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Information Technology (IT) Pioneers

Retirees and former employees of Unisys, Lockheed Martin, and their heritage companies

People I-L, Chapter 14

1. Topical Article Contributors

These 38 writers have contributed 72 technical articles or tidbits, complementing career summaries: 

  • Jim Inda, Ron Irwin, and Gary Isliefson.
  • Bob Jablonski, Peter Jankowiak, Bernie Jansen, Tony Jenkens, and Glen Johnson.
  • Bob Keenan, Ralph Kerler, Dick Kistler, Jim Ketchum, Frank Kline, Bill Klingner, Elwood 'Woody' Knight, Michael Knight, Mike Kokesh, Dave Kolling, Steve Koltes, Tom Kratz, Jim Kucera, Dick Kuhns, and Dr. Vipin Kumar.
  • Archi Lahti, Andy Lang, Bob Langer, Ernie Lantto, Jack Lavers, Capt. Donald Leichtweis, James P. Lenfestey, Jacques Lignieres, Earl Lillistrand, Paul Lindquist, Tom Lindquist, Mike Lins, Don Lovely, Dick Lundgren, and David E. Lundstrom.

2. Career Summaries - I:

2.1 Ron Irwin, 197x - 2000

    I received access to this web site today and found it very interesting. You probably don't remember me, but I did run into you from time to time over the years I worked on MATCALS at Mare Island. I worked with Gordy Erickson and managed the software development work on Mare Island for MATCALS. After the island closed in September 1995, I commuted to San Diego for 5 years, continuing maintenance of the MATCALS software until I retired from LM in 2000. After that I have continued to support SPAWAR in San Diego on a part-time consultant basis. Even now I am just finishing an 8-week task in January with what I believe will be my last support of MATCALS. Yes, MATCALS is still being supported by Lockheed Martin in San Diego by two programmers and a field engineer.  

MATCALS is still being used by the Marines in Iraq and elsewhere with 1980 technology. The latest software update brought MATCALS TADIL-B up to the current standards. Sperry, Unisys and Lockheed Martin built a great system that still has not been replaced by a "modern" ATC system, so the Marines continue to use MATCALS and SPAWAR is continuing to maintain it. It still uses the original AN/UYK-44 embedded computers, but has had the FOG display replaced with a new display. It is expected to be fielded for at least another five years before the replacement system is fielded. As you know, "the company" built the TPS-70 ATC radar, the CCS shelter, MMDs, computers, and software for MATCALS. The only piece of the system built by another company was the TPN-22 final-approach radar. I find it remarkable that the system originally fielded in the mid 1980's is still being maintained and used. All who worked on MATCALS hardware and software over the many years built a great system that is like the bunny that just keeps going and going and going. The SPAWAR Systems Center in San Diego is maintaining the hardware and as I said, LM is still supporting the software. I hope someone can provide more info about MATCALS for the web site.
    There should be some retirees in your group that can provide good info on MATCALS. I look forward to viewing additional info on all that you have planned to be included. Yours in retirement from LM, Ron Irwin - Napa, CA.  

2.2 Pierre Iskos, 1965 - 1996

The Field Engineering Department of Sperry Univac Defense Systems hired me in February 1965. Specifically, to support the Apollo Space program, that was just beginning. After some basic training on the type 1218 and 1219 computers and peripherals; I started working with the design engineers Bob Oulicky and Don Mager doing design test of the new 1230 computer which was designed specifically for the Apollo Project. Reference http://vipclubmn.org/CP30bit.html#Type1230.

In October 1965 I was sent to Goddard Space Flight Center with several other engineers to provide technical support to NASA personnel as well as to the 100+ Univac on site programmers. Six months later I was promoted to be the site supervisor; a position that I held until requesting a transfer in December 1971.

At peak time we had 12 Apollo Project support engineers, half of them on various sites around the globe.  Shown here are scans of two of my four Apollo mission support certificates.

 

In December 1971 I was sent to Germany to provide technical support to the German Navy and to the programming team at the Wilhelmshaven Naval Base. We were working on development of the Fast Patrol Boat system. I stayed there for nine months then moved to Bonn/Bad Gödesberg.

There I provided systems engineering support to marketing.  At the right is a 'Tiger Award' from VP Dick Seaberg for the German Navy Link-11 system.  In Bonn, I also lead marketing initiatives for southern Europe and the Middle East.

