On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:11:01 -0700, Jim Thompson
wrote:

To read about what real engineering is all about....

http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/sscs...ile=Amdahl.xml

...Jim Thompson

It pains me to post in any thread started by JT, but occasionally he
does start one pretty much on topic and interesting.

I left IBM to join Amdahl just before the first machines shipped in
1975. Amdahl was an extremely great and rewarding place to work. It was
a privilege to work with a group of people that converged based on their
intelligence and willingness to take a risk so they could push the
possibilities. Being among that group of people for some years was as
much of a reward as the accomplishments of doing the good and creative
technical and business work.

The people who were there in the 70's had a reunion about a year ago.
Really great to reunite and reminisce with all those people. Wish
everyone could work with a group like that. It is getting more and more
rare.

Amdahl (the company and the person) took the computer industry to a
place that IBM was not ready to go without the competition.

I was a bit down in the ranks of those who really made it happen, but I
met and talked with Gene a few times. I had dinner with him and his wife
one evening in Oslo, Norway. As with most really intelligent and
leading-edge creative people I have met, he is very humble, friendly,
and accessible.

Probably too late in life for JT to add those other qualities beyond his
intelligence and sense of superiority. Too bad for everyone here.