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Here’s a link to Mashey’s post on mstdn:

https://mstdn.social/@JohnMashey/112477330642538953

It’s short enough that I’ll quote it here.

“I am very sad to report death May 17 at age 89 of Gordon Bell, famous computer pioneer, a founder of Computer Museum in Boston, and a force behind the @ComputerHistory her in Silicon Valley, and good friend since the 1980s. He succumbed to aspiration pneumonia in Coronado, CA. I'm told there will be a "Celebration of Life" service in August in Silicon Valley. (Another fallen giant, we attended a similar service in April for another, Nobelist Arno Penzias.)”

HN should post the black bar.



In the thread below his preview post, Mashey added the following (edited for typos):

"When I lead tours of Computer History Museum, I usually say there were 3 giants in the early decades of computer architecture:

Gene Amdhal - mainframes

Gordon Bell - minicomputers

Seymour Cray - supercomputers

and I was lucky to know the first two well, never met Cray."

https://mstdn.social/@JohnMashey/112477430691339073


> never met Cray

We lost Cray* to an untimely automobile accident. It'd be possible to have many fewer of those in the future, but that policy seems to be a much harder sell than I'd think it would be.

* when the Mac team bragged they'd used a Cray to design their latest version (heat flow simulation IIRC), Cray humblebragged back that he'd used a Mac to design his latest version.




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