Wolf_No_E_2005 Wolf No E 2005

User Manual: Pdf Wolf_No_E_2005

Open the PDF directly: View PDF .
Page Count: 208

Download
Open PDF In Browser	View PDF

WILLIAM M. WOLF

NO "e"

William M. Wolf

2004097677
1-4134-6846-2
1-4134-6845-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the copyright owner.
This book was printed in the United States ofAmerica.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274
www.Xlibris.com
Orders@Xlibris.com
26205

CONTENTS
Foreword ...................................................................................... 9
Tllanks ....................................................................................... 13
Dedication ................................................................................. 1 5
Organization .............................................................................. 17
Section 1.0: Computer .............................................................. 19
Section 2.0: Programming ......................................................... 21
2.1 Number Systems ........................................................ 21
2.2 Computer Instructions ............................................... 23
2.3 Example of Programming ........................................... 24
2.4 Conditional Transfer of Control ................................. 2 5
2.5 Bugs ............................................................................ 25
2.6 Bug in Operation ....................................................... 26
2.7 Hardware versus Software ........................................... 28
2.8 Approximations .......................................................... 28
2.9 Crossword Puzzles ...................................................... 28
2.10 Software Standards ................................................... 30
2.11 Summation ............................................................... 31
Section 3.0: Early Years-1928-1939 ...................................... 32
3.1 "Boy, 4, Swallows Pin" ............................................... 32
3.2 Buzzer ......................................................................... 33
3.3 Groups of Tens ............................................................ 33
Section 4.0: The 1940s ............................................................. 35
4.1 First Celebrity ............................................................. 35
4.2 Piano Lessons .............................................................. 35
4.3 Hi-Y Cup ................................................................... 36
Section 5.0: The 1950s ............................................................. 38
5.1 Philadelphia ................................................................ 38
5.2 MIT ............................................................................ 40
5.3 Cape Cod System ....................................................... 40
5.4 First Independent Contract ........................................ 41

5.5 Nuclear Reactor Design ............................................. 42
5.6 Humble Oil ................................................................ 43
5.7 Avco Everett Research Laboratory .............................. 45
5.8 Derivation of Mouse Tracking Principles ................... 48
5.9 Pushbutton Dialing ................................................... 49
5.10 Light Dimmer for Wall Switch ................................ 5 0
5.11 WWI Story-Apple Pie ........................................... 5 1
5.12 Sheldon Best ............................................................. 51
5.13 Grace Hopper ........................................................... 52
5.14 Industrial Publications Corp ................................... 54
5.15 Hooper Holmes ........................................................ 54
5.16 IBM Tactics .............................................................. 57
5.17 Federal Reserve Work ............................................... 58
5.18 Flash Data Triangulation .......................................... 59
5.19 Aqueduct .................................................................. 60
5.20 Pat McGovern .......................................................... 61
Section 6.0: The 1960s ............................................................. 63
6.1 Whirlwind Move ........................................................ 63
6.2 Ted Kennedy ............................................................... 67
6.3 Moving Madagascar ................................................... 68
6.4 Boston Strangler ......................................................... 68
6.5 Magnetic Core Dispute .............................................. 71
6.6 Hal Steward ................................................................ 74
6.7 Nasa Houston ............................................................. 75
6.8 A-OK in Seattle .......................................................... 78
6.9 Richard Buckminster Fuller ....................................... 80
6.9.1 First Meeting ...................................................... 80
6.9.2 World Game ........................................................ 81
6.9.3 United Nations University ................................... 81
6.9.4 Typical Behavior .................................................. 82
6.10 Concord Floor Covering ........................................... 82
6.11 Smart Buildings ....................................................... 83
6.12 First Computer Graphics ................ ~ ........................ 84
6.13 Banking .................................................................... 84
6.14 Midwest Computer Service, Inc .............................. 90
6.15 Life Magazine ........................................................... 92

6.16 Sale to EG&G ....................................................... 108
6.17 Association of Independent Software Companies.... 11 0
6.18 First Impressions ................................................... 11 5
Section 7.0: The 1970s .......................................................... 117
7.1 Computer Facilities Management ........................... 117
7.2 Teheran Trip ............................................................. 120
7.3 First Software Specification ..................................... 122
7.4 Edulogical Systems .................................................. 123
7.5 Unemployment ....................................... :............... 124
7.6 Queen Elizabeth ...................................................... 125
7.7 Concord Computing ............................................... 126
7.8 Wilbur Mills and Fannie Fox .................................. 129
7.9 A Curious Example of Luck .................................... 131
Section 8.0: The 1980s .......................................................... 134
8.1 The Personal Computer ........................................... 134
8.2 PC Effects ................................................................ 136
8.2.1 Users ................................................................. 136
8.2.2 Programmers .................................................... 136
8.2.3 Other Effects ..................................................... 136
8.3 Visicalc ...................................................... ~ .............. 137
8.4 PC Artywllere ........................................................... 138
8.5 Videodisc ................................................................. 138
8.6 Tsongas Versus Harvard ........................................... 140
8.7 Colonel Comment ................................................... 141
8.8 Sources of Wonderment .......................................... 141
8.8.1 Drugs and Thugs ............................................... 141
8.8 2 Pure Fantasy ....................................................... 142
Section 9.0: The 1990s .......................................................... 144
9.1 Wolfsort ................................................................... 144
9.2 Technology Capital Network .................................. 145
9.3 Slovenia....... ......... ......... ......... ........ .......................... 149
9.4 Tip Q'Neill .............................................................. 150
9.5 Year 2000 Problem ................................................. 151
9.5.1 Problem Definition ........................................... 151
9.5.2' Solutions ........................................................... 152
9.5.3 New York Experience ....................................... 153

Section 10.0: The 2000s ........................................................ 155
10.1 1:11-1/1/01 .......................................................... 155
10.2 Letter to the Editor Re Chad ................................ 157
10.3 Letter to President Bush ....................................... 160
Section 11.0: Business Commentary ..................................... 164
11.1 Organization ......................................................... 164
11.2 Management Information Systems ....................... 166
11.3 Contract Monitoring ............................................. 166
11.4 Marketing .............................................................. 168
11.5 Free Advice ............................................................ 169
11.6 Business Ethics ...................................................... 169
11.7 University of Maryland Lecture ............................ 170
11.7.1 Business Advice .............................................. 171
11.7.2 Business Opportunities For The 90S ............... 176
Section 12.0: Personal Commentary ...................................... 178
12.1 Boring Life ............................................................. 178
12.2 Internal Revenue Service ....................................... 179
12.3 Organized Religion ............................................... 181
12.4 Jury Duty .............................................................. 183
12.5 Extra Mile ............................................................. 184
12.6 Who's Who ............................................................ 185
12.7 Humor ................................................................... 186
Section 13.0: Summary and Hope for the Future ................. 189
13.1 Summary ............................................................... 1.89
13.2 Hope for the Future .............................................. 190
13.2.1 Birth to Death Registry ................................... 190
13.2.2 Tracking and Location ..................................... 190
13.2.3 Work at Home ................................................ 191
13.2.4 Medical Applications ...................................... 191
13.2.5 Space Travel .................................................... 192
13.2.6 e-Commerce ................................................... 192
Appendix: Companies Founded .... ......... ............ ........ ............ 1 93
Index ....................................................................................... 201

Foreword
We are all aware of the ubiquity of the digital computer in
our everyday lives. One cannot pay taxes, make a plane reservation,
purchase groceries using a credit card, nor draw cash out of an
Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) without interfacing directly or
indirectly with the computer. Yet behind all computers is the work
of programmers-those persons whose minds and hands visualize,
create and write the instructions that these computers execute.
The programmer is a man of mystery to the average person.
We derisively call such people "nerds". By highlighting their societal
differences we defend our fear of what they can do. Yet a programmer,
so impatient to code that he dropped out of his university in his
junior year, is now the richest man in the world! And it took him only
27 years to achieve a wealth of $52.5 billion! This founder of a software
company called Microsoft, Bill Gates is not yet 50, married to one of
his employees, and has his first child. Yet his accumulated wealth is
greater than the Gross National Product of many countries. In recent
years his personal foundation, the Gates Foundation, was established
with a capital fund of $23 billion, the largest amount of funding of
any foundation in the world!
How did this happen? Is this a unique experience? Was this
person lucky? Hardly, when one observes that the third richest
man (at $25.2B) in the U.S., Paul Allen, was also a programmer
and co-founder of Microsoft; and so is the fourth, Larry Ellison (at
$23.5B), founder of another software company, Oracle. These
numbers (presented as of 2001, a down year) vary with the times
and the values in the stock market. Warren Buffett was the second
man in the listing referred to at $35B.
Who are these people called programmers and what sort of
lives do they live? What do they really do? Where did they come
9

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

from, and where are they apt to be going in the future? Although
pieces of this story have appeared in print from time to time the
whole 50 year chronology of programming has not been
documented from a programmer's viewpoint.
This work will chronicle the life of a not-your-ordinary
programmer. It will be an autobiographical account of an MITtrained programmer who was one of less than 50 in the whole
world in 1952. There are reputedly 9 million programmers working
today. It will cover a career that has included:

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Work at MIT on the Cape Cod System-the first real time
application of a digital computer-the prototype of our air
defense system.
Programming for the design of the heat shield that permits
safe re-entry of our astronauts and payloads from space into
our earth's atmosphere.
Correcting the earth coordinates of Madagascar a distance
of four football fields in latitude while reducing data from
the moon-250,000 miles away.
Work with R.Buckminster Fuller on his concept of his World
Game.
The building of a national computer programming and
professional services company-Wolf Research &
Development Corp.
The sale of this company to Edgerton, Germeshausen, &
Grier.
Involvement in the start-up of fifty companies and nonprofits-mostly computer based.
Resumption of a programming career at the age of 70helping to address the Year 2000 (Y2K) computer
programming problems.

The story will include-

Never-before-published background of computer work
associated with the solving of the Boston Strangler mystery.

No"e"

*
*

What happens to a family and company when a 9 page
spread in LIFE magazine features them.
The intimate involvement in and responsibility for the
creation of the software business as we know it today.

On that last point, the author of this work was one of the
Founders and the first President of the Association of Independent
Software Companies-the first national computer software
association which actively supported one of its members in an antitrust suit against IBM. The end result was that IBM changed its
policy and separated pricing between software and hardware. Prior
to that time, the software was given away by IBM and other
computer manufacturers as an adjunct to the sale of their hardware.
The sale of software separately from hardware paved the way for
the birth and growth of such firms as Lotus, Microsoft, Oracle,
and others.
With respect to the title-Whenever a new person hears the
name Wolf, over -the phone or at the sign-in desk at a meeting, she
or he invariably asks, "With or without the "e"? The response to
which query is-No "e".

Thanks
Where to begin, then when to stop are the questions. Clearly
I wouldn't be here without my parents. They faced overwhelming
problems with courage and optimism. I am of course grateful for
the lessons they taught me and my siblings.
Teachers and coaches were another source of training in
techniques and life, for which I am most appreciative. My bosses
and fellow workers from whom I learned what I know were all
helpful in shaping my life. I also thank my doctors who have guided
me and prolonged my sedentary life so that I could finish this
work.
Today, I am most thankful for my family and friends from
whom I gain and to whom I offer that most valuable of all thingsunqualified and unquestioning love and support.

Dedication
This work is dedicated to all the spouses and partners of
programmers who early on must face a cold and faceless factthey share their loved one with another-the computer. If they are
smart, they will accept this fact and learn to live with it. They will
never ask-which do you prefer, the computer or me? If they are
not smart, their relationship is doomed.
It is important to recognize that programming is a solo, nonparticipatory activity, not unlike composing music. One never
encounters a symphony by Beethoven and Brahms. To often become
so engrossed in programming that all outside activities are
distractions to be avoided is the norm.
So, brave souls, please understand that we are not different-we
are normal people with a selfish addiction to our profession that
borders on a passion. Our love for you is not in any way diminished
by our love for what we do. True love for these dual and strong
forces in our lives can only co-exist if they are understanding of
each other.

Organization
The text is organized in a relatively straightforward manner.
Mter two sections about computers and programming, Sections 3
through 10 cover the decades of my life to date. Descriptions of
events in each decade are at times chronological but mostly random.
If I kept a lifetime journal I would be more accurate on dates, but
looking back from the perspective of75 years it is easier to remember
things in terms of decades.
Speaking of remembering, I have tried hard to be accurate in
this account but it wouldn't surprise me to have erred in recalling
the dates and/or the people. This is as non-fictional as an
autobiography can be without an undue amount of research.
I hope you enjoy my sharing these stories with you. My portal
is always open for your thoughts and comments.
Try me at: wmwolj@aolcom

Section 1.0
Computer
When the term computer is used in this work it shall mean
an electronic, digital computer. This broad definition will include
the whole spectrum from the multi-ton, several room sized machine
of the 1950s down to to day's personal data assistant (PDA) that
we carry in our briefcase, pocket, or purse.
A computer, not unlike an adding machine, will add, subtract,
multiply and divide. However, it will perform at the rate of millions
of numbers per second. Intel's Pentium Pro operates at 440 MIPs
(Millions of Instructions per Second).
Consider what this means in everyday terms. Let us assume
that there are 150 million U.S. taxpayers and that it takes an average
of 200 steps of addition or subtraction for the IRS to check the
arithmetic of a single taxpayer's return. Thus, we see that
(150M returns) X (200 stepslreturn) X (1 second per 440M
steps)

=68.2 sees.

That is, about one minute to check the math of every taxpayer
in the country! And that assumes only one desk top computer
working that problem. It makes one wonder what the IRS does in
its vast computer complex the rest of the year.
We used to say that the computer can do anything but press
your trousers. However, there are many real-world problems that
can not be expressed in mathematical terms and thus are difficult
if not impossible to program. These are especially true where
judgment is involved such as driving a car or picking stocks.
19

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

In recent years a number of technical people have been touting
"artificial intelligence." Ignoring the misnomer, a lot of government
and venture capital money has been spent searching for a practical
application that the market will buy. To date, the field has yet to
justify the interest and investments. But the jury is still out and
more money is bound to follow this hunt, lured by the potentially
large payoffs.
Not since the Industrial Revolution brought the farmer into
the factory has there been an invention which has fostered such
dramatic changes on our society. And the number of programmers
who instruct these computers to do their bidding has increased
from about 50 when I started programming in 1952 to over 9
million today.
In conclusion, when someone asked me recently what age in
history I would have preferred to live, I answered-the present.
1) What can be more exciting than helping to put a man on
the moon?
2) What can be more illumina~ing and beneficial to mankind
than being able to perform a CAT scan or MRI scan to
actually perform a non-invasive look inside a person's brain
or other parts of their body?
3) What is more useful in business than being able to call
Singapore from a portable phone in your car or backyard by
the pool?

All of these gee-whiz technologies and more could not have
been achieved without the computer. And, today, hardware and
software companies are working toward implementing the
introduction into our homes of the combination of equipment
and programs which will result in interactive television.

Section 2.0
Programming

pro~ramming

To understand
it will be helpful to review and
define some fundamental principles.

2.1 Number Systems
In the early days-circa 1950s-the large electronic computers
employed relatively large tubes similar to ones you may have seen
inside an old radio. In practice, it was ·more reliable to build circuits
that depended upon whether or not current was flowing through
a tube rather than the amount of current flowing. This "on" or
"off" characteristic enabled the high speed of early computers but
imposed a constraint on the users. Since there were only two states
to work with, on or off, a user was forced to work with these two
states, represented by a "one" or a "zero". Thus a user of the computer
was constrained to using the ~inary number system-a system
comprised of only two digits-"I" and "0". In the decimal system
of everyday life we count from 0 to 9, using all of the 10 numbers,
and then we start over, counting from 10 to 19. Either system is
valid in counting things. Our decimal system stems from the fact
that we are born with 10 fingers. There is a shoeless Peruvian tribe
that has a number system based on 20.
Ir is possible, then to construct and employ a number system
that is based upon any number of elements. In the early days of
programming it was convenient to use the octal number system
where there are eight numbers to work with, 0 through 7. The

WILLIAM M. WOLF

reason for this is that three binary digits equal one octal digit.
That is, each of a group of three binary digits can be contained in
and are represented by one octal digit.
For example, let us count in the decimal and binary number
systems and, while we're at it, in the octal number systemDECIMAL
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
then 10
11
12
13
14
15
16

then
then

then

BINARY
0
1
10
11
100
101
110
111
1000
1001
1010
1011
1100
1101
1110
1111
10000

OCTAL
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
then 10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
then 20

One of the first things an early 1950s vintage computer user
had to learn was how to work with binary numbers. As a practical
convenience, it was customary to group three binary digits at a
time into the octal number sys~em.
Early computers, MIT's Whirlwind I for example, contained
circuitry for sixteen binary digits (or "bits") arranged in a so-called
"word". A word was contained in a location known as a "register"
which had an "address".
The bit contents of a word might look like this-

001

010

101

001

011

No"e"

The first digit was employed as a sign digit where "I" represented a
minus and "0" represented a plus. In octal, the above number would be
+

12 513 ;

in decimal,

+ 5 4 4 1.

