Brushes with Greatness

Yes, I had 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 a few years.

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 cellular 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 unlimited connect time, free calls within the CENTREX, etc. Of course AT&T amended their filings (as Arlene warned me) and thus stopped my work on that business venture.

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. I told him about some of my projects and he said "if you ever need money contact me!". I still have his card...

RAF, my dear friend and mentor - RIP. I was fortunate to have worked with Roger in the UNIX Support Group at the Bell Labs Indian Hill (IH) location. After I left Bell Labs I contracted Roger to develop the Performance Monitoring Tool (PMT) for my company (MSS). We remained in contact until his passing.

MY supervisor while I was in the Bell Labs UNIX Support Group at IH. I would not have remained at the labs had it not been for RAF and Tom. Tom is one of the wisest people I've ever met.

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). There is a scene in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where Gates and Bob Allen are looking at a punched paper tape and I always say "that's the one I sent them....".

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.

I met Charlie when he was 17 years old. Bill Montgomery (a neighbor of mine from Lemont Illinois) brought Charlie to the NetGain Motors facility to introduce us. I ended up being one of the original Board Members for Turning Point USA and remained on the Board for over 8 years. I often told Charlie "You will be President one day - if they don't get to you..." and Charlie would always respond immediately with: "I HAVE NO POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS!". The incorporation papers for TPUSA were actually signed in the NetGain Motors conference room. Charlie was one of the smartest and charismatic people I ever met. His death was a loss to the world.

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:

Secretary of the Navy, introduced by Samuel Sax. Sam and I travelled to Washington D.C. working on some NSA stuff... John and Sam were classmates at Annapolis.

Heinz developed LSX-11 while at Bell Labs. My wife Eve worked in Jack Scanlon's 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 (PC/ix) training for ISC in Los Colinas, TX (IBM).

Doc (Harold at the time, but everyone called him Doc) and I attended grade school and high school together. 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.

Billiards guru, introduced by my grandfather.

A mob of reporters had surrounded someone at O'Hare airport as I was leaving for Korea (Army tour). My Grandfather (Chief) pulled me thru the 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".

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. After dinner I asked him if the Big Bang could have caused by the collision of 2 black holes. Sometime I'll have to elaborate on the dissertation he gave me. I learned an immense amount in a very short time.

In the days of UNIX V7 and UNIX III, a #5ESS 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 talk with DMR about making a 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! but 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.