[ih] David C. Walden
Paul Ruizendaal
pnr at planet.nl
Wed May 4 07:42:58 PDT 2022
I’ve never met Dave, but he was super helpful just a few years ago when I was researching old TCP/IP implementations and the C/70 machines. Indeed a great guy.
Paul
> On 4 May 2022, at 01:58, internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: David C. Walden (Jorge Amodio)
> 2. Re: David C. Walden (Dave Crocker)
> 3. Re: David C. Walden (Darius Kazemi)
> 4. Re: David C. Walden (Jack Haverty)
> 5. Re: David C. Walden (Bernie Cosell)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 3 May 2022 17:29:34 -0500
> From: Jorge Amodio <jmamodio at gmail.com>
> To: "Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe at math.utah.edu>
> Cc: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] David C. Walden
> Message-ID: <59BABD1D-0FBF-426F-ADA4-DB9B43BE4064 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
>
> Sad news.
> Most sincere condolences to family and friends.
>
> -Jorge
>
>> On May 3, 2022, at 8:04 AM, Nelson H. F. Beebe via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>> ?I was sorry to see an announcement yesterday from Boris Veytsman, the
>> President of the TeX Users Group:
>>
>>>> ...
>>>> In other unhappy news, I am very sad to report the passing of a great
>>>> friend and TeX enthusiast, Dave Walden. Dave was a living history of
>>>> computers and computer typesetting, who knew everything and everybody.
>>>> He was one of the most generous people I ever knew, always here to
>>>> help and support. He was a TUG director and treasurer for many years.
>>>> I learned a lot from Dave and his advice. He will be missed. (A longer
>>>> memoriam will appear in the next TUGboat.)
>>>> ...
>>
>> Dave was an Internet pioneer who between 1970 and 1976 appears in the
>> author list of at least 27 Internet RFC documents, spanning numbers 61
>> to 716.
>>
>> The University of Utah is Node 4 of the original Arpanet, and Dave
>> told me that it was he who installed the first BBN (Bolt Beranek and
>> Newman, Inc.) IMP here at Utah. That happened several years before I
>> arrived in Salt Lake City, so I didn't meet him until the post-2000
>> years at TeX User Group conferences.
>>
>> In later years, after his retirement from BBN, Dave became an editor
>> of the journal IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. He also wrote
>> 16 articles in that journal, including two on the history of BBN, one
>> on that of Interleaf, Inc., and co-authored two on that of the TeX
>> typesetting system. BibTeX entries for all of them can be found in
>>
>> http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/ieeeannhistcomput.bib
>>
>> [change .bib to .html for a view with active hyperlinks].
>>
>> Dave wrote 47 articles in TUGboat, the journal of the TeX Users Group,
>>
>> http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/tugboat.bib
>>
>> including numerous interviews with TUG members.
>>
>> Dave's Web sites at
>>
>> https://walden-family.com/
>> https://walden-family.com/dave/
>>
>> document some of his other activities.
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 -
>> - University of Utah -
>> - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu -
>> - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe at acm.org beebe at computer.org -
>> - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 3 May 2022 15:42:41 -0700
> From: Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] David C. Walden
> Message-ID: <82184f22-8791-62dd-3dd8-6c3b2e2bd77b at dcrocker.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> On 5/3/2022 6:04 AM, Nelson H. F. Beebe via Internet-history wrote:
>> Dave was an Internet pioneer who between 1970 and 1976 appears in the
>> author list of at least 27 Internet RFC documents, spanning numbers 61
>> to 716.
>
> I did not have much interaction with Dave, back in the early days. He
> was, for me, merely one of the deservedly-vaunted BBN team.
>
> In more recent years, he was immediately friendly and supportive during
> the odd email-origins pseudo-controversy developed and he actively
> provided bits of help as he could.
>
> Our community has had quite an array of personalities that can be
> challenging.
>
> Dave wasn't one of them. I am extremely to sorry he is gone.
>
> d/
>
> --
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
> bbiw.net
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 3 May 2022 16:21:19 -0700
> From: Darius Kazemi <darius.kazemi at gmail.com>
> To: dcrocker at bbiw.net
> Cc: internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>, Dave Crocker
> <dhc at dcrocker.net>
> Subject: Re: [ih] David C. Walden
> Message-ID:
> <CADHc3QHcJBLAk85sGmGz8kiYTXtXavHS-kPJvJ88Jg7rv9R5jg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Oh this is so, so sad. Dave helped me immensely in my 50th anniversary RFC
> blogging project. He was generous in providing critical context I needed,
> and a truly personable and funny correspondent.
>
> His website is a treasure trove and a document of his many passions:
> https://www.walden-family.com/dave/
>
> In particular he co-edited this massive (and massively interesting!) tome
> on the history of BBN from its earliest days: https://walden-family.com/bbn/
>
> I hardly knew him but he left a great impression on me. My condolences to
> all his loved ones.
