Comment: Among the Yankees

Hey, I know you probably don't know me, but I'm from Taiwan, and there's so much mintia there I got addicted during three weeks. I've been looking for them ever since; I've written the pres. of the company, I've written about a million places; searching. Is there any way you could give me the address of that store from which you bought Mintia? Did they have peach or Lychee flavor? Is there any way you could double-check? I'm willing to buy Mintia from you, and pay for the shipping and handling, if there is peach or Lychee.

Thanks!

Regards,
Sarah Wu

I just found something on your site that is of great interest to me.

You mention that, until the 1960's, NASA was still using whale oil for a few things. I am looking for that very type of information and was wondering if you may be able to tell me what your source was for that information.

If you are unable to point me directly to the source, any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your effort. Tell you what, if I find out, I'll let you know.

Hello Larry -

I'm here in Cambridge this week, and was thinking about getting together with Tom.
Do you have any contact information (phone, email, etc)?

How've you been?

I'm glad to see you've been keeping your site going - it's the only way I know of to keep in touch with old GeoWorkers!

It was fun to read your comments about the MIT Model RR Club and the crossbar switch "system". I'm a member and may have met you at the open house.

The arguability of "first" computers is a thorny one. Certainly, Howard Aiken's initial Mark I efforts were much more prominent than those of his contemporary, George R. Stibitz, but one could argue that between 1939 and 1943, the series of "complex number calculators" developed by Stibitz at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City were considerably more reliable and versatile than anything that came out of Harvard. The Stibitz Models I, II, III, and IV were all implemented with telephone relays. If you search on "Stibitz" you will find several references, including a somewhat belated recognition by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). A visit to the Smithsonian will net you a look at a reconstruction of the first experimental adder built by Stibitz with a couple of relays, a couple of light bulbs, two large dry-cell batteries, some strips of metal cut from a tin can, and an actual kitchen breadboard to mount it all on. From this simple beginning, the idea grew to fill a small room full of relays, and to eventually provide the Navy with a ordinance computer that not only saw service during the war, but continued to operate reliably, well into the 1960's.

Stibitz was a featured lecturer in the first years of the DEC computer museum. Unfortunately, since the museum has moved into Boston, much of the pre-Eniac work has been ignored.

Thought you might enjoy some more perspective on the "relay" computers !

Dick Lord

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    ***____         __I_|HH|_   Dick Lord, Current Technology 
   Y___|[]| ,~~~__  | x   x |   
 >{|___|__|_|_____|_|_______|   http://www.upwardconcepts.com
  /oo--@-@   oo oo   oo   oo    HO B&M;/MEC Mt. div. in progress.

I stumbled onto your web page and laughed at your trip excursions with Angi in NYC. I was from that area a long time ago, and do you know, they do serve dumpling soup in S.F.