The 15 binary digits are capable of representing any decimal
number up to 32,768. Larger numbers are represented by more
than one word.

2.2 Computer Instructions
The 16-bit register can also be characterized as containing a
computer instruction where the first five bits contain the code for
a computer operation and the other 11 bits contain the address of
the register germane to the operation.
Computer instructions are separated into the following major
groupingsINPUT I OUTPUT
These govern the operations ofreading informacion in and out.

ARITHMETIC
Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

TRANSFER OF CONTROL
These may be conditional or unconditional.

OTHERS
Including such functions as transfer to storage instructions.

A sequence of instructions is termed a "program" and a person
who writes the program is called a "programmer".

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

I recall when I was a student at MIT and working in the Digital
Computer Lab, I filled out a check-cashing application at the Stop
& Shop and answered "programmer" in response to the
"occupation" question. The young lady behind the counter said"Oh, a programmer-what radio station do you work for?"

2.3 Example of Programming
It is the programmer's job, skill, art or whatever one wants to
call it-to write the instructions in the correct order so that the
computer performs the desired function. For example, consider
the steps one might take in writing a program to produce a biweekly payroll in a 24 person company.
STEP 1 INITIALIZE COUNTER

(set employee counter to
zero)
STEP 2 READ IN DATA
(including rate and hours
worked)
STEP 3 COMPUTE GROSS PAY
(multiply hours times
pay rate)
STEP 4 COMPUTE DEDUCTIONS (including FICA & state
with-holdings, pension
plan, others)
STEP 5 COMPUTE NET PAY
(gross pay minus deductions)
STEP 6 PRINT PAYCHECK
(including employee
name & address, gross &
net pay, deductions)
STEP 7 INDEX COUNTER
(add one to employee
counter)
STEP 8 IS EMPLOYEE COUNTER = 24?
IfN 0, Return to STEP 2
If YES, Proceed to STEP 9

STEP 9 EXIT

No"e"

Note in particular Step 8. Without this instruction we would have
to write the same set of instruction 24 times-once for each employee.
We term this type of instruction the "Conditional Transfer of Control".

2.4 Conditional Transfer of Control
There is one type of instruction that dwarfs others in its
importance. That is the "Conditional Transfer of Control". To
illustrate, as in the previous example, suppose we are writing a
program to calculate each employee's payroll. This program must
multiply the hours worked by the employee's hourly rate to get
the total pay, then subtract the amounts to be withheld for income
tax, social security, and other deductions. When we are all done
and have the net pay we must then do the same thing for the next
employee. Since the instructions are the same, if we set up a counter
representing the number of employees to "0" at the outset and
then add "1" to this counter after we have processed each employee's
data, we can test to see when this counter is "24" at which time we
will have processed all of the employees. This capability allows us
to only write the instructions once and then use them repeatedly
for all the others. We test this counter each time and when it is
"24", we then branch off to another part of the program. This
ability to test and branch offis enabled by the "Conditional Transfer
of Control" instruction which allows us to set up logical trees and
many other useful functions.

2.5 Bugs
It is common practice to write a program and then test it to
get all the errors, or "bugs", out. The term "bug" for programming
error was coined by Grace Hopper. In the 1947, when she was
working on Harvard's Mark II relay computer, a moth got caught
in between the contacts of a relay and caused the computer to
malfunction. In the 1970s I read her notebook in which she had
taped the unfortunate moth. It was on display in the reception

WILLIAM M. WOLF

area of the Naval Weapons Research Laboratory at Dahlgren,
Virginia. Thus, a correctly operating computer program is said to
be one that is completely "debugged". When Microsoft ships a
release of one of its programs that still contains bugs (a not unusual
circumstance) it makes the papers-at least the trade journals. It
is common folklore in the computer business to never buy the first
of anything-hardware or software since experience has proven
that the first issue or model still contains bugs which must be
eliminated before the computer or program can be trusted to
perform accurately. To ameliorate this state of affairs it is customary
to define an "alpha" test during which the manufacturer reputedly
removes all the bugs; then the "beta" test whereby the program or
equipment is used in a customer's environment using real, not
test, data. Bugs are found and eliminated at both levels and, further,
when the equipment or software is in the market supposedly
working. Caution and hesitation in adopting new computer
applications are wise attitudes to employ unless one really needs
the new products in one's environment.

2.6 Bug in Operation
This example came in recently in an eMail from a friend in
San Luis Obispo:
"TO ERR IS HUMAN, BUT ... Sometimes all you can do
is laugh. In March of 1992 a man living in Newton,
Massachusetts received a bill on his as yet unused credit card
stating that he owed $0.00. He threw it away. In April he
received another and tossed that one, too. The following
month the credit card company sent him a nasty note stating
they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them
$0.00. In retrospect, he probably should have let them do
that. Instead he called the company and was informed that
(are you ready for this?) the problem was the result of a
computer error. They told him they'd take care of it. The
following month he reasoned that, if other charges appeared
on the card, then it would put an end to his ridiculous

No"e"

predicament. Besides, they assured him the problem would
be resolved. So he presented his card for a purchase. It was
declined. Once again he called. He learned that the credit
card had been cancelled for lack ofpayment. They apologized
for (here it is again) another computer error and promised
they would rectify the situation. The next day he got a bill
for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming
that this bill was yet another mistake, he ignored it. But the
following month he received yet another bill for $0.00
stating that he had ten days to pay his account in full or the
company would take necessary steps to recover the debt. He
gave in. He mailed in a check for $0.00. The computer duly
processed it and returned a statement to the effect that his
account was paid in full. A week later, the man's bank called
him asking him why he wrote a check for $0.00. He
explained the problem at length. The bank replied that the

$0.00 check had caused their check processing software to
fail. The bank could not now process ANY checks from
ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00
caused a computer crash. The following month the man
received a letter from the credit card company claiming that
his check had bounced, that he still owed $0.00 and, unless
payment was sent immediately, they would institute
procedures to collect his debt. This man, who had been
considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday,
bought her a typewriter instead. Who said, "To err is human,
but to really mess things up it takes a computer ... "?
Computers may not be the root ofall evil, but some ~ays I'm
convinced they come close."

Let us consider how a programming patch could eliminate
this bug. In the part of the program that reads in the amount of
payment to be processed, one could write the following test:
Is the amount = "$O.OO"?
If NO, continue processing
If YES, forget this person and process the next one.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

Simple? Agreed, but this is what a programmer gets paid
$80,000 per year to find and fix.

2.7 Hardware versus Software
Computer hardware is the tangible "hard asset" assemblage of
electronic equipment. Software refers to the collection of programs
that instruct the hardware to function according to the design of
the programmer. Software is intangible and represented by the
information derived from some input medium-punched cards or
key strokes. The term "versus" in the heading refers to the
generations old debate when something goes wrong--is it the fault
of the "hardware" or the "software"? Both are "debugged" over a
period of time and usage.

2.8 Approximations
If we want to track a satellite's trajectory or put a man on the
moon we must solve the pertinent differential equations of motion.
However, we only have the elementary arithmetic operations with
which to work. Therefore, we must use approximations. Simply
put, if we want to differentiate we use differences and if we want to
integrate we use summations. In both cases the interval is very
small so that the approximations mimic reality. We essentially
return to Sir Isaac Newton's definitions in his differential and integral
calculus where he took differences at extremely tiny increments.
Since we have the speed of the digital computers to work with we
can use similar approximations. If we want to program
trigonometric functions such as sine or cosine we program an
approximation formula comprised of arithmetic operations.

2.9 Crossword Puzzles
Programming computers is a little like solving crossword
puzzles-only easier. In programming, one knows all the words
and arranges them into an array which will perform a given task.

No"e"

In solving crossword puzzles, the words are unknown and clues are
derived from determining the words in the opposite direction. I
have always felt that if you like one you will like (and be good at)
the other.
Speaking of crossword puzzles, one of my personals highs in
recent years was the meeting on Cape Cod with Eugene Maleskaeditor for many years of the New York Times crossword puzzles.
He was the neighbor of friends from the Cambridge Boat Club
with whom we were visiting. When they told us about their
neighbor I expressed such interest that they took me over to meet
him. Maleska greeted us in his office which looked more like a
library-with several huge dictionaries all open to various pages.
He was a typical New Yorker-in manner, speech, and dialect. I
told him the story of what happened one Sunday morning during
brunch at the Ritz in Boston. I was sitting there doing the New
York Times puzzle with a friend when I excused myself and
approached a man at another table, puzzle in hand. I asked him if
he would help me with "57 across". The five letter solution was
needed for "Isaac Stern's violin". The person I approached was Isaac
Stern. After his initial surprise he was delighted to help and wrote
in "Strad". He then autographed the puzzle for me-"Fiddler on
the Hoof-Isaac Stern". The following Sunday I learned that the
answer should have been '~ati" however I didn't have the heart
to write and tell him. Gene Maleska was delighted to hear the
story and countered with several of his own-including the time
he composed a puzzle for Frank Sinatra. One of the things I learned
from him is that when a puzzle author composes a puzzle he or she
starts in the lower right hand corner and works up and out from
there. This is the opposite of where most puzzle solvers start-namely,
in the upper left corner-solving 1 across; 5 across; et cetera.
Some time ago I considered the idea of composing the puzzles
automatically by computer. This is not a trivial task. It would
require a very large memory to hold all the possible clues-the
equivalent of Maleska's dictionaries. However, one could custom
design a puzzle to fit an occasion such as a birthday, anniversary,
etc. One would personalize the questions to the recipient with

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

names, vocations, pets, and other things that pertain to the person.
Then the computer could build a puzzle around those personal
facts. When thinking about it I asked a number of people what
they would pay to have a custom puzzle written. My informal
marketing survey revealed that it would have to be in the range of
a birthday card with perhaps $5 being the maximum~ That
discouraged me from pursuing the effort. I asked Gene Maleska if
anyone was doing it and he said-"No, but it would be a good
idea." Neither Maleska nor Stern is with us today but they were
both heroes to me in time past.

2.10 Software Standards
The only body that could have enforced anything resembling
a software standard is our federal government. But historically the
government has always avoided standardizing software to everyone's
disappointment and at enormous and unnecessary cost to the
country. The argument (fallacious, in my opinion) was that
standardizing software would limit innovation.
When the government finally woke up to the fact that software
development had grown to be much more costly than hardware
development in military systems it was too late.
The government wrote a contract to develop a uniform
standardized programming language named '~da" in honor of the
first programmer-Lady Ada Lovelace. She worked under the
direction of Charles Babbage-the inventor of what some call the
first computer, a mechanical sequence calculator.
The contract, curiously, was awarded to a French firm named
Bull who took about two years to write the necessary software to
interpret and execute the language's instructions. Today, the many
allowed exceptions to Ada have doomed its use as a standardized
universal language.
This lack of standardization in software is the most wasteful
and unnecessary tragedy of the computer age. Can you imagine a
world where each individual flashlight has a different sized battery?
Or where bolts and nuts have different pitches to their threads; or

No"e"

where each electrical appliance has a different sized plug and none
of them fit the wall outlet?
Such was and is the world of computer software.

2.11 Summation
I hope I haven't totally confused you but I felt it was important
define the programming process so that the reader would have a
better appreciation for what is involved. It is one of those things
where if one understands the process one can feel comfortable with
what to expect from it and see that it can be easy to work with.
However, each detail, every punctuation mark, is important. It is
difficult to comprehend, yet true, that a misplaced comma in a
program written by a TRW programmer resulted in the destruction
of an $18 million satellite.
In a general sense, if we define a programmer as someone who
tells the computer what to do, every computer user is performing
programming when he/she uses the mouse to select the desired
options for the computer. However, the programmers that we refer
to in this work are those who write the programs in either machine
language or some higher order language which enable the computer
to obey our mouse or keyboard implemented instructions.
Programming can be a frustrating process but the frustration
is balanced by the personal satisfaction that you get when your
program works as it should. MIT's Sherry Turkle wrote that when
you write a program you put part of yourself into it and thus you
protect it like your child.
I have never felt that paternalistic but I, like a few before and
many after, have felt the intense satisfaction of knowing that a
good job has been done and that the results that come from your
work are useful to the university, company or government agency
who pays for your performance. It is one of those professions where
you can't believe that you are being paid for having such a good
and rewarding time.
to

Section 3.0
Early Years-1928-1939
Born the fourth child of John and Rose Wolf from
Transylvania who immigrated to the US in 1917 for all the reasons
folks did in those days, I grew up in Watertown, New York. My
Father and Mother owned and operated a grocery store about 2.5
miles out of town on the road to Lake Ontario. We lived in the
same structure as the store which meant that if we were sitting on
the porch after hours and a neighbor came by to buy something
we would open the store for them.
I inherited a natural flair for salesmanship. I can remember
Mrs. Crowder and my mother having a good laugh at my expense.
It seems as though she had come by looking for Ex-Lax, a popular
laxative at the time. We were out of Ex-Lax but we did have a
different brand called Feen-a-Mint. I tried to sell her the substitute
by saying, "It works just as good."
My mother used to call us the three wonders. When we see a
fellow walking down the street, we wonder if he is coming in.
When he does, we wonder what he wants. When he tells us, we
wonder where it is.

3.1 "Boy, 4, Swallows Pin"
That was the headline in the Watertown Daily Times of an
article on the fact that I had swallowed an open safety pin. In a
small town, that's big news. This is one of my earliest childhood
memories. The sheet on my crib had come loose from the safety
pin which was holding it in place. I had been laid down for my
32

No"e"

afternoon nap and my Mother had headed for the bus on the
corner to take her uptown shopping. I had seen my sisters put
hairpins in their mouths while adjusting their hair and I thus put
the pin in my mouth while I was adjusting the sheet. But the
sheet wouldn't move-perhaps because I was lying on it. I
remember lying on my back to rest and opening my mouth to
swallow. In popped the pin. I can still remember feeling the pain
in my back as the pin was stuck in my esophagus. My sitter called
for my mother who came running back and they took me to the
hospital where the doctors had to perform surgery to remove it
from my stomach. I still have an ugly scar six inches long to remind
me of the incident. Today, GE makes an instrument for closing the
pin in the stomach and retrieving it.

3.2 Buzzer
One contribution that I remember making to our household
was the rigging up of a buzzer for the front door in the store so
that my mother would not go on a false alarm when she thought
she heard someone enter the store while she was in the kitchen. I
cut two strips of metal from a tin soup can and attached one to the
door and the other to the door frame. I bent them so that they
would rub against one another whenever the door was opened,
completing a circuit actuating a door buzzer. I wired the metal
strips to the buzzer in a serial circuit which also had a transformer
to cut down the voltage from the standard household outlet. I
didn't do batteries because I didn't want anyone worrying about
when the batteries would go dead. This system worked so long as
I can remember and was a real time and frustration saver.

3.3 Groups of Tens
In our store, my Father extended credit to people who would
buy during the week and then, on payday, would come in and
"settle up". We kept each person's account on a separate pad with
a carbon sheet between the pages so that we and the customer

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

would each have a copy of what they spent. However, at "settle up"
time we had to add all the numbers to get the total. I can remember
devising a quick way to do this. I would separate out groups of
numbers that added to ten and remember the number of groups
of tens that there were. Then the remainder would be added to the
groups of tens. For example, if the numbers (I940 prices) to be
totaled were:
Doz. Eggs
lIb baloney
1 peck of Potatoes

1.53
2.15

2 cans 'of Soup

1.75
1.18

Candy

0.17

I would start by scanning the rightmost column and observing
that there were two groups of ten (3+7 and 5+5). Adding the
remaining 8 to the two groups of ten would give 28 as the total for
the rightmost column. I would write down the 8 and carry over
the 2. Then I would see that 7+ 1+1+1 would make one group of
ten. Then I would add the 5 to make it 15 and then remember to
add the 2 from rightmost column carry over making it 17. I would
write down the 7 in the middle column with 1 to carry. The final
column would then be a total of 1+1+2+1 = 5 plus the one carried
over to make it 6. Thus the total would be $6.75
In school I would always finish my arithmetic before the other
members of my class. I had a teacher named Mrs. Lines who one
day asked me to go to the front blackboard ,and illustrate my
method for the rest of the class. I didn't se~ anything special about
it. It seemed to me to be a natural short cut. She used to say that
if there were an easier way to do something I would find it.

