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I met Minsky once in February 1987, at a rally in Las Vegas to protest the Nevada Test Site.. A lot of famous people (Carl Sagan, Barbara Boxer, Tom Downey, Ram
by gonzo 11y ago
I met Minsky once in February 1987, at a rally in Las Vegas to protest the Nevada Test Site.. A lot of famous people (Carl Sagan, Barbara Boxer, Tom Downey, Ramsey Clark, Martin Sheen, Kris Kristofferson) were there, but I'd gone to meet Minsky.
I had taken along a (quite early) copy of the GNU Emacs manual. The FSF was selling them, but I'd put this one together myself. Running TeX on the texinfo source, converting the output for the Imagen printer, and then taking it to Kinko's to be spiral bound, including my imitation of the yellow cover that the FSF version had.
I asked Minsky for his autograph. He looked at what I presented, understood what it was, an autographed inside the front cover, "Marvin Minsky, friend of Stallman".
In April of 2011 in an airport in Honolulu, I presented that same manual for an autograph to Richard Stallman. He looked my manual over for a long time. IIRC, it documents Emacs version 16 or 17. Then he signed it, below Minsky's autograph,
"Richard M. Stallman - Friend of Minsky"
RIP, Marvin.
- pavs 11y agoAmazing. If possible, can you please share a picture of the autographs?
- joe563323 11y agoYes. Please please please do share the picture of autographs.
- ubersol1 11y agoInteresting. But I wonder, was it a coincidence that you had the manual with you in Honolulu ? Or do you take the manual with you everywhere you go ? :)
- gonzo 11y agoI'd actually paid to fly Stallman to Honolulu to attend pfosscon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-lP8lPYPDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-lP8lPYPDU While he was in Hawaii, I also paid to fly him to the "Big Island" (Hawaii) to speak with people (mostly astronomers and their children, though some people drove up from Hilo.) https://blogs.oracle.com/barton808/entry/my_travels_in_hawaii_with https://blogs.oracle.com/barton808/entry/my_travels_in_hawai... Since I was paying for his ticket, I knew he would be at the airport. I lived in Hawaii at the time. Back in Las Vegas (where I lived at the time), the book, and emacs, were new to me. I took it to read then.
- qp9384btv_2e 11y agoDo you still have it? I'd love to see a picture
- gonzo 11y agoI'm looking for it.
- pkd 11y agoThank you for sharing. Anecdotes like this is why I love visiting HN. They also help me humanize some of my CS heroes. FWIW, I'd also love to see the autographs.