Computing Past: Mel, the Realest Programmer of All

Additional reading related to Computing Past: Mel, the Realest Programmer of All:

• The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles. “This book is organized around the idea of building a computer from the fundamental logic gates up.” (From an Amazon review.) James Seibel recommends this book.
• “So you want to work in security?” By Parisa Tabriz. This is an excellent article about our each creating a place in our profession.
• “Google’s Chrome Hackers Are About to Upend Your Idea of Web Security” by Andy Greenberg. The article is about security rather than vacuum tube programming, but is great background on Parisa Tabriz and her team.

The year 1982 produced a best-selling book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. Ed Post, of Tektronix, Inc., sent a letter to the editor of Datamation in July 1983 titled “Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal.”

• The article: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html
• Background on the Datamation article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Programmers_Don%27t_Use_Pascal

“The Story of Mel,” the realest programmer of all, is a brilliant (and true) portrayal from a year later:

• The article: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html (there is a photo at the bottom of the page)
• The background, in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel

James Seibel wrote an excellent explanation about “The Story of Mel” for the young-un’s who have never beheld actual core memory:

• http://www.jamesseibel.com/blog/story-of-mel-explained

Don’t miss his “Addendum” at the end of the article. It’s a great perspective for all of us. Each of us has the capacity to be a Real Programmer.

Librascope LGP-30:

• Ed Thelen’s page on the Librascope LGP-30: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/lgp-30.html
• Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGP-30
• Stuttgart restoration: http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev_en/lgp30/lgp30_1.html and http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev_en/lgp30/
• Follow links on the above page to programming manuals, etc.

My slide deck with presenter notes: http://otscripts.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mel-php-tek.pdf

The photo is of my father, circa 1977 (Director of Washington State Data Processing Service Center).