A list of people I have had "brushes with thru my life..."
I remember them, they probably don't remember me...
Roger A Faulkner - RAF, my dear friend and mentor - RIP
Many, Many great people from my days at Bell Labs, including (but not limited to)
Arno Penzias - One of the Big Bang theorists. Introduced to him by RAF as he was RAF's former Department Head when RAF worked in Bell Labs Research.
Dennis Ritchie - A #5 tool builder at Indian Hill could not understand why the access dates didn';'t match after running an "ls -la" followed by an "ls -ga". The answer was quite simple as the inode was updated by the first "ls". RAF suggested I talked with DMR about making the change to "ls" so that both owner and group appeared with an "ls -l". Dennis explained that the method chosen was to reduce printing on an old KSR-33, 15 CPS printer. He told me: "go ahead and change it! and then you own it!" The change found it's way into SIV (which was NOT SVR4!) and SV (and is now standard in all flavors of "ix"). I understand the BSD folks were irrate because it broke all their shell tools.
Steve Johnston - A UNIX Symposium meeting that turned into a very late night discussion on RISC vs CISC and the computer Steve was building in his garage.
Ted Dollata - TAD. TAD and I got to know each other at an early UNIX Symposium (party). He had already left THE Labs and was working for SoftBank.
Tom Fisher
Heinz Lyclama - Developed LSX-11 while at THE Labs. My wife Eve worked in Jack Scanlons office and used one, so I would get called for help and interface with Heinz. Heinz left THE Labs and went to work at a startup in California - Interactive Systems Corporation (ISC). After I left THE Labs I did UNIX (PCix) training for ISC in Los Colinas, TX (IBM).
George Kraft - another great friend and counsel from Bell Labs. He was instrumental in giving me a greater understanding of microelectronics when I attended his in-hours course: Mini/microcomputer Hardware Design
Willie Mosconi - billards guru, introduced by my grandfather
Bill Gates - As VP of the Bell Labs Indian Hill Computer Club that I helped found with Farrel Pelfrey and Larry Marek, I sent a college student named Bill Gates a punched paper tape and mylar tape copy of the BASIC interpreter developed by our club (or at least "modified" by our club).
John Lehman - Secretary of the Navy, introduced by Samual Sax
Malcolm Bricklin - Yes, I still have a 1975 Bricklin SV1 (converted to electric so I call it the Bricklin EV1). Malcolm has been working on a new electric vehicle so we keep in touch and text daily - haven't missed a single day in over a year.
Doc McGhee - Doc (Harold at the time, but everyone called him Doc) and I attended grade school and high school together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_McGhee - Doc has managed numerous music groups and individuals including: Niteflyte, Pat Travers, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Kiss, Skid Row, The Front, Hootie & the Blowfish, Scorpions, Benise, Jypsi, Nico Vega, Night Ranger, Crooked X, Vintage Trouble, TNT, Drew Davis Band, Down, Chasin' Crazy, Bonnie McKee, Cheyenne, Kimball, Darius Rucker, Ted Nugent, Paul Stanley, Sacha Edwards, Bob Schnieder, Richie Sambora, Yoshiki, Orianthi, Mallary Hope. I was actually much better friends with Doc's younger brother - Mike who has passed away. Doc's youngest brother Scott
Marty Cooper and Arlene Harris - Introduced by Jack Albrecht - former Bell Labs patent attorney (a great person and someone who I greatly admire and miss!) Marty is known as the "father of the celluar phone", while Arlene is best known for her "Jitterbug" cell phone. She has had numerous businesses thru the years. Arlene consulted with me when I found a loop-hole in the AT&T FCC filings that would allow me to set up a CENTREX for small communities with unlimted connect time, free calls within the CENTREX, etc. Of course AT&T ammended their filings (as Arlene warned me) and thus stopped my work on that business venture.
Jesse Owens - A mob of reporters had surround someone at O'Hare airport as I was leaving for Korea. My Grandfather (Chief) pulled me thru te reporters and said "Jesse, this is my grandson George - he's in the Army and leaving for Korea...". As we walked away I said "who was that?" and my grandfather said: "You just shook hands with Jesse Owens, one of the greatest athletes in the world".