A legend gone.
Gordon Bell has died
61–70 of 75 posts
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#62My 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.
it seems somewhat unlikely. let's follow the trail the existence of bell characters, of course, predates gordon bell's existence itself (they're in the ita2 baudot-murray code from 01932, two years before his birth) so what we're discussing is specifically the assignment of the ascii bell character to the control character corresponding to bell's middle initial it was already ^g in 01963 according to tom jennings's e…
replies like these are the only reason to be at HN
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#63As a side note, his personal page at https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/ doesn't seem to have been updated in more than ten years now. I believe it would make more sense to read "Gordon Bell (1934-2024)" instead of just "Gordon Bell".
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
it seems somewhat unlikely. let's follow the trail the existence of bell characters, of course, predates gordon bell's existence itself (they're in the ita2 baudot-murray code from 01932, two years before his birth) so what we're discussing is specifically the assignment of the ascii bell character to the control character corresponding to bell's middle initial it was already ^g in 01963 according to tom jennings's e…
I like that your deep dive into whether this story might be true is the polar opposite of the "too good to check" impulse in journalism & social media, which instead tries to squeeze some attention & entertainment out of a pleasing story before doing any checks that might ruin the illusion.
The grandparent thought this was implausible, researched it as an outsider (with a slight bias towards thinking the claim is false, which is not a problem per se) and still didn't find any refutation. While I applaud the impetus behind the research, I'm more inclined to believe the apocryphal story after reading the attempt to refute it; not every piece of gossip will be supported by a written statement.
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if that cookie recipe is written down somewhere. Gordon Bell practiced "lifelogging", so maybe!
His lifelogging was a project called MyLifeBits. He wore a camera that took a picture every 20 seconds. Even called the book about his work Total Recall (and MSFT's new product that does something similar on the desktop is called Recall). Someone who worked with him at MSR wrote about it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gordon-bell-standing-shoulder...
Interesting. Stephen Wolfram also wears a camera that snaps pictures every 20 seconds for special events.
This is quite a read: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#66My 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.
it seems somewhat unlikely. let's follow the trail the existence of bell characters, of course, predates gordon bell's existence itself (they're in the ita2 baudot-murray code from 01932, two years before his birth) so what we're discussing is specifically the assignment of the ascii bell character to the control character corresponding to bell's middle initial it was already ^g in 01963 according to tom jennings's e…
Off-topic but, why are you using a leading zero to number years?
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
it seems somewhat unlikely. let's follow the trail the existence of bell characters, of course, predates gordon bell's existence itself (they're in the ita2 baudot-murray code from 01932, two years before his birth) so what we're discussing is specifically the assignment of the ascii bell character to the control character corresponding to bell's middle initial it was already ^g in 01963 according to tom jennings's e…
Off-topic but, why are you using a leading zero to number years?
Never too early to prepare for Y10K compliance: https://longnow.org/ideas/long-now-years-five-digit-dates-an...
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
His lifelogging was a project called MyLifeBits. He wore a camera that took a picture every 20 seconds. Even called the book about his work Total Recall (and MSFT's new product that does something similar on the desktop is called Recall). Someone who worked with him at MSR wrote about it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gordon-bell-standing-shoulder...
Interesting. Stephen Wolfram also wears a camera that snaps pictures every 20 seconds for special events. This is quite a read: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
I wish I could set my Meta Glasses to do this for special occasions where it's socially acceptable.
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if that cookie recipe is written down somewhere. Gordon Bell practiced "lifelogging", so maybe!
His lifelogging was a project called MyLifeBits. He wore a camera that took a picture every 20 seconds. Even called the book about his work Total Recall (and MSFT's new product that does something similar on the desktop is called Recall). Someone who worked with him at MSR wrote about it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gordon-bell-standing-shoulder...
The book is wonderful, as biz-tech-optimist quick reads go, and some of its ideas have stuck with me over a decade after reading it. I'm almost entirely off MSFT products now but i was heartened to see the Recall announcement the other day. Bell was a rare visionary. RIP
Re: Gordon Bell has died
#70I've always loved 'The cheapest, fastest and most reliable components of a computer system are those that aren't there.' -- Gordon Bell, as quoted in Jon Bentley's 'Programming Pearls.'