

Ken Olsen, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corp., died at 84 - masshightech
http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2011/02/07/daily16-Ken-Olsen-co-founder-of-DEC-died-at-84.html

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GeorgeTirebiter
When I was a Junior at MIT in 1975, working in the Large Systems Group (the
PDP-10) in Marlboro as a summer co-op student, I asked some of the DEC old-
timers what would happen if I invited Ken Olsen over to my little summer
sublet in Marlboro. They said, "ask him".

I figured they were playing a trick on a lowly co-op, but I figured, what the
heck. So I invited him to stop by that coming Sunday afternoon. And he
accepted!

The ever-gracious Ken Olson came to my place, and chatted with about a dozen
fellow MIT DEC co-op students, and another perhaps dozen regular employees at
the Marlboro facility. We were all awe-struck, but somehow we managed to ask
him about whether he thought IBM were our competition (he didn't think so,
because DEC and IBM served different markets), and what he thought of these
little microcomputers, like the Altair 8800 that was about to be announced (he
didn't think they were very useful, poor h/w and non-existent software). What
about putting one of our PDP-10s on a board, like the recently-introduced
LSI-11 did for the PDP-11? (Contact Gordon Bell and ask him about that.) And
much more like that.

I distinctly remember he sat in a chair while we accolites sat on the floor at
his feet.

At the time, the PDP-11 and especially the PDP-11/45 was quite the machine -
unix had recently been ported to it with great success, and I had used it in
several of my courses. I of course had one of those "comic book" PDP-11/45
manuals that had been well-thumbed. Would Ken autograph it for me? And of
course the ever-gracious Ken Olson signed it just below his signature on the
front page of the manual.

What a tremendously giving, gracious, friendly, smart, helpful man. His
influence on this industry is deep and wide. He remains my role model. He'll
be sorely missed.

~~~
masshightech
That is a great story. Thank you for sharing!

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marchustvedt
This news really hits me hard. Ken was a great entrepreneur and a friend to my
family. He hired my father (Dick Hustvedt) out of Xerox to come join DEC in
the early 70's. Ken tapped my dad for VMS.

To me Ken was always one of those grandpa mentor types quick to engage and
share his business wit. I remember how the DEC hackers would always talk about
how Ken inspired a culture of intrapreneurs within the company, pushing
engineers to feel free to create new products and businesses from within
rather than acquiring.

It was a different era, but the stories of the guys and gals that stayed up
all night coding away at The Mill really made my love for tech. There was a
passion for what they did, not for the payday.

DEC was also one of the first startups funded by the modern idea of VCs.

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hsmyers
Given the age survey posted a little while ago, most HN members have no
particular reason to note this. But for me, one by one the pioneers that
pulled me into the world of computers are dying--- I will miss them.

~~~
flashgordon
Actually its funny you mention that. I have a feeling given the relative youth
of the field of CS (and CE), even those of us who are relative newbies like
myself (by which I mean when and under what circumstances I got into the
field) still appreciate the work of such pioneers, even though it is as a
result of reading up about them rather than actually working directly with
them (or their contributions). Another name that comes to mind is Kildall!
Every time I read about them, a certain nostalgic sadness fills me, even
though I have never used a DEC or CP/M (respectively).

~~~
rbanffy
Small nitpick: CP/M came out of Digital Research (or, more accurately, DR
formed around it), not Digital Equipment.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall>

~~~
flashgordon
Sorry about the confusion. I actually was referring to CP/M in reference to
Gary, not DEC. Should have worded it better!

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masshightech
A short video, produced by Gordon College, offers a short history of Ken
Olsen's impact and legacy. If not for DEC, the world of computing as we know
it would not exist. The video can be found here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6We6VDtyHY> More about Ken Olsen, and a quote
from Bill Gates, can be found here: <http://www.gordon.edu/kenolsen>

~~~
Bitmobrich
Thank you for the video.

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linuxhansl
My first job was at DEC (software engineer in Germany). I remember we were a
team of 20 (or so) time sharing single VAX, each of us on 40x25 DEC terminal
using LSE (language sensitive editor).

In retrospect it is amazing how far ahead of its time DEC often was: The first
64 bit processor (DEC alpha), the first search engine (Altavista), etc; and
how little came of it in the end.

That all is now over 20 years ago, and I still look fondly back to that time,
and I am still in contact with my former colleagues.

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levigross
It's a shame that every time I mention DEC to anyone, very few of them know
what I am talking about...

I enjoyed using VAX/VMS and admire DEC's contributions to modern ComSci.

You will be missed!

~~~
briandoll
I loved using VAX! RIT had one and I managed an account through a friend. I
don't remember what shell environment it had on it, but there were plenty of
scripts being passed down from one class to another.

We basically had foursquare on the VAX system, since you could keep track of
your friends and the systems knew which lab you last logged into.

~~~
michael_dorfman
If it was VAX/VMS, then the shell environment was DCL-- DEC Control Language.
Oh, the things I used to get up to in there...

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hncommenter13
American Research and Development, the grand-daddy of Venture Capital in the
United States, invested $77,000 for 77% of DEC in 1957 (that's roughly $598K
in 2010 dollars). When it went public in 1971, ARD's shares were valued at
$355 million (about $1.9 billion in 2010 dollars). This one investment was
responsible for over half the lifetime performance of ARD's portfolio over the
decades before it was sold to Textron.

See: [http://books.google.com/books?id=tDOVY3ek-UEC&lpg=PA20&#...</a>

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ctkrohn
I grew up using a Intel 486-powered DEC workstation. DEC's legendary machines
were behind them by that point, but I still have plenty of nostalgia for that
computer. 16MB of RAM was a lot of memory in 1993.

~~~
dfghjkfgh
Alpha workstations were pretty awesome just then - although we used to buy the
cheap ones with NT and install linux.

~~~
ctkrohn
Ah yes, forgot about the Alpha port of NT. It's a little-known fact that
Windows NT ran on non-Intel architectures: besides the Alpha version, there
were MIPS and PowerPC ports.

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dfghjkfgh
Due to some sort of internal Dec sales war you could buy the same hardware
running VMS($$$$),Ultrix($$$),or NT($) - we bought NT and wiped the machines
then installed Linux.

They gave you Sparc ultra performance for 1/2 the price.

~~~
arethuza
The Alphas we had (lovely boxes - especially the mid range "server" we had)
were running OSF/1 rather than Ultrix - was that yet another option?

~~~
rbanffy
OSF/1 morphed into Digital Unix and then into Tru64. I have seen Alpha boxes
running NT, Linux and OpenVMS.

