[ih] sad news

[Guy Almes]

Steve,
   An amazing anecdote -- thanks for it.
   Norm seems to have contributed with both a practical system and good 
mathematical analysis of it.
   In addition, he had a whimsical side.  At some point later in the 
1970s, he visited the Computer Science department at Carnegie-Mellon and 
gave a talk on Alohanet etc.  During informal conversation, he expressed 
an interest in self-organizing systems.  He posited that you could build 
very small integrated devices that would include a processor/memory 
chip, a photovoltaic cell, and a rudimentary radio transceiver.  He 
mused on putting a dozen or so of them in a paper sack, shining a 
flashlight into it, and shaking it.  The phrase "shake and bake 
computing" came up in the conversation -- I don't recall whether from 
Norm or from one of the grad students.

	-- Guy

On 12/5/20 1:20 PM, Steve Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> [Including Bob Metcalfe just to be sure.]
> 
> Aww.  Sadness.  I was working in the ARPA office in the early 1970s.  I
> hadn't paid close attention to the Alohanet but I was aware of it.  Norm
> visited the office and explained it to me.  I thought it was extremely cool
> to have all the terminals send whenever they wanted and to retransmit if
> the central node didn't acknowledge.  His math showed if the total traffic
> offered was less than 1/2e of the channel's capacity, the retransmissions
> would subside instead of exploding.  I remember marveling on the boldness
> of not having any explicit form of multiplexor and offered a
> McCluhanesque, "the medium is the multiplexor."
> 
> I took home a copy of an AFIPS proceeding that had their paper in it.  Bob
> Metcalfe stayed overnight sometime after that.  I showed him the paper and
> commented he might find it interesting.  He took the concept back to PARC,
> put it on coax cable, called it Ethernet, and the rest is history.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 1:10 PM vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I had a call this morning from the NY Times asking for background on Norm
>> Abramson who apparently passed away very recently.
>>
>> vint
>>
>>