I have never heard the word "gentleman" used by so many disparate people. As these people talk about John, they're also talking about the history of computers. I let John ramble for a full minute near the end to demonstrate the way he thought. He often seemed incoherent, but that seemed mostly because he was so far ahead of everyone else. IBM asked people, including my husband, to take on the job of following John and writing down what he said. Paul chose not to do it as he wanted to do his own work. Everyone who did take the job went on to become famous.
It breaks my heart that the original 1" source tapes were erased. I begged Fran to take them to her office after I took early retirement, but she trusted the video studio to care for them. Bad mistake. I have only window dubs of some of the footage that I had already excerpted in preparation for making this. The most marvelous stories of John carving original formulas into bar tops, and beam walking, might well be gone forever.
Really, I'm sorry....just couldn't resist!
Never trust others with your source tapes.
Seriously, sounds like you had the opportunity to work with & know a very interesting fellow. In my time at IBM (as a lowly coop), I found the experience so underwhelming I applied somewhere else when I graduated. Guess I was in one of the less interesting parts of the company.
Thanks for a great post on an important piece of history - those that started the “technology” industrial revolution.
Just reading your post, and watching the video, and then taking just one figure, like Jean Sammet, and discovering all her history, is like being an observer to a great “birthing” with tons of “midwives” figuring out how to get it out of our creative brains into reality.
Did he get “RA’d”? lol . Just kidding. Video brings back memories of days gone by at the Boulder plant. Thanks for posting.
Time well spent watching very enjoyable video about a true genius.
Thank you.