

Bell Labs, building 2, 5th floor: main occupants for each office over the years. - moon_of_moon
http://spinroot.com/gerard/img/5th_floor.gif

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mrduncan
According to a Reddit comment, the name in red is the person who occupied the
office the longest.

Here is a (incomplete) list of background info:

Jon Bentley - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Bentley>

Brian Kernighan - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan>

Rob Pike - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pike>

Dennis Ritchie - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie>

Lorinda Cherry - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorinda_Cherry>

Stuart Feldman - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Feldman>

Alfred Aho - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Aho>

Dave Ditzel - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta>

Dave Presotto - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vismon>

John Reppy - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_(programming_language)>
(Unsure if this is the same person: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reppy>)

Andrew Koenig - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Koenig>

Bjarne Stroustrup - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne_Stroustrup>

Ken Thompson - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson>

Gerald Holzmann - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_J._Holzmann>

Tom Cargill - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-ninety_rule>

Bart Locanthi - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_N._Locanthi>

Robert Morris - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morris_(cryptographer)>
(rtm's father)

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tewks
The demise of Bell Labs is saddening from both a physics and computer science
perspective. It feels like all too often, large corporations like AT&T and GE,
once huge innovation engines, have been dismantled due to greed and
incompetence, with outstanding institutions like Bell Labs left by the
wayside. Hopefully, Google et al will pick up the slack and foster these kinds
of environments.

~~~
hga
Hmmm, who's "greed and incompetence" forced the dismantling of AT&T?

Could it be the Federal Government, which forced the 1984 consent agreement
and the breakup, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that pushed the
process all the further?

Jerry Pournelle was fond of saying something to the effect of "We have the
best telephone system in the world, but we can fix that."

~~~
wglb
It was aggressive business practices that squashed competition such as MCI and
an attitude by the leaders of AT&T that felt the risk of antitrust action
against them was an acceptable business risk. Information from the MCI case
was shared with the antitrust effort and helped lead to their breakup.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm a bit historically confused. The "demise of Bell Labs" wasn't due to the
breakup, right?

I thought they continued on for a long time after that. After all, didn't Bell
Labs convert into Lucent just 7 or 8 years ago?

~~~
shpxnvz
Yeah, I am not sure that one can argue that the eventual demise of Bell Labs
was caused by the divestiture except, perhaps, in that AT&T would have
remained a stronger company longer had it not happened. It seems more likely
that they were simply the victim of the relentless focus on short term ROI
that has characterized big business for the last decade(s).

I'm not even sure you can blame that on the company, considering that it's the
shareholders who fundamentally encourage that behavior.

~~~
hga
The shareholders were entirely happy with the existing setup prior to 1984 ...
wasn't AT&T about or the most widely held stock at the time? You can't invoke
their putative behavior afterwords to justify the breakup.

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j_baker
I'm somewhat amused to find out that Bjarne Stroustrup and Ken Thompson worked
next door to each other after reading the interview with Thompson in Coders at
Work.

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moon_of_moon
Dr.Holzmann (who currently heads reliability group at JPL) notes: "from the
30-some people shown on this map, just a few remained to witness the final
disappearance of center 1127 from the bell labs org charts in august 2005: rae
mclellan, howard trickey (since moved to google) and dennis ritchie (now
retired). one by one, the others all found a safe haven elsewhere."

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jff
The best part is the Unix room, which still exists. It's a great slice of
history, and they still do active Plan 9 development there.

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markbnine
No mens room? That explains a lot.