Section 4.0
The 1940s

don't remember too much about the forties except that they
were the war years with all the trauma that entailed for everyone.
A few recollections follow.

4.1 First Celebrity
The first celebrity I ever met was Frank Leahy-then coach of
Notre Dame. He succeeded Knute Rockne. Coach Leahy later went
on to West Point where he coached such players as Doc Blanchard
(fullback) and Glenn Davis (halfback). I was all of 13 years old
and wore my confirmation suit to meet him. He stopped by the
radio station-WWNY-where my older sister had her own radio
program. Every Sunday night she played the piano for 112 hour. I
have a picture of me taken with Coach Leahy with my eyes open
wide. He looks bored.

4.2 Piano Lessons
I learned bartering early on when I observed my mother doing
the laundry for our piano teacher. We couldn't afford the money
for lessons but doing the laundry paid for lessons for my sisters
and me. I remember picking up and delivering the laundry in my
little red wagon. Both of my sisters progressed to graduate from
the Julliard School of Music in New York City and thence became
professional musicians.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

4.3 Hi-Y Cup
From every graduating class in the Watertown High School
there was selected one male to receive the Hi-Y cup as the most
outstanding graduate. The year I graduated I was President of the
Student Council, played center on the basketball team, was sports
editor of the student paper-the OWL-et cetera. However, one
of my good friends-Don Eberly-was also regarded favorably by
the faculty for things that he had done. Therefore, a tie resulted,
and we were both told that we would receive the cup. However, it
was during World War II-1946-and all the metal had gone to
war. We were told that we would actually receive the cups after the
war. The last time I saw Don he was promoting National Service
down in Washington. That was during the Eisenhower
administration. Eleanor Roosevelt told him that he would never
be able to sell it in a Republican administration.
After college, Don spent 2 hapless years in the Army as a
private-an ill fate for an MIT Physics graduate. He was convinced
that there should be an alternate to Selective Service-which' he
termed National Service-where young people could spend two
years doing something worthwhile for the nation, instead of wasting
time in the military. When Kennedy was elected he instituted the
Peace Corps but this was not quite what Don had in mind. Clinton's
National Service program was more like it-some 40 years later.
By the time 1996 arrived I decided that fifty years was long
enough to wait so I wrote to the Principal of Watertown High
school asked for my cup. Receiving no answer to my letter I wrote
again in 1997 and sent my letter certified mail. One day a few
weeks later I got a phone call from the Principal. He explained to
me that the Hi-Y was disbanded some 10 years previously and
asked if I was serious. I said, "Of course, 50 years is long enough to
wait." He said, "OK, I'll look around the basement and see what
we have."
About two months later the postman delivered a package from
Watertown, New York. My excitement in opening the box
plummeted to disappointment when I saw the cup. It was about

No"e"

half the size of what I had remembered from my youth. My sister
won the female equivalent before me. It was called the Mary Hays
Memorial trophy and was a beautiful silver cup about 12 inches
high on a black plastic base. What I got was a 6" high pewter cup
on a square wooden base. The pewter was scaled and had variable
colors. In the wooden base was inserted a removable brass plate on
which was inscribedWILLIAM M. WOLF
WH.S.
HIIYCLUB
1946

Note that the brass plate was not big enough to spell out
Watertown High School. Also the name of the club was Hi-Y, not
HI/Y. And it wasn't a club honor, it was a school honor which was
named the Hi-Y Cup.
The lesson that I learned is summed up by the advice attributed
to General Colin Powell-"Be careful what you ask for-you just
might get it." Another lesson is the vivid difference between one's
mental image and reality. Often when one anticipates a vacation
or trip one imagines what it will be like. Part of the thrill of living
is to enjoy the experience whether or not it corresponds to your
expectation.

Section 5.0
The 1950s
5.1 Philadelphia
Following a B.S. in Physics from St. Lawrence University in
1950 and an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of New
Hampshire in 1951, I was recruited to join the Fire Control
Instrument Group at the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia, PA.
As a mathematician working in the Operations Research section of
this US Army laboratory my job was to solve by the method of
least squares a set of equations for the design of an out-of-Ievel
computer. This analog computer would compensate for the fact
that an artillery piece in the field rarely has a level platform from
which to fire. The computer was designed to provide the corrections
in aiming the weapon so that it would perform accurately in the
tilted position.
Working with two assistants, the effort consumed many
months using the hand-operated, electrically-powered
Marchant calculator. Such a solution would take about a week
to program and less than 15 minutes to solve on the Whirlwind I-the electronic digital computer that I later was to work
on at MIT.
While in Philadelphia I took evening courses at the University
of Pennsylvania in Theoretical Physics and Servomechanisms. I can
recall visiting the ENIAC-the first modern computer built at the
Moore School of Engineering, One of the engineers bragged to
us----.:."We got it working for 20 minutes last week."

No"e"

In my Theoretical Physics class I had a fellow student named
Paul Bothwell. None of us had a lot of money but Paul had a
scheme that he was working. He had a friend at the Medical
School who would allow him to donate his blood more
frequently than the norm. So Paul would sell a pint of blood
for $18, buy a bottle of red wine for $3 and pocket the difference.
As the semester went along I got to worry about him because he
kept getting whiter and whiter. I then lost track of him until he
showed up in Massachusetts as a Vice President of a firm called
3C-short for Computer Controls Corporation. It was a company
that Bill Wolfson and Ben Kessel and Paul had founded. It was
sold to Honeywell and Paul did very well financially and I was
happy for him-including my happiness that he was still alive!
Then he disappeared from my radar screen. The next time I saw
him he was broke. It turned out that he had turned his fortune
over to a brokerage house and allowed them to put all of his
stocks in 'street name' which allowed them to use them as
collateral for the firm. I think the name of the company was
McDonnell. They went into bankruptcy, out of business, and
lost Paul's fortune. I haven't seen him since but when I do I
suspect he will be well off.
After a year working in Philadelphia I had a career choice
to make. I was offered the opportunity to go down to the
University of Virginia to work on a PhD in Physics on a
fellowship or up to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) to work on a PhD while working as a programmer. I
chose the latter course because I felt that if I were to get a PhD
I would want it to be from MIT. I'm still waiting on that one.
Through the years, I sometimes wondered what would have
happened if I had gone South. I would probably have ended
up teaching in some university somewhere-a cushy job but
not all that exciting. So I packed up my new wife in a 1939
Ford coupe that. I bought from my college buddy, Don Brady,
who was studying Dentistry at the U. of Penn, and drove off to
Cambridge, Mass.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

5.2 MIT
In the Fall of 1952 I was introduced to the MIT (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) community and what a shock that was. I
took a course in Theoretical Physics from Professor Robley Evans
and I remember meeting over coffee with a couple of classmates.
We were discussing a homework problem and one fellow started
working the numbers on a napkin. He used the value for Planck's
Constant in the formula. Can you imagine? Here is a guy who had
memorized the numerical value of Planck's Constant! Recovering
from my amazement, I immediately knew that I was in the big
leagues.
On our first quiz my score was "18". The class average was
"21". This was a far cry from my Dean's List scores I was used to
pulling down. I persevered however and, in the one year that I was
a full time grad student, got all "B"s in my courses which for me
was outstanding.

5.3 Cape Cod System
To put bread on the table and pay the rent during the period
1952-1954 I worked as a programmer at the MIT Digital
Computer Laboratory. The work was on a Lincoln Lab project
called the Cape Cod System. The Whirlwind I computer was used
as the first on-line, real-time application of the digital computer.
There were less than 50 programmers working on this system.
Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson, founders of Digital Equipment
Corp. (DEC), were also working on the project as hardware
engineers.
There was a large range radar at Truro on the end of Cape Cod
anq many gap filler radars scattered around New England. The
system took the radar data which came in over phone lines,
converted it from range, azimuth coordinates to X and Y
coordinates and displayed the data on a large console on the face of
a Cathode Ray Tube of about 20 inches in diameter.

No"e"

Tracks were established by the computer of returns from aircraft.
The data was correlated with known flight data. Those that
correlated were termed "Friendly". The others were "Unknown".
Isn't it curious that on 9/11/01 the Friendly were the Enemy?
In a simulated military situation, jet fighters were scrambled
from Otis Air Force base to intercept the Unknowns. The computer
calculated and transmitted to the pilot heading instructions for
either a head on interception or an interception from the tail.
The lessons learned from the Cape Cod System went into the
design of the Semi Automated Ground Environment (SAGE)
system-our nation's air defense system. IBM was selected to be
the equipment builder, they were taught how to build magnetic
core memories, and the rest is history.
I left MIT on December 15, 1954 to start my own business
while going to graduate school full time and I haven't had a steady
job since.

5.4 First Independent Contract
Even though I had a BS in Physics and a Masters degree in
Mathematics, MIT was paying me less than $5,000 per year. They
gave me a raise and I was still making less than $5,000 per year.
Furthermore, I had a wife, child, and cat to feed and my tuition
was costing me $400 per semester for one course.
I figured that something had to change. Therefore, when I
heard that Meteorology Professor Austin needeod someone to
program some meteorological equations for him I met with him,
made a fixed price bid of $4 per hour for 1000 hours, and he
accepted it. I then left steady employment on December 15, 1954.
I can remember programming in the MIT library since I couldn't
afford an office and it was nice and quiet there. I never looked back
even though I grossly underestimated the length of time that it
would take me to finish. However, I persevered and did finish the
work. Thereafter I had completed my first complete project as an
independent consultant and I had my first job reference.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

However, before I started Professor Austin's job I was detoured
into another effort. (Section 5.5) That first year; 1955, I consulted
with Humble Oil in Houston (Section 5.6) and I also consulted
with Arthur D. Little in Cambridge. My earnings totaled $18K
by the time the year was through. The following year I earned over
$25K since I became heavily involved in work at the Avco Everett
Research Laboratory making $12.50 per hour. (Section 5.7)
Note that in this work the term "K" will be used to connote
"thousands" of the item being described-whether it is dollars or
memory. This is a slight misnomer since K in computer terms is
really referring to two raised to the 10th power or 1,024.

5.5 Nuclear Reactor Design
Charlie Adams and his group wrote a compiler called the
Comprehensive System of Service Subroutines or CS. They then
improved it, gave it the label CSII and made it generally available
to programmers. My first experience with it was also my first job
as an independent programmer in 1954. Professor Benedict, then
head of the Nuclear Engineering Department with Professor
Pigford, wanted some equations solved that were critical to the
design of the type of nuclear reactor to be built at MIT.
Graduate student Marius Troost and I set about the task of
solving these equations on WWI. We only had two weeks to do the
work since the contract was to be let for building this reactor and
these equations must be solved so that they could determine which
type of reactor would be the safest for Cambridge. I was able to
obtain top priority due to the importance of the work to MIT.
That meant that I could get on and off the computer whenever I
was ready, stepping in front of others in the queue.
We then began one of the most intensive two week periods of
work that I ever experienced. There were several days in which I
did not sleep at all-working 24 hours continuously. Without the
benefit of CSII, we would not have been able to complete the work
in that time period. We finished on time and the design process

No"e"

went forward. I often think of that experience when I drive past
the reactor on the campus just off Massachusetts Avenue. There
have been no major problems to date.
Marius who was a student at the time with no programming
experience learned a lot as well. In addition to working with me he
performed hand calculations to check on what was coming from
the computer. He went on to a noble career working with General
Dynamics in San Diego. I went on to build a successful computer
company.

5.6 Humble Oil
In the Spring of 1955 I was interviewed in a hotel room in
New York by a Vice President of Humble Oil named William
Rust. He was an MIT graduate and he was referred to me by Jay
Forrester. He told me that he was interested in a study to address
the application of these new digital computers to the field of oil
exploration. I agreed to go to Houston that summer and work
with Humble.
I had never been to Texas before and it was a very interesting
business and cultural experience. So I packed up the family and
we flew to Houston. My first impression of their scientific
equipment was one of amazement. I had just come from what I
thought was a progressive computer laboratory filled with the latest
equipment. However the equipment at the Geophysics Laboratory
at Humble was considerably more advanced.
For example, they had very sensitive seismic equipment whose
readings were hung along a wall and one could "see" the structure
of the earth below the surface. What one looked for were salt
domes-rock impervious to the oil which gathered underneath
the dome. These were clearly visible, when they occurred.
The professional journal for the industry was called Geophysics
Research and I read all of the journals in a very short time. There
were practically no articles on the use of computers. As a sign of
the degree of modernism that those in the business were willing to

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

share with others, there were pictures of equipment but they were
being transported in horse-drawn wagons.
With respect to their geophysical research, 900/0 of every
research dollar was being spent on seismic exploration and 10%
was spent on the detection of gravitational anomalies. In seismic,
they would string a set of geophones and then detonate a stick of
dynamite in the center. They recorded the resultant reflections on
magnetic tape and on seismographs. For the gravity work they had
a spring made of quartz crystal which was so sensitive that it could
measure the difference in the gravitational constant from the top
of a desk to the floor. At the end of the summer I submitted a
report detailing suggested digital techniques and algorithms for
processing the data from each procedure.
Culturally, Houston was an education and a half. I still
remember my experience in the supermarket when I noticed two
drinking fountains-one labeled "White" and the other labeled
"Colored". Out of curiosity I turned on the colored fountain in
order to see what color the water was. The manager came over and
brusquely told me to leave the area.
We visited the Houston Art Museum one Sunday afternoon
which turned out to be in someone's former residence. I recall
there being one lone painting in the center of a whole wall. Air
conditioning made the intense heat bearable. The outdoor phone
booths were air conditioned. Even a dog house had an air
conditioner on it. Then there was the drive that we took through
the exclusive River Oaks section where we read the mailboxes of
the two Hogg sisters-Ima and Ura.
. But there was a tender trap side to the picture. I can remember
the head of the department for which I worked telling me the
there was no way that he would move back to New Jersey. He was
being paid $75,000, a very large sum at the time, and could not
afford to change his life style. The worst thing that can happen to
an oil company is that they lose one of their top technical people
to a competitor. Therefore, they pay them very high salaries to
keep them in the fold.

No"e"

5.7 Avco Everett Research Laboratory
After spending the summer of 1955 in Houston I returned to
Boston and consulted with the Avco Everett Research Laboratory
(AERL) on the heat shield design to solve the reentry problem.
Dr. Arthur Kantrowitz, an Aeronautical Professor at Cornell, had
convinced the Air Force that he could build a shock tube to duplicate
the heat of reentry. When a body enters our atmosphere from outer
space (a process termed reentry) the heat generated is so intense
that the material physically dissociates molecule by molecule. We
see evidence of this effect when we see what we call a falling star.
Dr. Kantrowitz obtained the Air Force funding under the
umbrella of the Avco Corporation and established a laboratory in
Everett, Mass. with some of his former students-Mac Adams,
Fred Riddell, et al. The goal of the lab was to design a protective
heat shield to absorb the heat of reentry and allow us to safely
bring back a satellite and, eventually, a manned spacecraft.
The shock tube was a copper tube about 12 inches in diameter
and about 100 feet long. At one end would be built up a great
pressure of gas behind a metal membrane onto which was etched a
large X mark. This ruptured after a designated build up of pressure
and the shock wave would travel down the tube and hit a target
model of the heat shield that was being designed. The time until
the target dissolved was about 100 milliseconds. Thus the heat of
reentry was duplicated experimentally. Various shapes and materials
were used to determine how they would fare during these simulated
reentry experiments.
The computer work was to refine the theoretical basis by solving
a set of partial differential equations that had not been solved before.
In so doing we were able to determine the heat transfer through
the boundary layer. This was the very thin layer around the reentry
vehicle wherein the normal laws of fluid motion break down
[specifically, laPlace's equations]. The mathematical work involved
an incremental solution of the partial differential equations where
the increments were very small. Then when the end points of the

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

range in question were reached, the initial conditions were changed
in proportion to the results. This iterative procedure would take of
the order of an hour to run until each set of initial conditions
converged to a solution on the relatively slow IBM 650 drum
computer.
We did not have a computer to work with but there was an
IBM 650 at the John Hancock Life Insurance Company in Boston.
I requested an appointment with Robert Slater, then President of
the John Hancock, and asked his help. I told him what we were
doing and how important the work was to the nation's space effort.
He agreed to let me use their computer so long as it did not interfere
with their use of it. This meant starting when their evening work
was completed-about 10 PM-and working until they started
in the morning-at 8 AM. I would bring in our own IBM punched
cards on which were our programs and our data. It's amazing how
much like a pillow a box of IBM cards feels when you are tired. I
remember setting up a long run and then catching 40 winks on
the top of a desk or cabinet with a box of cards as a pillow. Weekends
were great. I could work all day Saturday and Sunday during the
daytime instead of at night. This work went on for about eighteen
months until completion. Since Slater would not accept any money,
when it was all over I wrote him a letter of thanks telling him how
important his contribution was to our country's space efforts. I
also enclosed a framed signature by "John Hancock" which I got
from a dealer in New York. Ken Olsen later told me that he had
hung it prominently in his vestibule at his home in Weston.
While working at night, I eventually began to get hypnotized
by the chunketa-chunketa-chunketa of the card reproducing
punch. After a progressively shorter period of time, I felt myself
going into a zone where there was only the computer and me-I
was aware of nothing outside. When a guard would walk by, I
would jump up about 2 feet from the startling intrusion into my
entranced world. I also attribute my lack of hearing in my 60s and
thereafter to the collective noise from all the computers I worked
with through the years.

