One of the most influential people in computer history. I'm glad I got to exchange a few mails with him a few years ago. RIP, GB.
Gordon Bell has died
11–20 of 75 posts
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#12RIP. I had the pleasure of messaging with him while developing a PDP-11/70 hardware replacement 17 years ago.
Just curious, did you write that up anywhere? Sounds potentially interesting to this audience.
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#13My father worked with him at CMU and the story he always told (while possibly apocryphal) was that the reason that the ASCII bell character sequence was CRTL-G was because of Gordon.
I have no data, but I wish that to be true. What an amazing tribute.
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#14Top obituary posts on hn: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Just thought how nice it is to read so many warm and heartfelt memories in all those obituaries. Wonder if it’ll be the same for current tech leaders/ maybe something for them to consider…
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#15Black bar for Bell please?
Thanks Dang!
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#16If we could've preserved his brain for the future.
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#17I liked this one: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/dec.b...
via Gordon Bell – The No Output Division (1982) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38490320 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#18I remember watching a Channel 9 video about a decade or so ago where they visited Bell and co at the MSR office in San Francisco. That's where Gordon wanted to be and so Microsoft opened an office for him. In the video he was wearing a video camera around his neck and speaking a bit about the MyLifeBits project, IIRC. Now that I'm middle-aged and my relationship to technology has been changing, I'm struck by the passion, curiosity, and engagement he continued to exhibit. Remarkable lifelong attitude.
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#19I liked this one: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/DEC/dec.b... via Gordon Bell – The No Output Division (1982) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38490320 - Dec 2023 (1 comment)
As someone who attends a lot of meetings at the moment I smarted a bit reading that. I don't think any of them are "sewing circles" but still...