>
> -Darius
>
> On Tue, May 3, 2022, 3:42 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> On 5/3/2022 6:04 AM, Nelson H. F. Beebe via Internet-history wrote:
>>> Dave was an Internet pioneer who between 1970 and 1976 appears in the
>>> author list of at least 27 Internet RFC documents, spanning numbers 61
>>> to 716.
>>
>> I did not have much interaction with Dave, back in the early days. He
>> was, for me, merely one of the deservedly-vaunted BBN team.
>>
>> In more recent years, he was immediately friendly and supportive during
>> the odd email-origins pseudo-controversy developed and he actively
>> provided bits of help as he could.
>>
>> Our community has had quite an array of personalities that can be
>> challenging.
>>
>> Dave wasn't one of them. I am extremely to sorry he is gone.
>>
>> d/
>>
>> --
>> Dave Crocker
>> Brandenburg InternetWorking
>> bbiw.net
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 3 May 2022 16:26:20 -0700
> From: Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] David C. Walden
> Message-ID: <5b6fa519-8ca2-b41c-13f6-c27bf709c1a5 at 3kitty.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> Dave's obituary is at:
>
> https://www.olsonparent.com/obituary/David-Walden
>
> In addition to everything else, Dave was one of the original ARPANET
> implementation team.? He actually "wrote the code" to create the net.?
> More recently, he was very helpful in the efforts to research the IMP as
> prior art for a patent fight, and in the successful revival of the old
> IMP code starting from an old printout, and getting the IMP to actually
> run again on simulated hardware.
>
> Jack Haverty
>
> On 5/3/22 15:42, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
>> On 5/3/2022 6:04 AM, Nelson H. F. Beebe via Internet-history wrote:
>>> Dave was an Internet pioneer who between 1970 and 1976 appears in the
>>> author list of at least 27 Internet RFC documents, spanning numbers 61
>>> to 716.
>>
>> I did not have much interaction with Dave, back in the early days.? He
>> was, for me, merely one of the deservedly-vaunted BBN team.
>>
>> In more recent years, he was immediately friendly and supportive
>> during the odd email-origins pseudo-controversy developed and he
>> actively provided bits of help as he could.
>>
>> Our community has had quite an array of personalities that can be
>> challenging.
>>
>> Dave wasn't one of them. I am extremely to sorry he is gone.
>>
>> d/
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 03 May 2022 19:58:02 -0400
> From: "Bernie Cosell" <bernie at fantasyfarm.com>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] David C. Walden
> Message-ID: <6271C18A.23526.17527ACF at bernie.fantasyfarm.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 3 May 2022 at 16:26, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>
> Date: Tue, 3 May 2022 16:26:20 -0700
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] David C. Walden
> From: Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Reply to: Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org>
> Sender: "Internet-history" <internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org>
>
>> Dave's obituary is at:
>>
>> https://www.olsonparent.com/obituary/David-Walden
>>
>> In addition to everything else, Dave was one of the original ARPANET
>> implementation team.? He actually "wrote the code" to create the net.?
>
> I joined the IMP project of Jan 1969 -- Dave and Will had started on the IMP
> proposal in the fall of '68. I was tied up on another project and joined when the
> contract was actually awarded -- in Jan. Dave and Will had been working on
> chunks of the IMP code with paper tape -- I have no idea how they were editing
> the tapes nor how it worked. I do know that they almost *never* reassembled
> any of the code {because it was real hard :o)} and so Will had a big notebook with
> the official "patch log". I was responsible for the timesharing system on our
> PDP-1 [part of the Hospital Computer Project, and it stayed at BBN when the
> project ended] and I was anal about having correct listings. There was a
> potential serious clash of cultures when i joined. I discovered, to my pleasant
> surprise, that Dave didn't like all the paper tape stuff much either. And so we
> hatched a plan. We *knew* that Frank [Heart] and Will would _never_ have
> OK'ed our messing with how the IMP was coded and assembled.
>
> So.. dave and I just _did_it_ [you know the old saw about forgiveness vs
> permission :o)]. We started on one Friday late afternoon and began "porting" -- I
> had cobbled up a cross-assembler on the PDP-1 that could punch out an
> H516-loadable paper tape, and we copied all the paper tapes over to the PDP-1
> and edited the cumulative patches into the PDP-1 source files. Then we tried to
> make it all work [I vaguely remember that it took a few iterations for the two of
> us to get it actually loadable and working].... BUT... Dave and I worked well
> together and we pulled it all off -- when the folks came in on Monday morning
> there was a fresh, new system with a full correct listing waiting. I never learned
> what Will thought about that -- I think he just took it as a fait accompli. I know
> that Frank never said a word to us about it. Dave and I stayed close friends
> throughout my tenure at BBN. He was my longest time colleague and best
> friend at BBN.
>
> /Bernie\
>
>
> Bernie Cosell
> bernie at fantasyfarm.com
> -- Too many people; too few sheep --
>
>
>
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