No"e"

This work was so important that the Air Force wrote two
contracts-one with AERL and one with Douglas Aircraft out on
the West Coast. One of the reasons that we beat Douglas was
because we had access to the computer and could correct errors as
they occurred. Douglas had a much more expensive IBM 701 but
their programmers would have to share the time with others and
so did not have the luxury of getting on and off the computer at
will.
The programming was in machine language and I can
remember counting fractions of drum revolutions and placing the
instructions around the drum so that they could be executed
optimally in the time that it took for the drum to revolve a given
distance.
I was usually working alone but occasionally some of the AERL
folks would work with me to see how the results were coming out.
The job and the hours were not without their humorous moments.
I can remember the night that Dr. Fred Riddell called his wife
Margaret at 4:20 in the morning to assure her that everything was
all right and we would probably be at the computer all night.
Dance music suddenly coming over the loudspeakers cast doubt
on Fred's story about working all night. The John Hancock used
to pipe in dance music at 4:20 PM since the staff was predominantly
female and someone probably in what was then called the personnel
department told them that the music was a good idea since it
would make everyone happy when leaving work. However, the
music also came out at 4:20 AM as Fred found out. Later, in the
morning, MIT Professor Jay Fay who was working with us told
Fred-"I'll write you a note telling Margaret where you were all
night." Fred's reply-"You may have to."
At the lab, safety was an issue. With all of the high temperature
gases and the high pressures built up to make the shock wave go
down the shock tube there was plenty of cause and concern for
safety. In fact, there was a safety engineer-a person whose total
job was to look for things that can go wrong. However, the only
accident in the two years while I was there was during a Christmas

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

party when one of the Northeastern students was sitting on the
glass table used for drafting and the glass broke. The student was
rushed to the hospital to remove glass splinters from his derriere.
After this work was completed and computers became easier
to buy I advised AERL on their installation of their own IBM 650
which they used for administrative as well as scientific use. I was
given a bright young mathematician to work with named Calvin
Keeler who wanted to learn how to program. After a few preliminary
discussions with him about what programming and the computer
were all about he and I did the following.
I took a relatively simple program such as payroll and asked
Calvin to literally look over my shoulder as I wrote the program. I
explained to him why I was taking each step. I then gave Calvin an
assignment and reversed positions with him. That is, I looked over
his shoulder while he wrote the program and we talked about
various steps in the procedure. That was all that was necessary.
Calvin then began to write programs and would only occasionally
bring a problem to me concerning which we would have a
discussion and derive a solution. I felt really good about that and
was amazed at how easy it was to train a bright and motivated
student. There was no elaborate classroom or text exercises to wade
through. We just sat down and did it. There is probably some
fancy Greek scholar-Socrates or whomever-who has appended
his name to the method we used but to us it was intuitive. The
teacher does the job with the student observing~ Then the student
does the job with the teacher observing. Then the teaching is done.
It was almost like basket weaving-but a lot more fun.

5.8 Derivation of Mouse Tracking Principles
When I first saw and took apart a hand held mouse as an input
device to the PC it reminded me of an invention thatI encountered
in 1951. My first job out of college was with an Army Operations
Research group at the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia (Section
5.1). My boss was Dr. John Tappert, a brilliant scientist and
engineer. Our group was concerned with Fire Control Instruments-

No"e"

those devices used to control the firepower of the military unit.
The way that an antiaircraft gun was positioned to fire was to have
one person turn a set of cranks to move the gun in azimuth while
the other person turned cranks to move the gun barrel in elevation.
Occasionally you can see this operation in some old time war
movies. In the movies the gunmen shoot down the attacking
warplanes. In practice, this rarely happened. At best, the guns
kept the planes far enough away so that their aim was poor. This
fire control was cumbersome at best and resulted in relatively poor
performance.
Dr. Tappert reasoned that the job would be better done if
control were done by one person. He took a bowling ball the size
of a grapefruit and attached two rollers to the bottom at right
angles to each other. From these rollers he took the azimuth and
elevation readings. Thus, the gunner was able to use his thumbs
and move the ball in a slewing motion. The gun barrel would take
these motions and slew across its range of motion.
The concept of taking motion in two directions off a rotating
ball is used in the present day mouse. If one looks at the bottom of
a mouse, one sees the ball that rotates to give motion to the arrow
which can be taken across the screen in both horizontal and vertical
directions at the same time. By unscrewing the base plate and
dropping out the ball, the rollers at right angles to each other are
visible. Although Doug Engelbart from Stanford got a patent on
the mouse and is generally credited with being its inventor, in fact
the tracking from a rotating ball principles were established in the
1950s by Dr. John Tappert from Philadelphia.

5.9 Pushbutton Dialing
One day while working at MIT in the 1952-1954 period I
got tired of the long time it took me to dial a phone number so I
took the phone apart to see how it worked. I noticed that it only
counted pulses while on the back part of the dialing cycle. This
made sense to me because each person dialing the phone rotates
the dial at their own speed but the return motion is performed at

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

a constant speed in a regulated manner and thus one can form and
send pulses uniformly.
However, I was frustrated with the length of time that the
whole process took of cranking around the dial, then waiting for the
dial to return to its normal position for each digit. I reasoned that
there should be a better way to dial if one used pushbuttons instead
of the dial that was then ubiquitous. We had a lot of experience with
pushbuttons in putting information into the digital computer and I
thought that pushbutton dialing made a lot of sense.
I took my idea to my supervisor and told him that since I had
conceived of the idea while on the job, I would be pleased to assign
patent rights to what I considered to be an invention to the Institute.
He thought about it for a while and told me that in his opinion
there was no basis for an original patent since the jukebox people
would have that field covered in their selection of records by
pushbutton. He told me to go back to work programming which
I did. After all, who was I to question the wisdom of my supervisor?
He was older and smarter than I was-he was the boss.
If I hadn't listened to him but proceeded anyway, both MIT
and I would have been well off from the effort. A royalty for every
phone that uses pushbutton dialing would so fatten the coffers of
MIT that they could afford plenty of scholarships to educate their
students. Inventors then and now participate to the amount of
100/0 of the royalties received by the Institute.

5.10 Light Dimmer for Wall Switch
I can remember having the idea of installing a rheostat in a
wall switch to vary the brightness of incandescent lights. I recalled
from my Physics laboratory experiments that one could control on
a continuous basis the brightness of a light by the amount of
resistance in the circuit. However, I never pursued that idea and it
lay fallow for many years. Then when I saw it on the market I felt
bad that I had not done anything with the idea. I thought of at
least applying for the patent. "However, the cost of the patent,
around $10,000 which would have been two years salary, made

No"e"

such an application prohibitively expensive. Today, thanks to the
efforts of a Boston patent attorney named Rines and others, an
inventor may filed a preliminary application for a patent by sending
in his idea to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) plus
an $80 application fee. He then has one year to find funding for
the idea and for filing a full blown patent application.

5.11 WWI Story-Apple Pie
The best time to work on the computer was when no one else
wanted it-late at night. At this time, one could run one's program
up to a certain point, find an error and fix it, and then proceed. If
one had to wait a long time between runs, as one did in the daytime,
it would take a relatively long time to check out a program. Thus
one could get a lot of work done by having the ability to get on
and off the computer frequently. This could only be done in the
off hours.
One night I was on a schedule, finishing off by midnight.
My wife had brought over an apple pie that she just baked in
Boston. She said that the bus driver could smell the pie and wanted
some. However, she brought it into the computer room intact.
After thanking her, I asked her to sit in the only comfortable placethe ladies room, where there was a couch, until I finished working.
The technicians who were responsible for fixing the computer
if it was down used to lounge in the ladies room while waiting for
some problem to occur. Suddenly, one of the technicians burst
into Test Control and shouted-"There's a LADY in the LADIES
room. "
To which I replied, "That's no LADY, that's my WIFE."
True story.

5 .12 Sheldon Best
One of the writers of CSII-Sheldon Best-left MIT to join
the IBM effort in New York to write FORTRAN-certainly the
most powerful and frequently used scientific compiler in its time.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

Sheldon was from Illinois and he was a pure programmer. I
can remember one lunch time we walked to the Harvard Trust
bank to deposit our payroll checks. I waited so long for him outside
the bank that I asked him what was the delay. He answered that
he kept his checkbook in Octal and he was making the conversion
from decimal to octal.
His filing system was great and involved only two drawers in
his filing cabinet. Anything that he received in the mail or via
interoffice memo went into the top drawer. At the beginning of
each month he moved everything in the top drawer down to the
second drawer, after throwing everything in the second drawer
into the wastebasket. He figured that paper and its content only
had a lifetime of two months.
Sheldon came to my home for dinner one night and proceeded
to cut his spaghetti with a knife and fork-the only time in my life
that I ever saw anyone do that. He also carried on a chess game
with a friend from Illinois. They would send each move in turn on
a single post card. I'm sure they are now using the Internet and
the games are much faster.

5.13 Grace Hopper
It was 1955 when I first met Grace Hopper. I was consulting
with Arthur D. Little in Cambridge and wrote a program for the
UNIVAC computer. It was a relatively brief routine that I wrote
for the purpose of comparison with another machine on which I
had written the same routine. I wanted to check it out on a
UNIVAC and there were very few of them around-none on which
I could buy time. Someone recommended that I call and ask her
help. I found her very easy to approach.
She invited me down to Philadelphia to try out my program.
I can recall going to the second floor over the PEP Boys (Manny,
Moe and Jack) warehouse where the UNIVACs were being
assembled. Testing time was after hours and I recall meeting her
and Mary Hawes. They were the principal COBOL developers

No"e"

with Grace being the spokesperson for the language, as well as for
programmers in general.
My program was written in machine language since COBOL
was under development. The program did not work the first time,
of course, but the experience was so exhilarating that when I left I
took the Elevated the wrong way, going West instead of Eastunderstandable behavior at 5 AM.
We had a second meeting when she was in Boston for a
computer conference and I invited her to dinner at Locke Obers. I
recall that she ordered duck under glass. I had the habit in those
days of spooning vanilla ice cream into my coffee for dessert. She
commented that her grandmother had that same custom. We had
a truly memorable evening talking shop and sharing experiences.
She showed genuine interest in what I was doing in building my
company.
I remember her telling me the story of one of her critics
complaining that her COBOL programming was so easy and
effective that it would eliminate the requirements for programmers.
Their argument was that once a payroll program was written there
would be no reason to write another payroll program. As if on cue,
the city of Philadelphia helped her cause by changing the rates
and the formula for computing the city tax. In Philadelphia the
city taxes payrolls if you work within the city limits.
A third meeting we had was near the end of a computer
conference in some city and we both sat down for a drink and a
rest. She asked what we were up to and I brought her up to date
with some of the more interesting things in which our company
was involved including our space work. It was at a time when our
nation was having difficulty launching anything successfully. I told
her about the Canadians who were able to achieve orbit when they
launched a grapefruit sized meteorological satellite by shooting it
into orbit through a smooth bore artillery piece. Her response
was-"That's just what I feel like-a smooth bore artillery piece."
Another time she appeared on the David Letterman show
carrying a few segments of copper wire, each about 10 inches long.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

When he asked what that was she explained, "That is a nanosecond.
That is how long electricity will travel in one nanosecond." I don't
remember his response, nor do I remember why she was on the
show, but I do remember my feeling that the show's producer was
casting pearls before swine.
The last time I called her I was told that she was retired and
seriously ill and not taking any calls. I later read about her in the
newspaper where her obituary mentioned her life's work but missed
the essence of one of the truly great people in the computer world.

5 .14 Industrial Publications Corp.
An example of how quickly technology can change the work
environment was our experience with our printing company. One
of the things that bothered us after our first government contract
was the length of time it took to have the final report published. It
took weeks, including corrections. There had to be a better way.
We hired AI Nelson, the guy who did the printing for us and
formed a new business-Industrial Publications Corp. The
company performed about 500/0 of its work from outside customers
such as Raytheon and 500/0 from Wolf R&D Corp. It solved our
time delay problem and gave our programmers first priority on
getting the job done expeditiously. This went on for a few years
until the Xerox came along. The government accepted Xerography
both in final reports and in proposals where the timing was critical.
Since the turnaround time was immediate, our engineers and
programmers didn't need the publications company any longer.
So we closed down operations, paid all the bills, and terminated
the company. Funny, I even remember what it cost us to close
down-$18,000.

5.15 Hooper Holmes
It was in the late 1950s when we were first visited at our offices
in Boston by Theodore (Ted) King, President of Hooper Holmes,
Inc. of Moorestown, New Jersey. His firm was engaged in various

No"e"

activities of gathering investigative data on individuals for the
insurance industry. Ted and his associates had concocted the idea
of creating a computer-based file of dead beats directed toward
aiding the direct mail industry.
Columbia Records, Grolier's, and other direct mail companies
routinely place ads in the newspapers seeking people to join their
book, record or other programs. To those who respond they mail a
book or record of the month with the agreement that the customer
will mail them a check to pay for the items. This was before the
day of credit card payments, so customary today. Deadbeat
customers would receive the merchandise and never pay. It is not
worth the effort to pursue in court the return of an item that
might cost of the order of $20.
Ted envisioned a computer-based deadbeat file against which
the results of an advertising campaign would be compared to
identify those who had failed to pay in the past. This sounded like
an intriguing computer application so we agreed to work with
Hooper Holmes on establishing this "Credit Index". Someone
thought that this would be a better name for it than what it wasa file of deadbeats.
The first thing to be established was which computer on which
to program the application. From other experiences and general
knowledge of the two, we preferred the Honeywell ·"H200" to the
IBM "IBM 1401". It was much more powerful, less expensive,
and at least as reliable. Ted's New Jersey IBM marketing men refuted
our decision and leaned on Ted to maintain the continuity in what
was an "IBM shop". That is, all of the other equipment at Hooper
Holmes was IBM owned. At that time, it was popular throughout
the business to take the safe route and select IBM, especially for
new applications. The argument that one heard time and again
was-"You can't go wrong if you pick IBM". A paraphrase of this
feeling is-"If it can't be done on IBM, it can't be done." More
hogwash. At one time I told people that I make my living refuting
the lies told by IBM salesmen. This was fact, not prejudice. To his
credit and very satisfying to us, Ted had the courage to support
our decision.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

We then set about our work of establishing the formats, writing
the comparison programs, etc. Our project director, Richard Tear,
surmised that the sort of person for whom we were designing the
file would change their names, to escape detection, but would be
less likely to change their addresses. Therefore, we keyed on the
addresses for comparison purposes. This enabled us to pick up on
fraternities, sororities, and other places of fun-loving no-payers.
The running of the program against real data also revealed one
fellow who had a "tree" complex. That is, from his same address he
would send in an entry with the names-Mr. Peachtree, Mr.
Appletree, and Mr. Peartree, none of which worked. Another chap
would mail an entry on different days of the week-one on Monday,
one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, etc. He got a letter from the
customer's Vice President of Circulation stating-"You can try
until doomsday, Sir, we have your number."
Hooper set the price at $.05 per name and address checked.
Therefore, if we found at least one deadbeat in 20 entries, there
would be a savings of $1.00 to justify the application. This was
the correct price and the application worked like a charm, thanks
to Ted and his sales force carrying the message to the industry.
One interesting feature was the importance of the Credit Index
Master Data File (of deadbeats). As Ted's sales force approached
each new prospective client one of their strong selling points was
that if someone was a no-payer for someone else, his or her behavior
would undoubtedly prevail for the prospective customer. This
merging of deadbeats made the file become more valuable as time
went on. To ensure that it would be preserved in its early stages,
our programmer would bring a magnetic tape containing a copy
of the file home with him to his house in Boston each weekend
when he came home, taking the old file back for updating. It may
sound crude in the age of computers but it worked and we never
lost a copy.
In the 1980s Ken Rossano, Ted's brother-in-law and a former
Senior Vice President of the First National Bank in Boston, called
me and said that Hooper Holmes was setting a new direction for
the firm and therefore wanted to sell the Credit Index application.

