UTCC DEC-10 Staff

 

Thank you to Richard Denney for the photos in this post, and to Rich and Clive Dawson for the information discussed here. 

We've learned an enormous amount in the last week from Rich and Clive, and would like to at least begin recording some of the core info as a kind of baseline reference for the future. Maybe the best way to begin is just to take a first small step and begin recording some names and connecting those with stories.

Meanwhile, a very interesting phenomena happened yesterday. I was researching the UTCC DEC-10 using google, and twice the results included a pair of names together, and it turns out they are the two people behind the teletype in the photo to the left, Clive Dawson in the blue shirt and Rich Denney in the green shirt. 

Currently I'm thinking, well, it could be that google could be aware of and tracking what I'm working on, and that influences the results. Or, it could be that Clive and Rich are a big part of the reason the results are including things like "The staff itself was described as an extremely close-knit group that felt a deep personal connection to the machine. This connection was shared by the users, many of whom spent thousands of hours connected while developing software and helping others."

The following two photos and accompanying info are from Rich.

This photo below is the going away party for Elissa Vogel in 78. George Culp is mentioned in the Creative Computing article. And David Phillips had taken on the manager role for the DEC-10 by 77 when I got there. Not sure where Clive was that day? At least three of the good people in that photo have left us. That is Rick Watson on the right. In that photo left to right: Kathleen (programmer new hire, went on to bunches of companies, Tandem, IBM), Mildred (help desk), Norma (secretary), Dawn (programmer), Bob Hysick, Doug DeGroot (programmer, PhD later), George, David (manager), Rick Watson, and of course Elissa Vogel operator. I was there 77-83 and did my masters under Elaine Rich in AI, then went on the AI ride til the big crash (AI winter #2).

To complete the list of managers, after David Phillips, Tommy Loomis was manger. Or maybe he took over after the shutdown with the DEC-20. That was around when I left so a bit fuzzy. Staff wise I think those I sent pretty much covers most everyone. Well .. Cecil, who was one of the operators, was missing. He left in 82. And Debbie (Rice?) that replaced Norma is not included. There's also the topic of DEC-10 users. Mary Jo (?) I remember. Those folks in the Linguistic group. There were a number in the offices on the floor that surrounded the DEC-10.

And the following info is from Clive.

I was at UT starting as a grad student in 1971 and left in 1985 to join MCC.  I was on the Computation Center staff starting in 1975 as a systems programmer for the DECSystem-10 through 1982 when the ’10 was decommissioned.  The final party was the subject of “The Soul of an Old Machine”.  Then I became the manager of the Research-20, a DECSYSTEM-20, until I left in 1985.

Bob Hysick was also on the DEC-10 staff and I was well familiar with his DECWAR project.  One of my projects during those years was the development of TECO-124, which among many other things added video support for dumb terminals to DEC’s standard text editors, TECO.  I was happy to see the TECO macro directory in the DECWAR sources!

I was also friends with Dave Matuszek and Paul Reynolds, fellow grad students and the authors of the original STARTREK game on the CDC-6600, which was one of the main inspirations of DECWAR.  My friend and fellow grad student Rich Cohen was also a good friend of theirs.  I’ve shared your original email message with him.  He stays in touch with Dave and Paul and can give you their contact info.  He can also suggest a few corrections to your timeline.  For example, he tells me that “Super Star Trek” was not done at UT, and was based on a stolen copy of the Matuszek/Reynolds original FORTRAN source.

While doing some rounds of feedback on this post, we got a bit more information that follows-on nicely and help build up the overall picture, so will just continue on with that below. This is from Rich.

Speaking of SWT in San Marcos, be sure to ask Clive about the "sister" DEC-10 that was there. I remember attending a LOTALUG meeting there a time or two (Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas Local User Group).

We need to get confirmation from Clive that Tommy took over. I remember he had an office down the hall. Tommy was Board of Control, today's Comptroller Office. They had a 10 and were located north of the Capitol building. When Tommy moved to UT I don't recall exactly. But the first time we met he was at BOC.

Both Rich Cohen and Tommy wound up at Semantic Designs years later; Ira Baxter's company. Ira and I were both at Schlumberger and had a common good friend Jorge Boria RIP, also at Schlumberger. Then later I wound up consulting at the company Jorge was with, TeraQuest Meterics, a software process consulting. One of the principals at TQ is Joyce Statz who is now our neighorhood president and I do history articles for the newsletter.

Small interconnected world.