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This guy was a badass. He Mcgyvered a 1 kilometer data link using LIGHT because he was annoyed his employer, PARC, opened up a new office up the road and he co
by DevX101 7y ago
This guy was a badass. He Mcgyvered a 1 kilometer data link using LIGHT because he was annoyed his employer, PARC, opened up a new office up the road and he couldn't test his printer.
Excerpt from Dealers of Lightning:
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Starkweather and Rider worked together on coordinating the SLOT and character generator until early 1972, when they were stymied not by a technical obstacle but one entirely man-made. This was the relocation of more than twenty of PARC’s seventy scientists up the hill to a building newly rented from the Singer Company and known as Building 34 (because its address was 3406 Hillview). The Computer Science Lab, including Rider, got bundled off to the new quarters while everyone else, including Starkweather, temporarily stayed behind on Porter. The move separated the two by a kilometer of real estate—too far to string an overhead line and, with the four-lane Foothill Highway in the way, impossible to link via a ground cable.
“The administrators said, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be back together in another year,’” Starkweather recalled. “I said, ‘Great, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?’”
But one Sunday afternoon shortly after the move Starkweather got a brainstorm while sitting at home. He immediately jumped in his car, drove to Porter Drive, and mounted a stairwell to the roof.
Just as he had thought, he could take line-of-sight aim from where he stood to the rooftop of Building 34. He might not be able to span the distance by cable or wire—but he could do it by laser beam.
The next day he ordered four telescopes from Edmund’s for about $300 apiece. He and Rider replaced the eyepieces of two with low-power lasers and the others with sensitive photodetectors. They bolted one laser scope and one detector on each roof, aiming each at its complement across the way, to create a visible light data link.
The circuit worked flawlessly in almost any weather, even fog, although minor adjustments were often necessary after a rainstorm, when the weight of accumulated water made the roofs sag slightly.
“When SLOT was running I’d send a pulse of light up the hill to signal the character generator to send a line of data down to the detector on my roof, which would send it down to this laser and then to the printer,”
Starkweather recalled. “After all, we were only encoding ones and zeros. It was like sending binary data on a long wire made out of light, instead of copper.”
- trekrich 7y agoThat book is awesome, if you are into computer history. This is a must read.
- johnnyAghands 7y agoWow. So just added that book to my cart. Any other good reads like this you recommend?
- sohkamyung 7y agoThe recent book by Brian Kernighan, "UNIX: A History and a Memoir" [1], was a fascinating personal memoir about the birth of Unix as well as how things used to work at AT&T Bell Labs. [1] https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/dp/1695978552/ https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/d...
- vvanders 7y agoWhile not as groundbreaking as the Xerox work I'd reccomend The Soul of the New Machine of you liked Dealers of Lightning.
- increscent 7y agoYes, The Soul of a New Machine is well worth the read!
- adventured 7y agoWhere Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution That last one is a little dry, I still found it interesting. It's about Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. It's currently available for sale for $1.99 on the Kindle.
- myself248 7y agoI'd add Eccentric Orbits and Skunk Works, both of which are about other fields (satcom and aero, respectively), but have similar themes of innovation and its mother, necessity. (And mother-in-law, politics.)
- stevespang 7y agoAmazing.
- sdoering 7y agojust bought the audiobook. this sounded so much like a great 'read', that I am looking forward to it. thanks for the teaser and showing the book.
- slumdev 7y ago> mounted a stairwell to the roof Is that a new line-of-sight networking device?
- jagged-chisel 7y agoCan't tell if serious ... "mounted" like mounting a horse.
- david927 7y agoThere's a funny story in Dealers of Lightning [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Lightning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1101290.Dealers_of_Light...] where a person driving in fog saw those laser flashes and, in a panic, called the police
- johnchristopher 7y agoThere were comments around this thread with book recommendations (good thing I still had the page opened in firefox on mobile). How come is it gone ?
- vvillena 7y agoI just came back to look for those books too. Does anyone have a list?
- johnchristopher 7y agoYes ! Here are the ones I could grab: - The Soul of the New Machine - Where wizards stay up late - The origins of the Internet - The Idea factory: the great age of american innovation (about Intel ?) - The Iridium story: Eccentric orbits (Satellite tech) - Empires of light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the race to electrify the world - Skunk works
- johnchristopher 7y ago- the chip how two americans invented the microchip and launched a revolution That one is about Intel. The idea factory is about Bell.
- vvillena 7y agoThank you very much for the list!