No"e"

He knew that we had established the application and would be
able to appreciate its value. I can remember feeling frustrated
because it was a cash cow but I did not have the funds or backing
to make an offer. It was eventually sold to a management team
who are now operating it very successfully, I have been told.

5.16 IBM Tactics
Back in the 1950s when IBM owned 800/0 of the computer
market, IBM salesmen were tenacious in their approach toward
grabbing more sales.
When the Air Force Space Track programming and operations
contract went out for competitive bid, our bid of $64K per month
was less than 80/0 lower than IBM's bid and about 150/0 lower than
that of General Electric. We were ecstatic that we outbid the giants
by such a close margin. We wanted the business so badly that we
would have taken the job for much less but our Price Waterhouse
auditing consultant advised us to bid the $64K amount. This gave
us financial latitude to make some mistakes in our staffing estimates
and still come out ahead.
When IBM learned of the results of the open competition
they decided to employ a typical IBM dirty trick. They passed the
rumor to the Air Force procurement folks that I was having a nervous
breakdown.
The next thing I knew I was called by Carmen Iadonisi
(nicknamed "ID"), the head of the Air Force Hanscom procurement
office who wanted to talk with me personally. I was tipped off by
one of my computer operators as to the purpose of the meeting.
The Air Force was required to check out the truth of the rumor.
They could not award the contract to any company about whom
there was a question of performance.
This was one of those experiences that confirmed that insider
expression-"the operators always know." They know everything
that is going on in a computer installation, perhaps because they
are the human interface between the computer user and the
machine. We stressed personal service and when the government

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

technical personnel were in a bind to get work out in a hurry, we
tried our best to support them.
Returning to the IBM ploy, I dressed appropriately for my
meeting with ID, the procurement director-neat, clean, but not
too spiffy. I can still remember our conversation even though it
was held in 1958. At the appointed time I showed up, shook
hands and accompanied ID into his office-just the two of us.
He told me that he had heard that I was having a nervous
breakdown and asked me if it ,was true. I replied-"No, but if I
have to deal with you much longer, I will." We both laughed and
chatted about our new contract and how important it was to us
and to the Air Force space effort. This was before the days of NASA
and the Air Force had the prime responsibility for space activities.
Project Space Track was set up to track all earth orbiting objects.
ID was satisfied and I left.
When I returned to my office in Boston, I called the head of
the Boston IBM office, Paul Knaplund, and asked him to come
over. I also told him why I wanted to see him. He and one of his
salesmen showed up the next day and I invited them into my
office to meet with me and one of our Vice Presidents-Dick
Jenney. I told them in detail what had happened and the legal
steps I would take if IBM spread any more lies, rumors, or
innuendos reflecting on me or my company. They apologized
profusely and promised that it wouldn't happen again. I noted to
myself that they didn't deny it.
So, what did IBM do with Phil Bradley, the manager of the
Cambridge office who was behind it all? They gave him a promotion
and transferred him to Washington, D.C.

5.17 Federal Reserve Work
We were invited to write some programs for the Federal Reserve
Bank (Fed) in Boston. They constituted comparing individual bank
statistics with others in the region as well as with national averages.
I was impressed with the tightness of their security back in the
1950s but also with the modernity of their equipment.

No"e"

On tour of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York I was told
that the reason why our founding fathers decided on a national
currency was because there was too much counterfeiting "being
done-especially in Massachusetts. I wondered what the crowd
would be told on a tour of the Boston branch.
On my first sales call to the Fed in Boston I noted a quotation
on the wall from the Act of Congress establishing the Fed. On the
bottom right hand side were the words: Carter Glass. When I met
with our client, whose first name was Ted, I asked him what kind
of glass is the Carter glass that I noted in the lobby. He explained
to me that Carter Glass was the name of the Senator who wrote the
law establishing the Fed.
Then he covered my embarrassment by asking me what kind
of animals live in the Jordan Marsh? Jordan Marsh was the name
of a large department store in Boston, now owned by Macy's.

5.18 Flash Data Triangulation
Before our age of satellites, back in the 1950s, we had a
contract to work with the Air Force Cambridge Research
Laboratories (AFCRL) to attempt to determine the relative
distance between the three continents-North America, South
America, and Africa.
From a geodetic survey point of view, the continents were pretty
well surveyed. What we didn't know with any reasonable precision
was where the continents were with respect to each other.
The program we were working on had been struggling for
years in trying to launch a rocket and trigger a set of flashes that
would be visible from the 3 continents. The plan was to photograph
these flashes against a star background. From these data, employing
triangulation, we could measure the relative distance between three
land stations-one positioned on each continent.
There was a very expensive camera at each site called a BakerN unn camera. This camera had a very large lens which enabled
one to photograph the flashes since they were pointed at the spot
in the sky where the flashes were to take place.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

In the past, something always went wrong. If it wasn't bad
weather, it was equipment failure such as the launch aborted, the
flash didn't work, etc.
Finally, on the last attempt to conduct this experiment there
was a successful launch of a rocket from the Wallops Island launch
site. The rocket climbed to altitude high over the Atlantic on
schedule. The weather was clear. The flashes went off as they were
supposed to and to everyone's expectation, results were finally
envisioned. And it was just in time because the program had run
out of money. Furthermore, any future experiments were destined
to be run using satellites containing the flash mechanisms.
Everyone anxiously awaited the pictures from the Baker-N unn
cameras. The ones from South America were perfect, as were the
ones from North America.
However, the films from Africa were totally blank.
The problem?
An Airman had forgotten to remove the lens cap from the camera!
Now, annually, the AFCRL published a report on their research
for the preceding year. I always admired what the Director of the
Laboratories wrote in summing up the work done on the Flash
Rocket Triangulation program. I can even remember his words"Technical difficulties precluded the gathering of any meaningful
data from this program."

5.19 Aqueduct
We negotiated a contract referred to us by Honeywell to operate
the pari-mutuel betting computers at Aqueduct Race Track in New
York. The programming was done by the customer and it was our
job to operate the computers faultlessly. The software was
programmed to operate on one computer. For the sake of backup
an additional computer was installed. Then to be ultra safe a third
computer was added. The customer was an Australian company
which provided betting equipment and service to race tracks around
the world.

No"e"

Everything was going swimmingly until one fine day in August
when a programmer from the Australian company came on the
scene and asked if he could install new software. Our operator who
was very experienced with computers said, simply "NO!" very firmly
"not during track operation".
The programmer then appealed to a higher authority who
overruled our operator. You can't imagine what happened. Not
only did he knock out the third computer, he also affected the
second, and, of course, the primary operating machine.
The track was shut down for over an hour and there were
unhappy campers all over the place. It made the front page of the
New York Times and from that date forward no changes were allowed
during operations.
The important lesson learned from this story is not the
malfeasance of the Australian programmer, although his was bad
behavior that needed to be reckoned with. It is the realization that
without computers there was no way that the track could operate.
That is, their pari-mutuel computations and display of odds, etc.
were so computer-dependent that they could not return to a manual
system-either in an emergency or when planned.

5.20 Pat McGovern
One of the computer people that I have always had a lot of
respect for is Patrick McGovern, an MIT graduate of the 1950s
era. After graduation he worked for an accountant in Wellesley
named Edmund Berkeley who was so taken with computers that
he founded a monthly magazine-Computers & Automation. Pat
left and formed his own company that he called International Data
Corp. (IDC) based in Framingham, MA. His first publication was
Computerworld a weekly newspaper that was the most
knowledgeable computer publication in the early days. His
reporting of events such as what was new at computer shows was
accurate and incisive. Consequently, his publication was considered
the authority and was often quoted by other media. Today IDC is

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

an international news conglomerate producing Computerworld,
PC World, Macworld, Network World, etc. in 85 countries around
the world.
He also had one of the earliest active and useful databases listing
the computer installations by application and geography. This was
very useful if one wanted to contact the decisions makers and
operators of the country's mainframe computers.
One of the most remarkable things about his career path is
that he never took the company public, preferring to keep it private
and independent of any' outside investment interests. Yet, the
company grew. Recently, Forbes magazine claimed his net worth
to be two billion dollars.
A few years ago, he and his wife committed $350 million over
twenty years to MIT to found the McGovern Institute for Brain
Research. This was the largest gift in the history of the Institute.

Section 6.0
The 1960s
6.1 Whirlwind Move

here was a line by Steve McQueen in that powerful movie"The Magnificent Seven"-when someone asked him why he and
the other six gunfighters were there, guarding an obscure Mexican
village from the bandidos. He answered-"There was a fellow who
took off all his clothes and went running through the tumbleweeds.
When someone asked him, Why?, he said-Seemed like a good
idea at the time".
The time was April 1, 1959 when we first approached the
Office of Naval Research (ONR) with an unsolicited proposal to
lease the Whirlwind I computer. MIT had told the Navy that they
had no further use for it and wished to abandon it in place. The
Navy was faced with the dilemma of what to do with it. I learned
later that one fellow at ONR thought at first that our proposal was
an April fool's joke. Would that it were.
Our thought was that there were several unique features
associated with the computer that were not generally available in
the open market and that if we had this computer we could perform.
some research and development work that other companies could
not. Most of these ideas centered around the fact that this computer
had a large number of cathode ray tubes mounted in large consoles
with which an individual could sit and interact directly with the
computer. By sampling from one to another, the computer could
be programmed to service the needs of a variety of users
simultaneously. Another feature that it had was a unit in which a
63

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

cathode ray tube was mounted vertically with its face pointing up.
Above this was mounted a photoelectric cell which could receive
information displayed on the cathode ray tube. These features and
others could allow us to perform some things with the computer
that no one else was able to at that time. After a lengthy negotiation,
the Navy agreed to lease it to us for a nominal rate after we had
moved it from MIT and set it up elsewhere. This was said to be
impossible to do by many of the experts at MIT.
In a remarkable and unusual offer of cooperation, MIT
President James Killian offered us the opportunity to buy the
building in which it was housed-the Barta Building on 277
Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. There was a stipulation that
we sell it back to MIT when we no longer needed it for the
computer. The price was established at $250K and I searched
unsuccessfully for the financing so that we could buy the building.
After a reasonable period of time (about 6 months) the offer was
withdrawn by the Institute. Thus, we set about moving the
computer out. Over a period of about 6 months we disassembled
the computer and prepared it for the move. The key was to move it
in pieces that were as large as possible. This we did by separating it
into three large units-two on the second floor and one on the
first floor. We labeled and disconnected the wires from one unit to
the other. We unscrewed the wireways from in between each of the
racks and squoz it together like an accordion.
I can well remember the night when, after interviewing several
movers, one of whom wanted to build a steel superstructure around
the whole thing and move it that way, we interviewed John Price
from the Litchfield Moving company. John is one of those
imaginative yet practical people who was not afraid to take on an
unusual job. Looking at it, he postulated that the structure of the
rows of racks were so overdesigned in terms of strength that they
should be able to stand the strain of moving. To prove his point he
went out into his car and brought in a jack. We went up to the
longest rack-about thirty feet long and lifted one end. Anything
might have happened at that point. If the racks were not strong
enough the circuit boards which made up the flip flops and other

No"e"

logical functions could have snapped and popped-destroying those
elements and making the whole move infeasible.
However, after several tense moments-the steel structure held,
nothing was bent out of shape and we knew that we would be able
to use the steel framework of the machine as a carrying structure.
John Price was able to quote us an approximate figure for moving
which we could afford and we went ahead with the project. My
recollection tells me that the price was around $25K.
We knocked out the brick walls and made a large opening in
the side of the Barta Building, moved the three large units by a
crane pulling them along the floor over round wooden logs and
out of the building. As the crane operator picked them and put
them on the truck he estimated that they weighed about 18 tons
each. We leased some space from the Navy in the Terminal at South
Boston and stored it there for about 2 years while we searched for
a place to reinstall it. Finding nothing that worked in the way of
an available building we finally decided to build our own building
in Concord Mass.
I interviewed The Architects' Collaborative in Cambridge.
Gropius was still alive at that time. At a site visit on Route 2 in
Concord one of the architects observed that one of their partnersLouis McMillen-lived right across the highway. Therefore, they
felt compelled to design something that would be pleasing to his
eye when he woke up in the morning.
Bill Geddis and Alex Cjivanovic then designed a structure that
was just right for our purposes. The walls were of cement block
upon which they used a Swedish process called Bostic for coating
and sealing. There were three hoses spraying simultaneously. One
hose sprayed sand, the second sprayed a tan color, and the third
was epoxy which bound the surface together. The result was a very
attractive building. We built three walls, John Price rolled in the
computer, and then we built the fourth wall. We then set about
the task of connecting the computer back together.
Our Vice President AI Shortell, an EE from MIT, supervised
the work and did an outstanding job. I can still remember the
trauma engendered by Ai's reporting to me one day that we are

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

experiencing a "silver migration problem." That is the silver solder
was migrating through the plastic board upon which it was mounted
from one terminal to an adjacent one, causing an electrical short.
This was so serious that it could sink the whole project. I can still
feel my relief when one of his technicians came up with the solution
which was to take a quarter inch drill and physically drill a hole
through the board to interrupt the flow of silver. The board was
substantial enoug1to hold together even though these holes were
drilled through it t appropriate places. That is one example of the
practical solutio s we came up with to solve unanticipated
problems-solutio s that they didn't teach at MIT.
I gained a great deal of respect for the Northeastern University
students who we hired to work on this project. Both in
disassembling it in Cambridge and then again in assembling it in
Concord, on a unit of work per man hour basis they were unbeatable.
The University had a cooperative program whereby the student
went to school for a semester, then worked in industry for a semester,
and so forth. Each semester we got a different set of students, some
of whom had worked with us previously. I do recall having to
make up some stories about the research and development that
the students were engaged in because moving a computer did not
fit into any of the professional work activities defined by the school.
Unfortunately, by the time we reassembled the computer our
opportunities for R&D work had diminished somewhat with the
intervening three or four years. We did do some work for the Air
Force and some work for Buckminster Fuller on his World Game.
In addition, we used the computer to program some of our
administrative functions. The computer was also featured in the
LIFE magazine article (See 6.15). After we sold Wolf R&D to
EG&G the expense of the computer could not be justified.
Therefore, I bought back the building and the computer in it.
One number I do recall is that the power cost $2500 per month
from the Town of Concord who owned their own power plant.
Finally, when I needed to rent the space to get some income, I
and a crew of dedicated men disassembled it and sent it to the
Concord dump, preserving historically significant parts such as

No"e"

the original magnetic core memories which are now in the
Smithsonian Museum in Washington and the MIT museum in
Cambridge.
What's the bottom line? Over a period of less than ten years
we spent about $250K on the move and our income from selling
computer time was about $100K. Not a profitable project, nor
was the time we spent on it well invested since we could have been
building our business in other directions. However, I never regretted
the move since it proved, once again, that nothing is impossible if
you have a good cadre of technically competent people and that
most important element for success-persistence.

6.2 Ted Kennedy
In the 1960s Joe Freedman who had done some publicity work
for Wolf R&D convinced me that I should apply for the honor
designated "Ten Outstanding Young Men of Greater Boston". It
seemed like a good idea so I did. The Boston Junior Chamber of
Commerce bestowed that honor annually to young men under
the age of 35 who had affected the community in a positive way.
After an endorsement by James Killian, President of MIT, and
some other endorsements, I was notified that I had been selected.
This was quite an honor and I relished it with pride. I found
out that the number of awardees was to be eleven, not ten, and
they were to include: Dr. John Knowles, General Director of the
Massachusetts General Hospital; Boston Mayor Kevin White; and
Ted Kennedy.
Since they placed us on the podium in alphabetical or~er I
was the last and I made some joke about just making it. However,
years later, one of my friends and I were talking about it and he
asked, "Who do you think had enough political power to have the
Chamber change the number from 10 to II?" Not knowing, I
asked him, "Who?" He said, "Ted Kennedy, of course. He wanted
the award since his brothers had received it before him and he
needed some credibility in his race against George Lodge for the
Senate seat that Fall."

