[Info-vax] Ken Olsen

[Bill Pechter]

On 2011-02-10, Neil Rieck <n.rieck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On Feb 9, 3:39?pm, brendan welch <w1... at uml.edu> wrote:
>> On 2/9/2011 11:04 AM, JF Mezei wrote:> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>
>> >> Is there any evidence the HP knows who Ken Olson was??? ?IIRC it was
>> >> Compaq that bought DEC. ?HP's acquisition of Compaq came a year or two
>> >> later.
>>
>> > Even if HP had not inherited what was left of DEC, as one of the older
>> > computer firms, it should have sent a message of condolenceses and
>> > marked how much of a mark Mr Olsen had left in the computer industry etc
>> > etc.
>>
>> I understand that when Ken Olsen worked at Lincoln Lab, before founding
>> DEC, he lived in my town (Bedford, Massachusetts). ?After his death, I
>> mentioned this by email to the staff of the local town paper. ?They were
>> quite surprised (probably because they had not been born until many
>> years later.)
>>
>> In a trivial off-topic, I had always wondered in exactly what house he
>> did live.
>> (I know there are more important things in this world). ?A few months
>> ago, here on COV, there was one of those postings which seem to explode.
>> It was about the history of VMS, as I recall, and generated a tremendous
>> number of spirited replies. ?It inspired me to again look into the
>> matter. ?I did this first while walking the dog, and inquiring of the
>> daughter of the woman who in those days was the leading real estate
>> person; she did not know, and has not got back to me. ? Then, because I
>> have to be in the town library 3 days a week, I inquired about that
>> aspect of the town history. ?It turns out I would have to pick a certain
>> year (which only now do I realize would be near 1957) and then search
>> through a list of voters, street by street. ?I chose not to use my time
>> that way, even though I might find out that someone I have known for
>> years lives in that very house.
>
> I didn't know he once lived in Bedford. In the 1980s I spent a few
> months at a DEC training facility in Bedford (20 Crosby Drive) and
> always wondered how they found that place. It consisted of multiple
> buildings stuck in the Massachusetts woods connected by underground
> tunnels. Ah, the memories.
>
> NSR

Field Service rumor said the Lunar Lander was worked on in that facility
before DEC got it...

Bill

-- 
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
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