarter and writing and saving it first in a word 
> processor.
>
> OK. Don't remember what I last posted re health, but I was in the hospital 
> for over a week with congestive heart failure. Made a rapid recovery as 
> soon as I got home, and after a couple of weeks, returned to volunteer 
> week at the Computer History Museum.
>
> As a consequence of the loss of the Babbage Difference Engine, I rejoined 
> the group that gives twice monthly demonstrations of a working PDP1 
> computer (vintage 1960), the first ?mini-computer?, in fact, the 
> manufacturer (Digital Equipment Corporation) coined the term.
>
> The PDP1 is about the size of three household refrigerators. It's turned 
> on at the throw of one switch. It sold for $120,000. In the year it came 
> out, the manufacturer donated one to MIT. One professor permitted 
>  ?hackers? access to it from midnight to morning. This was before 
>  ?hackers? became a pejorative term. One of those hackers was Peter 
> Samson, who figured out how to make the machine play four-part music, and 
> our demo inclueds the opening of a Bach fugue. The other, Steve Russell, 
> largely wrote the code for the world's first video game, Space War, which 
> later became an arcade game.
>
> When I arrived at the Museum a week ago Saturday, I found the PDP1 team in 
> the cafeteria area enjoing a post-lunch bull session. I just had to take a 
> picture. We were all wearing our uniform red shirts. Note the guy on the 
> right; that's Steve Russell.
>
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1000005_001.jpg.html 
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1000005_001.jpg.html>
>
> Please look ?large?.
>
>
>
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
>
> Question Authority and the authorities will question you.
>
>
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