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

George Lodge was a featured speaker that evening, yet the best
politician of them all [Kennedy, Lodge, and White] was John
Knowles. He had the audience eating out of his hand. His humor
and presentation were superb and far superior to the others.

6.3 Moving Madagascar
In the course of our work for the Goddard Space Flight Center
we were reducing some radar data from the Moon 250,000 miles
away. There were three radar sites on earth pointed toward the
Moon to receive data. One was located in England, one in California
and one on the island of Madagascar. Thus, as the earth rotated,
we could be in constant contact with our astronauts as they traveled
to and from the Moon.
However, our geodesists noticed that the Madagascar data were
displaced from the data received by the other two sites. After
pondering the source of these errors they came to the conclusion
that the coordinates of the Madagascar radar site must be incorrect.
By adjusting these parameters they were able to get consistentdata.
Therefore, they concluded, and reported to NASA, that
Madagascar was four hundred meters North of where all the maps
said that it was. That's about 4 football fields-a significant
measure in terms of the cartographers-those who make maps.
NASA crowed about that discovery for a year-in scientific
publications, etc.

6.4 Boston Strangler
It is difficult to imagine the paranoia throughout Boston in
the early 1960s when murder after gruesome murder by
strangulation was committed, always of women, with no apparent
clues as to who-dun-it. One could not buy a guard dog or any
other kind for that matter. The TV and Press were having a field
day fanning the flames of fear amongst females.

No"e"

Attorney General Ed Brooke stepped in and assigned one of
his most able lawyers, John Bottomley, to coordinate the effort to
find and stop the Strangler. One of the members of his team was a
representative of the District Attorney's office-Julian Soshnick, a
current neighbor.
One of the most significant things Bottomley did was to pool
the evidence. Since the stranglings occurred in different towns under
different police jurisdictions there was no central depository of the
evidence. He also got the Police Chiefs to meet and talk with one
another about what was happening.
Another thing he did was to respond positively to my offer to
volunteer our assistance to the Attorney General in any way we
could. Thus, we sent in a small team of computer people headed
by Sandy Isaacs who was one of our best consultants.
Sandy tells the story about one of the meetings of Police Chiefs,
convened to meet Peter Hurkos, the mystic, who was also called in
to help. One of the Police Chiefs was late and apologized, mumbling
something about traffic. Hurkos looked at him and said that it
wasn't the traffic that delayed him. He described the hotel room,
what she was wearing, and who pulled down the sh~de. The Police
Chief turned very red in the face and just sat there, confirming the
Hurkos description. This story was confirmed by Julian who was
also there. Hurkos was a very scary guy to be around. But, in the
end, he couldn't do anything to help.
One of the things we insisted upon was anonymity. Tensions
were very high and we did not want a kook coming to our building in
Concord and throwing a rock through our window. However, we did
allow a TV crew to take footage of some cards being sorted to represent
a search for clues. This was shown on the evening news and newspaper
stories were written describing an anonymous computer company
that was using the computer to track the Strangler.
Then, an amazing thing happenedThe stranglings stopped!

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

In subsequent discussions about why they stopped-it was
apparent from the evidence that not only was there a Boston
Strangler but there were imitators. How could one tell? The knot
was tied differently. And, as we found out later, Albert de Salvo,
the confessed Strangler, was behind bars on other charges.
As it turned out, that was the end of the stranglings.
We surmised, I believe correctly, that the publicity about the
computers stalking the strangler scared the imitators off the streets
and de Salvo being incarcerated ended the whole episode. I never
before realized the power of the computer in the minds of the
public. We will never know, of course, but it was our opinion that
the public's perception that the computer would find the Strangler,
fueled by the news media, frightened the imitators and a nervous
calm was gradually restored.
As it turned out, there was no way that we could do anything
to solve the crimes. In the apartments of those strangled there
were various phone numbers written on scraps of paper, etc. In
one case, investigators found in the bathroom torn off pages from
a directory which was reconstructed to be the West Suburban
directory. We talked about putting all the telephone numbers in
the computer and searching for matches. However, we never got
that far.
We found out later that de Salvo would leave work on a
construction site in Revere at the end of a working day, cross over
the bridge into Boston, ring a doorbell at random posing as a
handy man that the landlord had sent, and murder a woman in a
most terrible way which I can not bring myself to repeat to the
reader even though 40 years have passed. He would then go home
and sit down to supper with his family in Woburn. Since his hits
were random there was no correlation that we could possibly have
made from the evidence in the apartments.
The Strangler was a real baddy. I couldn't sleep nights just
thinking about the gruesome, perversely sexual things he had done
to women he didn't know who were helpless victims of his sick
mind.

No"e"

What the whole experience taught me was the power of the
computer (as amplified by the TV and the press) in the minds of
the public-at least the segment of our society who were willing
and able to imitate the stranglings for whatever joy this behavior
held for them.
When it was all over, we were privately commended by Brooke's
office and we had a very good feeling about our work and its effect.
In his final report on the subject Brooke mentioned the possible
future uses of the computer in the field of criminal detection and
apprehension.
Today the FBI is able to file, find and transmit over phone
lines the criminal's fingerprints with the aid of the computers.
Technology is also available for the authorities to match face and
voice images as further tools for detection and prevention.

6.5 Magnetic Core Dispute
Back in the early 1960s R.J. Horn called me one day to discuss
a problem on which he was working. Over lunch he described a
serious situation at MIT. It centered around the magnetic core
memory that Jay Forrester had invented as a primary storage device
for the Whirlwind Computer. Forrester had patented it and
assigned the patent to MIT, as was and still is the custom. MIT
was a member of a consortium of colleges and universities which
relied upon a New York company called the Research Corporation
to take its patents and write royalty agreements with commercial
companies. Succinctly, the Research Corporation had just mucked
up a negotiation with RCA over the core memory by asking too
high a royalty-insisting on something like $.10 per core when
RCA was only willing to pay $.05. RCA then took a serious look at
their forecasted use of cores and withdrew from the negotiations
altogether.
The leading manufacturer of computers with over 800/0 of the
market was the International Business Machines Corp. (IBM).
There was a dispute between MIT and IBM as to what royalties

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

IBM should pay MIT for a license to use the Forrester patent. This
dispute 'was so serious that Thomas Watson, President of IBM,
had resigned from MIT's board of trustees; and James Killian,
President of MIT, had resigned from IBM's board of directors.
RJ had left his job on the Whirlwind computer project to
become a patent attorney with Kenway Jenney-one of Boston's
most prestigious patent law firms and MIT's patent counsel. He
asked me if our company-Wolf R&D-would take a look at the
present magnetic core population and forecast what the population
might be in the future. I agreed to do so and estimated that it
would cost $25K and take about six months. This was at a time
when our commen;:ial rate was $12.50 per hour. During the course
of the next six months we studied the problem and wrote a final
report.
The first thing we did was count the cores in existence at the
time. We simply counted the computers. There was a government
publication by Martin Weik in which he listed all the government
computers and their technical characteristics. Thus we could add
up the cores from each computer. That covered the government
market. The commercial market was not difficult to determine
since the types of computers having core memories was known
and the numbers of these computer sold was fairly easy to estimate.
An extrapolation was made based upon what we felt the likelihood
of new sales of these computers would be.
The second thing we did was to talk with core manufacturers.
They knew how many they were selling and how many their
competitors were selling. Of particular help was my friend Jim
Schallerer who at that time worked in marketing for Indiana
General, the New Jersey firm which was the leading manufacturer
of cores. I had known Jim from our Whirlwind days together at
MIT's Digital Computer Lab. Jim's estimates for future production
and sales provided a second curve of extrapolation.
Finally, we looked at IBM's sales figures. We defined a date at
which the computer was introduced. Before that time the growth
was fairly steady and linear. We presumed that this growth was

No"e"

due to their ordinary non-computer line of office equipmenttypewriters, etc. We projected that line forward for the number of
years in question. We then observed the differences between that
line and the actually reported numbers of IBM sales. This difference
we attributed to the sale of computers. We then extrapolated the
difference, i.e. what we presumed to be the computer component,
forward a number of years. We reasoned that these increased
computer sales would result in a particular number of computers
being sold, thus cores. At the time there was an average number of
cores sold per computer.
None of these three projections were the same. However, they
bracketed what we thought would happen in the number of years
of interest. The rationale that produced these numbers was so sound
that the projections were used as the basis for settlement of the
dispute between IBM and MIT over how much in royalties IBM
should pay MIT. This resultant settlement, based upon our
projections, resulted in the largest income to the Institute from
any MIT patent to that date-of the order of $20 million-of
which Jay Forrester received 100/0. In those days (the 60s) a million
dollars was a million dollars. Inflation would peg those numbers
at more than ten times that amount in today's dollars.
For our work we billed Kenway Jenney (thus, MIT) $25K.
The Research Corporation billed MIT $250K for doing the wrong
thing. That bill was also paid, I learned later. The disparity in
payment did not detract from our pride in knowing that our work
figured so prominently in settling the dispute between such giants
of industry and academia (IBM and MIT).
Once the dispute was settled IBM donated a multi-million
dollar computer center to the Institute and the Watson Computer
Center was founded. Also, Watson and Killian rejoined each other's
boards. About a year later, at an annual dinner at the President's
house, President Stratton took me aside and personally thanked
me for the work we did. Thirty years later, the remarkable Mrs.
Stratton remembered our work and again thanked me at an MIT
alumni dinner in the· President's house.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

6.6 Hal Seward
One of the most inventive engineers I have known is Harold
(Hal) Seward. One of his inventions is the Optisyn. Before the
Optisyn, to detect and measure shaft rotation, one used a Giannini
analog to digital converter that had a series of metal fingers in
contact with a circular surface which had a series of bar codes etched
on its surface. Thus, as the shaft to which the circle was attached
rotated or moved, a different set of bar codes would make contact
with the fingers and a digital readout would be transmitted which
a computer could read as an angular position. This device had a
number of things wrong with it. The principal one was that the
brushes which were in contact with the circular disk would wear
out and the device had a useful lifetime of only about 200 hours.
This was not an acceptable lifetime.
Hal invented the Optisyn which had no touching parts to
wear out. It was predicated upon the shining of light through a
circular disk which had a series of circular arcs or holes cut into the
disk. Thus, as the disk rotated, the device delivered a series of
electrical codes which were generated by the varying configurations
of light passing (or not passing) through the designated holes or
arcs cut into the disks. Since there were no parts in contact with
one another, there was no wear and the products had a relatively
unlimited lifetime.
Wolf R&D used some of Hal's Optisyns to follow the position
of the cursor in a board which we designed for the Air Force to
trace the contour of weather maps. We digitized these contours for
computer input along an orderly grid which provided the data
input to various weather forecasting programs.
Hal told me later that ours was the first order for his company.
He was very successful through the years selling the Optisyn and
his other inventions. I liked his company name-H.H. Controls
Company. H.H. are his first initials and he always controlled the
company-a private company as long as I have known him-for
50 years now.

No"e"

6.7 Nasa Houston
One of the most important and exciting things about business
is the opportunity to be open to change. Oprah Winfrey said it"Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity."
Back in the early 1960s Harry Kahler told me about a friend
of his named Bob Buddey who lived in Florida. Harry suggested
we hire Bob to open a Cocoa Beach office to solicit work from the
NASA launch facility at Cocoa Beach. I had breakfast with Bob
one morning in Washington and immediately liked him. Bob's
principal qualification for selling was mat he had sold cars at his
father's used car lot in Florida. I admired his aggressiveness and
agreed to give him a try.
On a subsequent trip, Bob introduced me to Clayton Taylor
who wanted to represent us at Huntsville, Alabama, where Von
Braun had settled to help the Army, later NASA, get its space
program off the ground. Clayton lived in Huntsville and wanted
to represent five non-competing companies for a fee of $SK per
year each. This was the first time we tried that form of salesmanship
but I felt that Clayton knew what he was talking about and would
make a good representation of us to NASA. The first and only
business Clayton won for us was a $2SK consulting contract from
Brown Engineering at Huntsville. This job was handled by our
Vice President, Dick Jenney.
Meanwhile, we bid on every NASA procurement that we
felt was applicable. One day, we read in the Commerce Business
Daily that NASA advertised a procurement for staffing the
computers at the Manned Spacecraft Center(MSC) in Houston,
Texas. The MSC was just getting established and a local
contractor had an on-site contract for 27 computer people. We
responded to the Request For Proposal (RFP) and eventually
were asked to come down to Houston to make a presentation.
This we did and learned that we were one of two competitors from
whom NASA was prepared to make a selection. The other was
Brown Engineering.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

In the final stage of the procurement process, NASA asked us
for a "best and final" offer. We had never had such as request before
although it is routine today. We couldn't understand their reasons
until we surmised, correctly, that they had a tie bid financially
and couldn't decide between the two of us. The deciding criterion
in a personnel services contract like this was the overhead rate.
We asked Dick Jenney to do some ferreting around. We knew
that he was working for the manager who Brown Enginee~ing had
bid to go over to Houston to head up their proposed effort. Dick
went to lunch with him and there was a lot of talk about how the
guy was packing up his family and preparing himself for the move
to Houston. During the course of the lunch Dick said-"Our
overhead rate is 750/0, what's yours." The manager answered "The
same. "
Dick called that afternoon and opened the conversation with
"750/0". That's all we needed to know. It confirmed our guess. We
then sent a telegram to Houston in which we modified our bid in
the following way. For every $1 M worth of business that NASA
gave us, we would lower our overhead rate 50/0. That broke the tie
and we were awarded the contract. They bought it on a fixed price
per labor category basis. Since our company was so small the effect
of getting $1 M worth of new business was that our overhead rate
was actually reduced by 10%. Therefore, the extra 5% dropped
down into profit.
That victory was especially sweet since one of the stockholders
of Brown Engineering was Lady Bird Johnson. We feared that her
political power would influence the bid in Brown's direction. At
that time, she had Austin, Texas, sewed up with her ownership of
the only TV station in Austin.
The Houston effort required that we increase the staff from 27
to 350 people in 18 months. That was the kind of strain that we
liked. In one year we increased our gross sales from $2 Million to
$4 Million.
We observed an interesting phenomenon. We could not get
New Englanders to move to Texas. But we could get people from
the same latitude as Houston to move laterally. That is, from San

No"e"

Diego to Florida we brought in people to help with the vision of
putting a man on the moon. A good source was Slidell, Louisiana
where Chrysler had a plant making rocket bodies. They were then
shipped by barge around Florida to the launch site. For professional
people from Slidell, Houston was a huge cultural draw.
We tried everything to hire people-ads in the New York
Times, Wall Street Journal, local papers in Boston and Houston,
as well as professional magazines. I can remember buying the back
cover of the journal, "Communications", published by the
Association of Computing Machinery-the professional society for
programmers. In the middle of the blank page, I put the following
message.
"What job can be more exciting than putting a man on the moon?
Ifyou want to help, join the Wolf R&D Corp.
Call Bill Wolf at (617) 369-2843."

I figured that the people that we wanted would understand it.
For some odd set of circumstances I was in the Washington
Airport when I learned that I had to get the copy to the West
Coast immediately. I remember walking into an FAA office and
sweet talking my way into the use of one of the young ~adies'
typewriters. She even supplied the blank page. I then typed my 3
sentences, thanked her and faxed it to the West Coast. This ad had
two interesting reactions: One advertising designer from the West
Coast thought it was the best ad he had ever seen. On the other
hand, a board member of the ACM was so upset with it that he
established a review committee to assure that only professional ads
would be placed in the magazine.
Our best return on recruiting investment was the bounty
program we instituted within the company. That is, for every
recommendation by an employee that resulted in a hire, we offered
to pay the employee a bounty of$100. We made use of our nameWolf-in spreading the word on our bounty. I can still remember
our personnel director coming to me excitedly and asking me what
to do. Norman Roy had recommended 5 employees and we were

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

obligated to pay him $500! I told him to not only pay him but to
take a picture of the check presentation and put it on the front
page of our company newspaper.
Our Texas personnel people had some unorthodox experiences.
Once a prospective hire showed up with an application that listed
the fact that he had been married 7 times. Our personnel person
asked him if that was right? He thought a moment and said"No, that number should have been 8. I forgot one."
Another time, a landlord called looking for one of our exemployees. It seems that our ex-employee had left town with the
landlord's wife, record collection, and guns. He only wanted his
guns back.
A typical technical challenge occurred when one of our
programmers determined that the equations he was asked to
program were incorrect. That is, that the "z" component in a
three dimensional spatial array (X,Y,Z) had the wrong sign. It was
in the closure equations for the Gemini program. Two space capsules
were supposed to meet in space (hence the name of the program
was Gemini, the twins). If we had programmed them the way
they were presented to us by IBM the instructions to the space
capsules would have driven them apart instead of together. It felt
good to detect and correct such an important error, especially when
made by IBM.

