Home, Birth, Dixon, Evanston, MIT, Army, Lockheed, Urbana, Research, Digigraphics, Cabin John, Bell Labs, Leisure World, Riderwood, Search
Control Data bought the Digigraphics Division from the ITEK
Corporation. They had no software capability, so they hired a software
company to design a system for them to sell. It was totally inappropriate
mumbo-jumbo, and they were losing sales of large computer systems because of
it. I was allowed to completely redesign the software as FORTRAN subroutines,
making it easy for customers to produce their own designs. We called this the
Control Data Interactive Graphics System IGS. It was sold with all the Control
Data graphics systems, not just from the Digigraphics Division.
I designed the system and supervised its
programming for the CDC 3000 computers. It was reimplemented in Minnesota for
the CDC 6000 supercomputers. The reference manual for that system is here. I wrote or
edited all the graphics portions of the manual as a contractor after CDC closed
the Digigraphics Division.
I am particularly proud that IGS introduced
modeling Plex beads to Fortran programming (well before virtual memory and
structures became common). Doug Ross at MIT and Jim Kennedy at Lockheed
introduced the concepts.
Because of its graphics capabilities, Control
Data made fortunes on large systems for the aerospace and automotive
industries. I started a joint venture with several Control Data customers to
produce a universal CAM system based on the Automated Programed Tooling (APT ) language used for manually programming machine
tools. I was traveling all over the place and did not like
that much.
Burlington, just outside Boston, was all
rural and suburban with no rentals. I bought my first home there, a 3-bedroom,
2 bath colonial in Bedford, a bike ride away from work. I used the GI bill and
had no trouble affording the house. The house was close to Hanscom (now Bedford
Airport). I checked out on rented Piper Cherokees there, but flying was not fun
anymore. The air traffic control around Boston is tedious, the visibility and
weather usually awful, and the plane itself too modern, i.e., clunky (the age
of fun-to-fly planes had passed).
I sold the small sailboat and imported an
English MacWester 26, a 4-birth inboard sloop with a head and galley. I moored
it in Beverly Harbor, just north of Salam and Marblehead. It arrived on a small
freighter from England. I was in San Diego on a business trip. Some friends and
the salesman picked it up in Boston and motored it to a boatyard in Marblehead
to have some shipping damage repaired. When I returned, I picked up the boat
from the yard and motored alone to a buoy to sort out the sails, lines, and
packing clutter. When I got just a few boat lengths on my way to Beverly, the
motor conked out, and I sailed it single-handed on only the main the 6 miles to
my rented mooring. I was proud of how well the boat handled and how I had not
lost the skill I had in scouts many years earlier. The engine was a 1920's
vintage 2-cylinder, 2-stroke 10 HP gasoline inboard that failed often. I
made scores of trips to Gloucester, Rockport, and Ipswich with friends, alone,
and with Digigraphics customers, but I liked fiddling with the boat more than
sailing it. I sold the MacWester to Jack and Jill, and we sailed it
down to their summer home near Mystic, Connecticut. He replaced the engine with
a sturdy 4-cylinder diesel.
I dated a bit and joined a young singles
church group in downtown Boston. Betsy had moved to Richmond, VA, so I did not
see her while I lived in Bedford. Digigraphics closed on good ski days,
and most of us drove to various ski resorts in NH. I traded the
Corvair for a Barracuda, which was not in keeping with my personality but fun
to drive.
Control
Data decided to combine all the graphics work in their new facility in
Sunnyvale, CA. A horrible big office complex full of cubicles. Only seven of
the 100 people working in Burlington moved, and the Control Data graphics
business folded. Later, the whole company folded — gross incompetence at the
top.
Next Cabin
John