[SIGCIS-Members] Silicon City

Ceruzzi, Paul CeruzziP at si.edu
Sun Dec 20 06:30:00 PST 2015


Sorry--I got it wrong. It was Harold Black who had the inspiration, and it was for the concept of negative feedback. Oh well, at least I got the West St. part right. <Harold S. Black, "Inventing the negative feedback amplifier", IEEE Spectrum, vol. 14, pp. 54-60, Dec. 1977.>

A lot of Bell Labs engineers lived in New Jersey & commuted on the Hoboken ferry.

Paul
________________________________________
From: Kim Tracy [tracy at cs.stanford.edu]
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2015 9:24 PM
To: Ceruzzi, Paul
Cc: Evan Koblentz; members at SIGCIS.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Silicon City

FYI, there's a nice article article on the M9 Gun Director from IEEE Control Systems (published in 1995) on this.  I don't see a mention of the crossing the Hudson being the genesis of the idea, but it does discuss the genesis of the idea in this article: http://www.ieeecss.org/CSM/library/1995/dec1995/05-BellLabsnAutoCtrl.pdf.

--Kim


--Kim Tracy
tracy at cs.stanford.edu<mailto:tracy at cs.stanford.edu>

On Sat, Dec 19, 2015 at 9:16 PM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP at si.edu<mailto:CeruzziP at si.edu>> wrote:
George Stibitz worked at he West St. Bell Labs building. That's where he developed the "Complex  Number Computer." If I am not mistaken the new "High Line" park terminates at the old building--originally the railroad tracks went through the building but apparently it was bricked up later on. If there are any New York historians on the list I'd love to know.   Legend has it that the legendary M-9 Gun Director--an analog computer--was conceived while a Bell Labs engineer was crossing the Hudson on a ferry from Hoboken to West St. Do I have that right or am I mixing that up with someone else?

If you haven't visited the High Line you should--a fantastic park.

Paul Ceruzzi
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