{"id":28343,"date":"2024-05-23T12:09:35","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T17:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=28343"},"modified":"2024-05-23T12:09:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T17:09:35","slug":"obit-watch-may-23-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=28343","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: May 23, 2024."},"content":{"rendered":"

C. Gordon Bell<\/a>, pioneering computer developer.<\/p>\n

Called the \u201cFrank Lloyd Wright of computers\u201d by Datamation magazine, Mr. Bell was the master architect in the effort to create smaller, affordable, interactive computers that could be clustered into a network. A virtuoso at computer architecture, he built the first time-sharing computer and championed efforts to build the Ethernet. He was among a handful of influential engineers whose designs formed the vital bridge between the room-size models of the mainframe era and the advent of the personal computer.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

At a time when computer companies like IBM were selling multimillion-dollar mainframe computers, Digital Equipment Corporation, which was founded and run by Kenneth Olsen, aimed at introducing smaller, powerful machines that could be purchased for a fraction of that cost. Mr. Bell was hired from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in 1960 as the company\u2019s second computer engineer. He designed all its early entrants into what was then called the minicomputer market.<\/a>
\nThe PDP-8, a 12-bit computer introduced in 1965 with an $18,000 price tag, was considered the first successful minicomputer on the market. More important, Digital Equipment Corporation\u2019s minicomputers were sold to scientists, engineers and other users, who interacted directly with the machines in an era when corporate computers were off limits to such users, housed in glass-walled data centers under the watchful eye of specialists.<\/a>
\n\u201cAll the D.E.C. machines were interactive, and we believed in having people talk directly to computers,\u201d Mr. Bell said in a 1985 interview with Computerworld, an industry publication. In this way, he presaged the coming personal computer revolution.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

…Mr. Bell took what became a six-year sabbatical to teach at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, but he returned to the company as vice president of engineering in 1972. Reinvigorated and brimming with new ideas, he oversaw the design of an entirely new computer architecture: The VAX 780, a fast, powerful and efficient minicomputer, was a huge success, fueling sales that by the early 1980s had made D.E.C. the world\u2019s second-largest computer maker.<\/a>
\n\u201cGordon Bell was a giant in the computer industry,\u201d said Howard Anderson, founder of the Yankee Group, a technology industry research firm that tracked the market in that era. \u201cI give him as much credit for D.E.C.\u2019s success as Ken Olsen. He believed in the primacy of engineering talent, and he attracted some of the best engineers in the industry to D.E.C., which became a place of great ferment.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

After he left the company, Mr. Bell was a founder of both Encore Computer and Ardent Computer. In 1986, he delved into the world of public policy when he joined the National Science Foundation and led the supercomputer networking effort that resulted in an early iteration of the internet called the National Research and Education Network. In 1987, he sponsored the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for work in parallel computing.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shirley Conran<\/a>, British author. She wrote a famously smutty book. Lace<\/a><\/strong>, which was a huge bestseller. It features unorthodox use of a goldfish, and the memorable line \u201cAll right. Which one of you bitches is my mother?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her mantra, \u201cLife is too short to stuff a mushroom,\u201d became a feminist rallying cry, finding its way onto matchbooks, dish towels and throw pillows.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

\u201cLace\u201d was promoted to the hilt \u2014 some publishing industry types called it the \u201cMommy, Who?\u201d book \u2014 not just in bookstores but also in clothing shops in Beverly Hills, and with giveaways like lace garters embroidered with the book\u2019s title in gold. It was panned by critics: \u201cIt is a work of such transparent and exquisite cynicism that its triumphant march to the upper reaches of the best-seller lists seems divinely ordained,\u201d Jonathan Yardley wrote in The Washington Post. But it fulfilled its promise, and Mr. Yardley\u2019s prediction, selling many millions of copies (teenagers passed the book around like contraband), and inspiring a mini-series starring Phoebe Cates (critics panned that, too) and a sequel, \u201cLace II\u201d (1985).<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C. Gordon Bell, pioneering computer developer. Called the \u201cFrank Lloyd Wright of computers\u201d by Datamation magazine, Mr. Bell was the master architect in the effort to create smaller, affordable, interactive computers that could be clustered into a network. A virtuoso at computer architecture, he built the first time-sharing computer and championed efforts to build the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-geek","category-obits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28347,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28343\/revisions\/28347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}