C. C. "Kelly" Gotlieb died on October 16 at age 95. Kelly was one of the zeroth generation of Canadian Computing. Probably the last I knew. (I don't remember ever calling him "Kelly" to his face. I never felt that I was a peer of his. At one point he and I had neigbouring offices in a backwater of the Sanford Flemming Building so I got to have a few unhurried chats with him.) <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/kelly-gotlieb-was-the-father-of-canadian-computing/article32672798/> Nit picking the Globe article: - there was no reasonable way to send a gigabyte of data by teletype in the 1950s. The typical speed would be 10 characters per second (110 baud) or less. A gigabyte would take three years solid. And nothing could easily store it. - I don't think that Kelly had long talks with Turing. I asked Kelly about Turing and my recollection is that Turing was not very conversational with Kelly. Of course my recollection is not 100% reliable. - His PhD thesis my well still be classified -- Kelly liked to tell that story. But I don't think it was about "cybernetics". It came out of his work with the team that studied artillery shells with the new and secret "proximity fuse". This allied invention was perhaps as secret and important as the atomic bomb in World War II. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze> <https://www.npa.org/public/interviews/careers_interview_331.cfm>
Thanks for posting this, Hugh. Very interesting. Peter
C. C. "Kelly" Gotlieb died on October 16 at age 95. Kelly was one of the zeroth generation of Canadian Computing. Probably the last I knew.
(I don't remember ever calling him "Kelly" to his face. I never felt that I was a peer of his. At one point he and I had neigbouring offices in a backwater of the Sanford Flemming Building so I got to have a few unhurried chats with him.)
Nit picking the Globe article:
- there was no reasonable way to send a gigabyte of data by teletype in the 1950s. The typical speed would be 10 characters per second (110 baud) or less. A gigabyte would take three years solid. And nothing could easily store it.
- I don't think that Kelly had long talks with Turing. I asked Kelly about Turing and my recollection is that Turing was not very conversational with Kelly. Of course my recollection is not 100% reliable.
- His PhD thesis my well still be classified -- Kelly liked to tell that story. But I don't think it was about "cybernetics". It came out of his work with the team that studied artillery shells with the new and secret "proximity fuse". This allied invention was perhaps as secret and important as the atomic bomb in World War II. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze> <https://www.npa.org/public/interviews/careers_interview_331.cfm> --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
-- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325
On 11/05/2016 09:08 AM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
- there was no reasonable way to send a gigabyte of data by teletype in the 1950s. The typical speed would be 10 characters per second (110 baud) or less. A gigabyte would take three years solid. And nothing could easily store it.
It wouldn't have been 110 baud in the 50s either. That was 100 words per minute ASCII and ASCII wouldn't have been created until the early 60s. In the 50s, 100 WPM Baudot ran at 74.2 baud. "He pioneered a computerized reservation system for Trans-Canada Airlines (now Air Canada)" Actually, Air Canada and CN shared a reservation system, that was run on a Collins 8500 computer system at 151 Front St. W.. This is the oldest LAN I ever saw, dating back to the 60s. Instead of packets, it used time division multiplexing over the coaxial cable. Later, their system moved to a newer Collins system, which I used to work on. The old system was on the 4th floor at 151 Front and the newer was on the 6th, later expanding to the 7th floor.
Wikipedia on proximity fuze: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze Article from Baltimore Sun - citing it as entirely American work, of course: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-01-11/news/1993011049_1_fuse-proximity... ../Dave
On Sat, 5 Nov 2016, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
C. C. "Kelly" Gotlieb died on October 16 at age 95. Kelly was one of the zeroth generation of Canadian Computing. Probably the last I knew.
(I don't remember ever calling him "Kelly" to his face. I never felt that I was a peer of his. At one point he and I had neigbouring offices in a backwater of the Sanford Flemming Building so I got to have a few unhurried chats with him.)
One day I was having lunch with Kelly and he said he and his wife had Anne McCaffrey over for dinner last night. I hadn't realized till then that fantasy author Phyllis Gotlieb was Kelly's wife. -- Chris F.A. Johnson, <http://cfajohnson.com>
participants (5)
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Chris F.A. Johnson -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
David Mason -
James Knott -
phiscock＠ee.ryerson.ca