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

Mon May 18 13:17:18 PDT 2015

He says he started the patent process in 1973.  This is after several parallel processing systems were developed.  It's also after the statistical package Minitab, which manages and operates on data as matrices or collections of vectors, was developed.  (One might argue that Minitab was a spreadsheet, after a fashion.  There's also APL to consider.)

Not sure what to suggest.  Maybe ask for clarification about what he's asking credit for?

Bill

________________________________________
From: Members [members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Subramanian, Ramesh  Prof. [Ramesh.Subramanian at quinnipiac.edu]
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 2:44 PM
To: thaigh at computer.org; 'Janet Abbate'; 'Sigcis'
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Raymond Dudley, unsung inventor of parallel processing and digital spreadsheet?

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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This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org