Send Members mailing list submissions to
members@sigcis.orgTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
members-request@sigcis.org
You can reach the person managing the list at
members-owner@sigcis.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Members digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. New CBI Newsletter (Spring 2011, Vol. 33:1)
(Charles Babbage Institute)
2. Tom Watson and Seymour Cray quotes (Brian Randell)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 10 May 2011 14:47:11 -0500
From: Charles Babbage Institute <cbi@umn.edu>
To: katie <cbi@umn.edu>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] New CBI Newsletter (Spring 2011, Vol. 33:1)
Message-ID: <4DC9963F.4020204@umn.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/attachments/20110510/e6bac2d8/attachment-0002.html>
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 11:06:54 +0100
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk>
To: sigcis <members@sigcis.org>
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Tom Watson and Seymour Cray quotes
Message-ID: <DC4F042D-3DA8-4AEE-B79D-D0C2188E7519@ncl.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Hi:
I've been trying to trace the origins of the oft-repeated pair of
quotations:
"Last week, Control Data ... announced the 6600 system. I understand
that in the laboratory developing the system there are only 34 people
including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are
programmers... Contrasting this modest effort with our vast development
activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry
leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most
powerful computer."
- Thomas J Watson Jr
"It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question." -- Seymour
Cray's response to Thomas Watson.
which I'd assumed were both apocryphal. In fact I find that Watson gives
the first quotation himself in his book "Father, Son and Co: My Life at
IBM and Beyond", saying that it was in a memo that he wrote to his "top
men" on August 28, 1963.
However, I've not been able to authenticate alleged Seymour Cray's
alleged response - which I fear is too good to be true.
Can anyone in fact validate it?
Cheers
Brian Randell
--
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Members mailing list
Members@sigcis.org
http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
End of Members Digest, Vol 11, Issue 8
**************************************