6.8 A-OK in Seattle
One of the things we invented at Wolf R&D was an Automatic
Orbit Kalculator or A-OK. This term, A-OK, was one that the
astronauts and others used around NASA to indicate that not only
were things "OK" they were '~-OK" as though that added '~"
gave an extra superlative to things having to do with the space
program.
Incidentally, the derivation of the term "OK" may be of interest.
During World War I there was a beef inspector named O'Kelly
from Somerville, Mass. who had the job, as did several other
inspectors, of inspecting the beef sent to our soldiers overseas. It

No"e"

was common practice during those days for the beef inspectors to
be bought off by unscrupulous sellers who would sell the
government spoiled meat. Everyone, that is except O'Kelly who
would stamp the beef he inspected with his initials-"O.K." When
the soldiers came back from overseas they coined the term OK as
meaning that things were all right.
.
Our A-OK was constructed in the following manner. We had
printed three successive mercator projections of the earth on a
background in three colors-blue for the oceans, brown for the
continents and black for the letters, latitudes, and others. We
constructed two plastic slides with the equator sketched in the
center of both of them. One slide had John Glenn's orbit printed
on it. This orbit was a sinusoidal one of about 20 degrees inclination.
The other slide was a blank one upon which the user could draw
the orbits of subsequent spacecraft as these orbits were announced
in the paper. We also provided a booklet of instructions with the
various paths of the orbits drawn so that they could be copied
unto the clear slide. The final part was a time scale so that when
things were properly assembled, one could determine where the
space capsule was over the earth at various times in its approximately
90 minute orbit of the earth. This device allowed the average person
the opportunity to track the astronauts in their journey around
the globe.
To sell the A-OK we bought a booth at the Seattle World's
Fair right underneath the Space Needle and when I heard that the
TODAY show was going to feature the Fair for a week, I called
New York and sweet talked them into featuring our A-OK in one
of their programs. I also promised that I would have the inventor
there-an MIT engineer named John Pasieka. Now John was a
very proud but stubborn man who could not stand it if anyone
mispronounced his name. We all have our faults and that was one
of John's.
The program was scheduled to air on a Tuesday morning. I
was in Orlando trying to get some business from NASA at Cape
Canaveral. So I turned on the Tv. There was Frank Blair interviewing
John. Except that Frank mispronounced John's name and called

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

him John Basieka, with an emphasis on the B. All the way across
country I could see John getting his dander up. I can remember
saying to myself-"Oh, No!" John clammed up and wouldn't tell
Frank how the A-OK operated. He just stood there and fumed. So
Frank put it down and closed the interview. Talk about opportunities
lost.
Nevertheless we staffed the booth and began selling our AOKs. I can remember the Saturday morning when I got the first
phone call from Dick Gagan who was running the operation. By
prior agreement he read me the number of A-OKs sold per hour.
The first number he gave me was "one". I asked "One what?One Hundred, One Thousand?" Dick replied-"No-ONE."
We tried everything we could think of to increase sales. We
varied the price from $1 to $10 but the number was constant
regardless of price. The average was one per hour. It turns out that
the teen age kids would grasp what it was all about but the parents
did not. After about six weeks we sold our space to Eva Gabor so
that she could sell cosmetics and we shut down our booth and
came home. It was not hard to come to the sobering realization
that product sales of a commercial item to the public was not our
business. The final tally was about $45K lost.
Some time later, at a convention in Boston I presented an AOK to Alan Shepard and his wife and I told her that she could
track him and know where he was in space. Years later I gave the
remaining boxes of A-OKs to the Science Museum for sale in their
store.

6.9 Richard Buckminster Fuller
6.9.1 First Meeting
It was sometime in the late 1960s that I decided to attend
back-to-back conventions of the Young Presidents' Organization
(YPO)-first in Bermuda, then in Puerto Rico. I was asked to
accompany R. Buckminster Fuller and his wife, Ann, since he would

No"e"

be speaking at both meetings. Thus, I first met Bucky Fullerattending his lectures and squiring him from one place to the other.
I called his lectures-truth upon truth. He spoke with clarity in
a seemingly endless stream of his observations about the world and
how one should behave and use the technologies available to us. Our
friendship warmed when, in 1968, I attended a meeting in Hawaii at
which he described to me in detail his plans for a World Game.
6.9.2 World Game

It was Bucky's dream to have world leaders gather and, through
the use of visuals and computers recognize that we are all living on
one piece of real estate hurling through space. He coined the term
Spaceship Earth. He pointed out that we have only finite resources
available and we should all work cooperatively to better the standard
of living of everyone while preserving what's precious and available
to mankind.
It was Bucky's contention that if all the world leaders gathered
in one place and played a computer-simulated "World Game" they
would see that we are all interdependent and would understand
the folly of wars, trade barriers, and other artificial walls preventing
the good life from happening for everyone.
I was invited to join a group of his friends and working associates
in the founding of the Design Science Institute. The purpose was
to foster the continuation of his work. We applied for and obtained
a grant of $25K to work on his concept of the World Game. Under
this grant and working with Bucky, we wrote a detailed proposal
to implement the World Game. However, further funding was not
obtained through the Institute so this effort did not continue.
6.9.3 United Nations University

One of the things I spent some time on was fund raising for an
exciting new project-a United Nations University. In the course
of this effort which I discussed with Bucky I arranged a meeting

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

between him and the President-designate-James Hester, then
President of New York University. We met in Hester's office in
New York and Bucky told Hester about the potentially wonderful
things he could do for the World. Hester replied-"You mean I
have an opportunity to do good in this job?" Bucky replied-"You
not only have an opportunity-you have an obligation!"
Unfortunately, Hester did not live up to that obligation and was
fired to great embarrassment by the Japanese who had selected
him over other more deserving candidates such as Harold Taylor
who fostered the effort in this country. One of Hester's qualifications
was that he had a Japanese wife. But that didn't help him when it
came time to can him.

6.9.4 Typical Behavior
An interesting aside about Bucky. I was talking with Vernon
Alden one day on another subject and I told him about the work I
was doing with Bucky. He then told me that he and Bucky and
others were asked by Nick Salgo to form an advisory committee for
his conglomerate. To compensate the committee members he offered
them their choice of $25K worth of stock in his conglomerate or
$25K in cash. Each of the other members took the stock, wanting
to show confidence in the growth aspects of Nick's conglomerate.
Bucky was the only one who opted for the cash with some statement
that he had a lot of private R&D projects that needed support. As
time went on, Nick's stock tanked and Bucky's decision proved to
be the shrewdest of the lot.

6.10 Concord Floor ,Covering
In the general realm of trying to make life interesting we had a
second floor of the building in Concord to tile. This was an open
area of about forty feet wide and at least 100 feet long. We decided
to write a computer program to design the floor tile layout using a
random number generator. We thought that the light tan tile should
predominate and for every eight tan tiles there should be inserted

No"e"

at random a dark brown tile. Then, for every eight dark brown
tiles there should be a bright red one to spark up the pattern.
However, the computer programmer presented the random
number selection sequence by printing the first tile in the upper
left side of the printed page. He didn't think or he didn't know
that the floor tile layer chalked off the room into four squares and
started his laying of tiles from the center of the room. In an attempt
to resolve the disorientation we suggested that if he would allow
us to sequence his tiles, he could put them anywhere he wanted.
But, he did not want us messing with his tiles.
Therefore, we had one of our programmers manually layout
on the floor a section of tiles according to the computer printout.
The tile layer then said-"O.K., now I know what you want." and
proceeded to layout and cement down the tiles.
Somewhere between the computer's random generation and
the tile layer's random generation is what we ended up with. It
was very pleasing and made the large area interesting to look at.
One clear lesson to be learned from this exercise is that the
theoretical solution is not always the practical solution. Another
lesson is that programming computer results are one thingpresenting them in a form that the user can use is another matter
altogether. It's also a lesson in the difference between a programmer's
perception of how the real world operates and how it actually does.
They are not always the same.

6.11 Smart Buildings
I think the idea first came from Jackson Granholm, Vice
President in charge of our Los Angeles office in the mid 1960s.
The concept was to have a large time-shared computer installed in
the office building and treat it like air conditioning, heat or any
other utility. In fact, the charge for the computer would be included
in the rent bill with separate accounts metered for each lessee just
as one has a separate meter for electrical use. I talked with a number
of real estate developers over the years and got interest but no
commitment. It was too new for them.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

Today, with the computer compressed to desktvp size having
enormous capacity compared to those days, the idea is no longer
economically valid, except in special circumstances. I suppose that
this is an example of an idea which is sound technically but is not
bought by the customers. That is, will the dogs eat the dog food?
(Section 11.4)

6.12 First Computer Graphics
The first computer graphics was done using the Whirlwind
computer for some TV commercials. The great part about having a
Los Angeles office is that that is where all the movies were made.
TV, in its early years, was viewed as a movie replacement so the
natural focus for TV production was Hollywood.
Jackson Granholm, Vice President in charge of our Los Angeles
office, arranged for two projects which we programmed for the
computer. One was a commercial for Mexican TV in which the
traditional shape of a Coca-Cola bottle was displayed. This was
then dissolved into the Spanish words for "Drink Coca-Cola".
The second commercial was for the Carol Burnett show. It
had a number of sparkling stars or points of light selected at random.
These dissolved into the words
"WHAT'S NEW IN THE STARS?"

Then the outline of a five-pointed star was displayed and the TV
camera superimposed the face of a star on the show for that
performance.
Both of these jobs took a minimal time to program and
photograph. The work was done in one or two weekends. I recall
that we never got paid for our effort.

6.13 Banking
''Anyone can start a bank. All one needs is a license. If you
want to start a national bank you need a license from the US
Comptroller of the Currency. If you want to start a state bank you

No"e"

need a charter from the State Treasurer. It is not an easy thing to
do since one must-establish the need, such as to offer services
other banks are not offering; promise that you will serve specific
segments of the public not currently being served; have enough
money on deposit to be stable; etc.
Back in the 1960s, a friend recommended me to a young
Harvard graduate named Harvey Wachtel who was organizing a
new national bank as part of the New Boston. Over a sandwich at
the Harvard Club he described his plans. There hadn't been a new
national bank started in Boston in forty years. But the then
Comptroller of the Currency-James Saxon-was encouraging the
starting of new banks to foster competition. So we started one.
Our first choice of name was "New Boston Bank" but the First
National Bank objected since it was known as "The Boston Bank"
so we changed our name to the Harbor National Bank. I was one
of five who signed the incorporation papers and served as a Director
for several years.
The common denominator in each of the 40 businessmen who
organized to start this bank was that they had all been screwed in
one way or another by the conservative Boston banking
establishment and this was a way to get even. One of the first
things we did was to offer "free checking". It was so popular that
our deposits increased over $l.5M in the first month we offered it.
Considering our total deposits were only $10M this meant a lot to
us. To put things in perspective for today's numbers, multiply
those figures by 10.
This innovation forced the other banks to likewise offer free
checking to remain competitive, much to their unhappiness. This
practice has since been buried but it is an example of what
competition can do. I could go on about other lessons learned
there but that is not the point. I merely mention it to establish my
perspective on the views to follow.

Replacing Small Business Accounting Departments
At its incorporation, a bank is established to serve the
community in which it operates with services to help that

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

community. Usually, one thinks of the bank as a place to borrow
money-a principal function. Today, however, the Feds have
loosened up on the reins of what the banks are allowed to do. This
is fortunate and makes the possibilities very large-especially in
the age of the computer.
In the past, much of what bankers thought of when they
expanded their services were directed toward the consumer-that
is, individual people. They opened branches to reach more people
and listed a whole bunch of services from multi-rate deposit plans
to multi-faceted loans. I'm not going to spend any time talking
about individual customers except to say that the banks have finally
adopted and are trusting the computer enough to substitute branch
banking with Automatic Teller Machines-ATMs.
There exists an opportunity that the banks have, to date, failed
to recognize. That is, in the accounting servicing of the small
businessman and! or woman. In terms of numbers-90 % of
the businesses are so-called small businesses. Usually they are
run by a single entrepreneur-or perhaps two or more. They
have a limited number of employees-less than two or three
hundred. The successful ones concentrate on doing a relatively
few things well-computer services, building widgets, etc. In
today's world, where the legislators continue to pass new and
ever-confusing laws, full of contradictions and obfuscations, it
takes a CPA to understand and comply with all the payroll
exemptions, monthly tax reports filed to the State and Feds,
insurance and employee withholding tax submissions, etc. The
small businessman keeps getting burdened with more and more
paper work from which there does not seem to be any natural
forces to let up on him. Meanwhile he could be doing much more
business if he focused his attention on staying ahead of competitors
and offering new services to his customers.
Enter the bank.
There is no reason why the bank could not install a terminal
in the small businessman's office and replace his accounting
department. Daily, or in real time, the small business man could
enter significant transactions such as checks in, receivables

No"e"

generated, employee work experience from which payroll may be
computed, etc.-all those things that eventually sum to his balance
sheet and financial statements as end results.
The bank could and, in my opinion, should be his accounting
departmen t.
For example-the bank could offer free checking accounts to
the employees. Then the employer need only give the employee a
slip (prepared by the bank's computers and printed on the terminal
in the employer's office) on pay day telling the employee how much
money was transferred from the company's payroll account to the
individual employee's account. Deductions would be detailed on this
slip. Under the employee's direction, transfers could also be made to
his savings account, 401(k), pension, etc. all maintained by the bank
(as, of course, potential new business for the bank).
Another example-presumably the business has loans from
the bank covered by his accounts receivable, or other assets of the
business. As his cash needs are experienced, for instance to meet
payroll, the bank could increase his loan on an as-needed basis.
Speaking from experience-the biggest problem in dealing with
a bank is that they don't know until the middle of next month
(nor, usually, do you) how your business is doing in any given
month. Therefore, the banker is afraid to loan money in questionable
situations due to his worry about how the business is doing.
If the banker is doing the accounting, he knows on a daily
basis how secure his loan is and whether or not he should continue
with a company or move to collection. This will enable the banker
to have fewer problem loans and allow the business man the
freedom to get more money loaned to him enabling him to buy
more, build the business faster, etc.
And, consider how much cheaper it would be for the
businessman to not have a whole department headed by an
accountant speaking a foreign language (credit's toward the window,
debit's toward the door). He should love it, unless he is dishonest
in which case the bank shouldn't have him as a customer.
The bank could charge a fraction of what it would cost the
businessman for accounting services, yet a significantly large

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

amount of money compared to what the bank gets for other services.
All of a sudden, instead of the computer being a cost of doing
business for the banker, it is a significant money maker. This idea
alone, if properly implemented should double or triple a bank's
bottom line!
Of course, a natural outflow from this service is to have the
bank pay the bills, at the businessman's direction, by merely
transferring funds from the businessman's account to the account
of the telephone co., the electric co., etc. Consider all the new
business accounts the bank could get if they went about it
properly-every entity with whom the businessman does business.
That big bastion of fiscal lethargy-the U.S. Government-is
now doing electronic transfer of funds. They prefer to pay your bill to
them no longer by check but by transferring funds to your checking
account. The IRS is also encouraging payment of taxes by computera natural for the bank to do for the small businessman.
In one of Peter Drucker's books a few years ago he postulated
that everything that could be wrung out of the manufacturing
process was pretty much in place. The future growth in earnings
for a company, he said, was to figure out how to do the distribution
function more efficiently and, thus, more economically-generating
more profits.
A similar analogy can be drawn with the banking industry.
They have for years concentrated on doing what they could for the
consumer, while treating the small business man as a necessary
evil-worrisome because he may fail and the bank would lose large
sums of money. Therefore, the bank ties up his assets so tightly
that the businessman often can not maneuver sufficiently-forcing
him into Chapter 11 or Chapter 7-complete insolvency.

