[SIGCIS-Members] Raymond Dudley, unsung inventor of parallel processing and digital spreadsheet?

Mon May 18 12:03:39 PDT 2015

Respond as an individual scholar.  However, on a related matter, when you
are done with the materials, could you donate a copy of whatever he sent
you to the Babbage so that future historians can have access to it?

Jim

On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 1:44 PM, Subramanian, Ramesh Prof. <
Ramesh.Subramanian at quinnipiac.edu> wrote:

> Hi Tom and Janet (and others),
> I also received a set of docuements from Raymond Dudley by registered post
> today. He has pretty much said the same things that he wrote to Janet. He
> has also enclosed some pictures and a 'timeline' from his website. His
> letter is attached as a PDF file.
>
> His invention looks like an electronic chess board, with lighted
> directions for possible movement of the pieces, as you have already noted.
> He wants 'recognition for this important breakthrough.' But it is unclear
> what he wants recognition for - the inventor of the parallel processor, or
> the digital spread sheet, or the chess computer. He claims that the chess
> computer/mechanism itself is a demonstration machine (presumably
> demonstrating the parallel processing operating system.
>
> More importantly, he has directed this letter to me as "Communications
> Officer of SIGCIS". So I am trying to figure out what I should do with
> this: Ignore/Respond (if so, what should the response be?)
>
> Your thoughts will be appreciated!
>
> Regards,
> -Ramesh
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ramesh Subramanian, Ph.D.
> Gabriel Ferrucci Professor of Computer Information Systems
> Quinnipiac University
> Hamden, CT 06518.
> Phone: 203-582-5276
> Email:rameshs at quinnipiac.edu
> Web:
> http://www.quinnipiac.edu/about/directory/faculty-detail/?Dept=16&Person=23345
> &
> Fellow, Yale Law School - Information Society Project
> New Haven, CT 06511
> Email: ramesh.subramanian at yale.edu
> Web: http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/9841.htm
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Members [members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Thomas
> Haigh [thaigh at computer.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2015 1:41 PM
> To: 'Janet Abbate'; 'Sigcis'
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Raymond Dudley,   unsung inventor of
> parallel processing and digital spreadsheet?
>
> As we saw with a certain other neglected genius inventor and website
> builder, there's a difference between creating a particular system and
> inventing a technology.
>
> I do recall from when I was growing up the appearance of "chess computers"
> in which a microprocessor was built into a chess board and the system would
> sense moves made by humans and respond to them. As graphics got better and
> people became more use to looking at screens they seem to have faded away
> again. According to Wikipedia, the "Chess Challenger" line was sold from in
> 1977 onwards, so Dudley's claimed date certainly predates commercial
> availability of these devices.
>
> So if Dudley did what Janet describes in 1973 (and a skimming his rather
> confusing website I did not see a clear statement of what was novel or what
> worked when) he might well have had the first computerized chess board.
> Computer chess programs, of course, go well back before 1973. So the novel
> thing would be using a physical chess board as the user interface. 1973
> would be a few years too early to build the computer into the chess board,
> so it makes sense that the idea might surface first with an external
> minicomputer driving it.
>
> Inventing the "parallel processor" and "electronic spreadsheet" not so
> much.
> Parallel processing goes back to ENIAC, the SSEC, etc. and is older than
> serial processing. Maintaining a matrix in memory goes back to the very
> earliest digital computing applications.
>
> One of his animated clippings with the heading "Program Power" quote a
> Science report on a famous Bell Labs parallel chess computer called Belle.
> Bell does have a Wikipedia page, which does not mention Dudley as an
> inventor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_(chess_machine). As the site
> consists mostly of scanned pages with no linking narrative it's not clear
> what this is supposed to have to do with Dudley. Likewise a clipping on the
> bankruptcy of Thinking Machines. So it's not clear what he is trying to
> prove by collecting these clippings and arranging them as "chapters" in a
> "book" that begins with his own chess board. It reminds me of a fascinating
> infographic timeline on the history of email.
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Members [mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Janet
> Abbate
> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2015 10:23 AM
> To: Sigcis
> Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Raymond Dudley, unsung inventor of parallel
> processing and digital spreadsheet?
>
> I got an odd letter recently from someone named Raymond Dudley, who claims
> he invented a chess-playing computer in 1973. Apparently he thought that as
> a member of the SHOT Editorial Committee, I was in a position to "correct
> the historical record" by alerting the "scientific establishment" of this
> "important breakthrough." He has a website at
> http://www.chessilluminated.com/
>
> The device is an electronic chessboard hooked up to a minicomputer. The
> "digital spreadsheet" he refers to is the illuminated chessboard and a
> corresponding program that keeps track of the state of each cell on the
> board. Supposedly the program is implemented in parallel, though I think
> the
> underlying processor is not. The chess pieces are electronically encocded
> so
> that when they are placed on the board, the machine recognizes each unique
> piece. The squares on the board will light up to indicate which moves a
> given piece can legally make; the pieces themselves light up to warn when
> they are in danger of being captured.  It's not clear to me from my brief
> survey of the site whether the machine actually plays against the human
> player or simply provides the player with useful information to aid them in
> playing against another person. Dudley got a patent on the machine in 1983.
>
> Anybody heard of this? He seems to have kept a lower profile than some of
> our other cranks--er, unsung inventors. A google search for "Raymond Dudley
> chess computer" only turned up his patent information.
>
> Janet
>
>
>
> Dr. Janet Abbate
> Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society Co-director, National
> Capital Region STS program Virginia Tech www.sts.vt.edu/ncr
> www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055
> www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS
>
>
>
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-- 
James W. Cortada
Senior Research Fellow
Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota
jcortada at umn.edu
608-274-6382
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