Today, with the intelligent use of computers, the bank can
gain a great deal more business and profits to an extent that staggers
the imagination if they would only focus on this suggested change
of attitude-to treat the small business man as a profit maker for
his comprehensive computer services yet to be defined and
im plemen ted.

No"e"

A Totally Different Idea
There is no reason, using the above model, why a medical
professional can not rely on the bank to be its agent in getting his
money from the insurance industry. The professional would love
to be able, at the end of the day, to have some significant fraction
of the money in his account for the work that he did that day.
Then let the banking industry tal{e on the insurance industry for
payment-terms, rates, etc. I agree with your initial assessment
that this may be a bucket of worms fraught with pitfalls but you
get my drift.

In Conclusion
The bank should rethink its mission and look upon its
computers-which it needs anyway to process all of its day-to-day
business-as a profit center. Let it build a service company that
can do outsourcing-taking over the whole computing function
from some of its clients. This one should be especially ripe for
plucking now-with the trauma from the Year 2000 problem and
all of its life-threatening consequences for all kinds of businesses."

Note
The preceding is from a letter I wrote to my son Will, a
management consultant for McKinsey and Co. in February, 1998.
It spells out many of the views I have had since the 1960s when we
formed the Harbor National Bank. It contains, in fact, my reason
for being involved with the bank. However, I never got a chance to
try out my ideas. We had so many problems trying to be a successful
bank that we never reached the critical mass required to be able to
experiment with new ideas. Not until we hired Bob Fitzgerald,
Ted Kennedy's cousin, to be our President did we attract enough
deposits to earn a decent profit. When then State Treasurer Robert
Crane called looking for campaign contributions in return for which

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

he promised deposits froin the Commonwealth we told him to go
take a hike.
The Harbor National Bank was eventually sold to the New
England Merchants Bank which subsequently was acquired by
the Fleet, making the combination the largest bank in New
England. This year the Fleet was acquired by the Bank of America.
In summary, my experience from the seemingly endless
meetings was that incorporating a bank and serving on its board
was a very large time sink. However, in my opinion, the business
opportunities described above remain there until someone
implements them. They are all feasible with the fast and secure
computer network technology available today.

6.14 Midwest Computer Service, Inc.
We were visited in Boston one day in the mid 1960s by the
heads of two Civil engineering firms from Decatur, Illinois. They
asked us to join them in forming the Midwest Computer Service,
Inc. (MCSI)-a cooperative effort of five civil engineering firms in
Illinois. Their thesis was that if they banded together they could
share the cost of a computer service bureau. This seemed like a
good idea and we eventually joined with them and agreed to send
one of our best programmers, Steve Jones, a Harvard graduate who
hailed from Illinois, to manage the operation.
.
In addition to doing the work for the civil engineering firms,
Steve was encouraged to look elsewhere for business. He made a
proposal to the Decatur water billing department to do their
accounting work-setting up a data base, sending out the bills
and so forth. When the news was carried in the local paper that a
computer was going to do the work of the water billing
department at less cost, more efficiently, and so forth, the
employees of the water billing department read it and they all quit
to find other jobs.
This premature announcement by the Decatur water
department came back to haunt us. Our computer was a Bendix
G-15D that was essentially a drum computer with a punched

No"e"

paper tape input and output. A serial printer, a converted typewriter,
was another output device.
As Steve was soon to learn, paper tape does not have the
versatility of punched cards. Every time he changed billing
information, he had to duplicate a long input tape. Therefore, he
was unable to produce the billing from the programs he had written
for the Bendix. The situation reached a crisis state when the end of
the year came, the bills did not go out and the city of Decatur told
us that without the money from the water billing collections, the
whole town would go broke. Mter a few trips out to Decatur to
determine the best way out, it was apparent that Steve's computer
solution was not going to make it in time, if ever. Therefore, we
hired back enough ex-town employees from the water billing
department to get out the bills by hand.
In my total computing experience, this was the only time that
an application went from manual to computer and back to manual.
By the next year we gave up the contract and the town either did
it themselves or hired someone else. My interest was only academic
at that point so I didn't pursue to find out what they did.
We learned one important lesson-don't get involved with the
running of a company at long distance. Our meetings every quarter
were not enough to sufficiently control the operation. And there
wasn't enough money involved to afford more travel expense.
Steve married one of the local young women and I attended
the wedding with Buck Chastain, one of the sponsor company
owners. The whole congregation waited for the groom to arrive for
over a half hour. I whispered to Buck that I bet Steve was back at
the computer. He was.
A couple of side adventures that I remember-one was seeing
Carl Sandburg at the Midway Airport. He was as tall and striking
as his poetry is powerful. Another experience was being flown up
to Midway from Decatur in one of the company's private planes.
The private plane terminal was on the opposite side of the airport
from the major airlines terminal. Therefore, we hitched a ride in a
truck to get from one to the other. Just as we were riding along the
perimeter fence I heard a plane landing overhead and felt a distinct

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

BUMP in the truck. When we arrived at the other terminal I went
out and looked at the top of the truck. Sure enough-there was a
double tire track mark from where the low flying plane struck our
truck. That airport sure is small. They built O'Hare and I haven't
been back to Midway since.

6.15 Life Magazine
Back in the summer of 1964, on a Wednesday morning, a
LIFE Magazine reporter named Ronald Bailey called and asked if
he could come out to our home office in Concord, Massachusetts,
for a visit. He had gone to MIT looking for a company that could
relate its growth to the space business for a special two-issue feature
that the magazine was preparing devoted to SPACE. We were
recommended as well as a few others along Route 128 and he was
surveying the area.
After about a half-day interview and look around, Ron asked if
he could come back on Thursday. I politely declined because I had
to fly to Washington to sign a contract with NASA.
He then returned on Friday.
After a few weeks, Ron and Burk Uzzle, photographer, showed
up and spent the next two weeks at my side. I toured them around
government facilities where we had contracts. This included our
home office in Concord; L.G. Hanscom Field in Bedford,
Massachusetts, .where we were tracking satellites for the Air Force;
the Goddard Space Flight Ce~ter in Maryland, where we were
programming and operating the National Space Flight Data Center;
the Air Force satellite tracking facilities in Colorado Springs, where
we were installing the programs we had written at Hanscom Field;
and the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston, where we were
staffing all the computers for NASA.
We had a great time and Burk shot pictures galore. I'll never
forget his taking his cameras and associated equipment into the
Pentagon. I thought that he would be stopped but Ron showed
them their cards from LIFE magazine and the military men not
only welcomed us, they helped Burk with his bags.

No"e"

The resultant nine page spread put us on the map as far as a growth
company is concerned. However, we never made any money out of it.
In fact we lost a $25,000 competitive contract that was up for
consideration. The contracting officer was reputed to have said-"Those
Wolf guys have enough publicity. They don't need this contract."
As Susan says, "Fame is transient-People remain".

Letters
I got about 130 letters from all over the world since the article
was carried in a Russian version of LIFE. One amusing sidelight
was that Burk was on assignment in Vietnam and read the article
in a barbershop. Burk came back with the horrific story about
military men who were flown by helicopter to an aircraft carrier so
that when they died they would not be included in the body
count in Vietnam.
It was pointed out to me by one of my programmers that I was
the subject of at least two sermons where I was uncharitably portrayed
as an evil person since I thought more about computers than I did
about people. I suppose the pastors had a message but I didn't think
that the portrayal indicated evil behavior. I still don't. One can't
generalize about a thing like that, but I'm sure the reader will agree
that there are a lot of computers that one would rather be around
than certain people. They are less boring, for one thing. And I don't
mean that in an elitist way-it's just a plain statement of fact.
Perhaps this is one of the differentiators between programmers
and other people. A computer, regardless of its age, appearance, or
power consumption is easily apt to be more interesting than
someone who can't add a million numbers a second. So interesting,
in fact, that ordinary things like sleeping and eating and bathing
(ugh) fall by the wayside and seem less important than the computer
challenge of the moment.
One looks for things to do in parallel in order to save time for
programming. I learned to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth,
and comb my hair all at the same time. That is also part of the reason
why I drive so fast. I can't wait to get there, wherever there is.

WILLIAM M. WOLF

I answered all of the letters personally-except for two. One
was from a "political" prisoner incarcerated in a California prison.
He had an elaborate tale of woe that he was being persecuted
because of all of his inventions which "they" did not want to
recognize since the implementation of his inventions would put
"them" out of business. I confess that I feared the potential and
unknown consequences of answering his letter.
The other was from some Middle European country. I remember
paying $85 to a translator from Harvard to find out what it said. It
turned out to be an elaborate request for money-the goat died,
the cold winter was harsh, etc. I probably should have been more
charitable and sent him money but I didn't. I related to that person's
misery. My folks came from such a humble background and no
one ever helped them.

Visitors
Then there were the visitors-all of whom I agreed to meet
and spend some time with if they would come to Concord.
YMCA
There was the YMCA campaign solicitor who drove all the way
from Watertown, New York to ask for $5,000 to help them build a
new Y. When he told me that it was to be in the suburbs where only
kids with cars could go, I sent him packing. The YMCA I knew and
valued during my youth was downtown and accessible to all.
I realized those were different times but my family could never
afford an automobile. I can remember walking 5 miles in below
freezing temperatures to save the nickel bus fare. There were
exceptions of course when the Fahrenheit temperature hit 40
degrees below.
FIRE CHIEF
Another visitor was a Fire Chief from some town in
Connecticut who wanted me to endorse the book that he had
written concerning his experiences with fires. He traveled out to
Concord by train, not an easy trip. I of course endorsed his book
and met with him for a couple of hours, learning a great deal
about the physical dynamics of a fire from him.

No"e"

QUEEN OF QUEENS
Another fellow that was attracted to us by the LIFE article was
a guy who wanted to institute a new twist on the Miss America
contest. He felt that the audience, not a panel of judges, should
decide which of the contestants should be crowned. That is, he
wanted to wire up an auditorium with "Yes/No" switches at each
seat and have a vote on each contestant. This sounded like a good
idea so we priced it out. As I recall, it would have cost about $250K
at the time which made the idea uneconomic. Therefore, nothing
was ever done about it.
Today, the price of equipment has been so reduced that the
implementation of the idea is practical. For example, the
Massachusetts legislature is wired up so that the members' "Yes' or
"No" votes may be recorded electronically. Another application is
the TV show called "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" If the
contestant is stumped he or she has an option of calling for a vote
from the audience for their answer to the question which has four
possible answers. The contestant then sees a computer generated
display showing the percentage of the audience votes for each of
the multiple choices. Every time I see this process it reminds me of
the promoter. He planned to call his contest and his winner "Queen
of Queens".
REALLIES
Another promoter came by one day and said that he had devised
a new method for entertainment and wanted to talk with me about
it. I invited Al Trakowski (Trak) into our meeting. Trak was a former
Colonel in the Air Force who joined our staff to do long range
planning for our company. The man described his proposed venture
in circuitous terms. He said that it was a proprietary idea for urban
entertainment for traveling salesmen and others. The term "reallies"
was a follow on term from the "movies", following "talkies". He
now had a three dimensional form of entertainment which he called
"reallies". He said that he had Walt Disney under contract to provide
the animation and three dimensional characters, he had financing
from the Irving Trust Company in New York, and he wanted us to
do the computer work. His headquarters was in his ski lodge in
Aspen, Colorado.

WILLIAM

M. WOLF

Trak and I listened patiently for some time to his spiel and his
guarded explanation of what it was all about. Just when he would
get to the good parts he would interrupt himself and say things
like-"Oh, I can't tell you about that, it's a secret." Finally, Trak,
who is a very straightforward person said, "I know what you want
to do. You want to build an automated house of ill repute." From
the promoter's reaction, we knew that Trak had hit upon his secret.
He suddenly excused himself, said he had another appointment to
keep and left the building. About once or twice after that I would
get a letter progress report on how he was doing with his plans.
But then I stopped hearing from him.

Postcript
The magazine came out in September. In October I proposed
to Ron a trip to Acapulco to go sail fishing, something that I had
longed to do for some time. So off we went with our wives to Las
Brisas and two days of sail fishing. Each of us caught a sail fish
except my wife who came back with child. So our trophies were
hanging on the wall while hers was crawling around the kitchen
floor. Before going, Ron's wife was reluctant so I called her on the
phone and started singing Mexican songs to her. That did it. My
only son, Will, now has the sailfish hanging in his den. Will was
living with me when the 1980 census forms came in the mail so
we included "Manuel" the sailfish in the 1980 census. I was trying
to teach him the appropriate disrespect for government statistics.
A copy of the LIFE magazine story is reproduced on the following
pages.

S LONG ROMANCE WITH AN
~ING CHUNK OF HARDWARE

consider whether his plan was feasible. To his
annoyance it was pointed out that the big computer
was tainting his reputation for efficiency. Customers
Were calling it -the white elephant.· His f'Xecurives
swore it was driving off business and even chipping

away at office morale. And Treasuter Kuell, the
his machinelike intensiry, Bill Wolf is his
: argument against the computers taking

The Navy agreed to lease the machine to Wolf for
nothing, and he had

"no· man, harped on the cost.

carrcd off to a warehouse to

Sentiment aside -Wolf loves to tinker with

await the new plant that would house it. Meanwhile

Whirlwind, like a teenager with a hot rocl-he was

ot his first big computer in 1952 while he

his business grew so rapidly that at times it almost

sure that with thf' computer's help he could incl"C'ase

.I.T. Irs name was Whirlwind I. and it was

got out of hand. Though he knew all about the

the scope of his company fivefold, to a $10 million

world's biggest and fastest, spewing out

complexities of computes, the personalities of people

operation. He was almost as sure- he could not do

nswers every second. To a mathematician

bedeviled him. When his personal secretary edited

this if Whirlwind we-re- not around to monitor

Id was marvdous to behold, sprawled over

and revised an important letter he had dictated,

expansion. But he told the staff he would sleep on

's at M.I.T:s Digital Computer Laboratory.

Wolf, angered at her gall. simply abolished her job

the decision.

maze of wires and vacuum tubes linked by

and

up a pool of six secretaries to make the boss·

Tholt night Wolf did a rolrc thing. He put business

lac never erred.

secretary relationship morc impersonal. There were

aside and took his wife 10 a play. But after 15 minutes

and day, whenever he could get away from

other personnel problems. One key employee cost

of listening to the actots talk about their troubles, he

5('t

ral studies, Wolf worked on the computer,

him some business became he refused to (Tavel by

walked out, dragging Eileen with him. "I've got

to speak its machine language. "He spent

airplane. Another, who lived in a rooming house,

enough Itoubles of my own." he growled. Then, as

time with Whirlwind that I used to call

ran off with his landlord's wife, guns and hi-fi set.

they had so often done in the past, the Wolfs sat

Listress," recaJls his wife Eileen. "She was a

"People frustrate me." says Wolf. "I like a machine

down at home and talked about the machine. "I'm

will

petitive lady."

because I can push a button and it

~ fmf job as an independent consulcant-a

[ push another button to make it stop."

life." Finally, after a sleepless night he decided to

d. But becau.. he had underestimated his

Whirlwind was finally installed in his new plant

consuhed the computer itself about what was best.

ound up earning only 40¢ an hour. It was

and immediately beg.n costing him $5,000 a

run until

prediction study for M.I.T.-Wolf us

Xlibris
9

781413 468458

(26205 )

Source Exif Data:

File Type                       : PDF
File Type Extension             : pdf
MIME Type                       : application/pdf
PDF Version                     : 1.3
Linearized                      : No
XMP Toolkit                     : Adobe XMP Core 4.2.1-c043 52.372728, 2009/01/18-15:56:37
Create Date                     : 2010:07:16 20:18:10-08:00
Modify Date                     : 2010:07:17 00:17:21-07:00
Metadata Date                   : 2010:07:17 00:17:21-07:00
Producer                        : Adobe Acrobat 9.33 Paper Capture Plug-in
Format                          : application/pdf
Document ID                     : uuid:52341f3b-ccb5-4efb-aef7-e0f0f5ebb3c3
Instance ID                     : uuid:db0faa47-8489-4763-8cf3-291bf2aeb243
Page Layout                     : SinglePage
Page Mode                       : UseNone
Page Count                      : 208

EXIF Metadata provided by EXIF.tools

Wolf_No_E_2005 Wolf No E 2005

Navigation menu

Versions of this User Manual:

Views

Navigation