In 1976 we won a successful contract with the Greek Navy, The Greek Submarine Program. This was the Kanaris submarine fire control system. I was sent to Greece to be the in-country marketing representative for Greece and the middle east, interfacing with the Greek government, etc..  At the left is recognization by VP Jim Rapinac.
18-years later, July 1994, the Company brought me back to St. Paul to work with various marketing teams - then was laid off in March of 1996.

This may sound as an uneventful career; but for me it was very exciting and challenging. I had opportunities to work on some interesting projects like the Apollo Project and to work with many very capable people. I believe I left a good name with those co-workers who got to know me. Since leaving the company in 1996 – have kept in touch with former co-worker Keith Myhre, (http://vipclubmn.org/People5.html#Myhre) et al’.

Background: I was born in Greece but immigrated to the US at age 17.  I became a US Citizen, then went to college at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1964 with an Electrical Engineering degree.

Best Regards, Pierre

3. Career Summaries - J:

3.1 Clint Jurgens,  1971-1988

    Like so many at Univac I grew up on a farm, got a technical degree from the state university, and found myself working in the new field of computer technology at Univac. However, instead of being from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, or Iowa; I grew upon a horse and tractor on the high-plains of Western Nebraska. Our family farm was split between raising cattle and wheat.
    Growing up in a rural area usually meant that you attended a small high school. I had eleven in my high school class and went from there to the University of Nebraska, receiving my BSEE in 1965 and MSEE in 1966. After the University of Nebraska I went to Officer Candidate School, becoming a second lieutenant in the USMC. The Marine Corps wanted me to go to the infantry; however, I thought I could make a better contribution if I could use my EE training. Although the folks making the assignments could not provide any assurance they did assign me to a Marine Air Control Squadron at Camp Pendleton. My unit was in the process of rotating back from Vietnam and we were reforming at Camp Pendleton with all new computer driven equipment. At that level we were users and not developers, and I became an air intercept controller using the computer processed radar information to guide fighter pilots into the right position to shoot down the enemy fighter.
    In the fall of 1967 the executive officer calls me into his office one day and says, “Lieutenant, we have a quota to send someone to programming school and you are the only one qualified.” The catch was an agreement to spend three years on active duty after graduating which meant an extra 15 months of active duty. I agreed and found myself at the Fleet Computer Programming Center, Pacific in San Diego learning all about and how to program the Univac CP-642B and its Marine Corps version, the CP-808.
    After graduating from programming school I was transferred from Camp Pendleton to Marine Corps Air Base, El Toro in Orange County California. I was assigned to another Marine Air Control Squadron to work on a project called the Southeast Asia Interface. As it turns out the Marine Corps had the only system (the AN/TYA-20 from Univac) that could be programmed to perform functions similar to a modern day router, linking all the air defense systems in Vietnam together. The project was well underway and I became the third member of the programming team. The other two members of the team soon left and I became the principal programmer. I felt very fortunate to be assigned to a technical job doing data communications programming for the Marine Tactical Data System.
   This project was built and tested with the Air Force and Navy in Southern California and then deployed to Vietnam. Doing the programming was the easy part. Getting the resources was the challenging part. I was lucky again, the gnarly, well-respected maintenance chief was CWO-3 Dante A. Massarotti and one of his bright young technicians was SSgt John Westergren. Gunner Massarotti and the electronics officer went to the Navy and extracted a junked RD-243 magnetic tape unit that they refurbished. This was a great improvement over paper tape.
    In addition, the Univac field engineer, Dennis Angel, taught me all about DS-4772 and how to program Input/Output (I/O). In order to compile our software we either had to drive to FCPC in San Diego or drive up to Pt. Magu. Many times we would go to Pt. Magu when they were not supporting a missile shoot and work all night. Eventually we were able to get a driver with a security clearance and we would send him to San Diego and have him wait for the results.
The program was deemed fully operational in the spring of 1969 and we took it to Vietnam in June, making it back in time to watch the lunar landing in July 1969.
    After successfully deploying the software I received my orders to return to Vietnam for a year long tour. Unknown to me, the commanding officer of my unit thought that I could be more useful to the Marine Corps if I were able to apply the lessons learned from the Southeast Asia Interface project to the emerging data communication standards for Air Command and Control. My orders were cancelled and I spent my last year of active duty doing a small part to establish the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity as the Marine Corps center for tactical command and control systems.
With my tour of duty approaching an end I decided that I would not go to work in the defense industry and was able to secure a system engineering position with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). I thought that I was headed for their data center in Dallas, TX. Halfway from Southern California to Dallas via Nebraska the folks at EDS contacted me and wanted me to go New York City instead. That did not appeal to me and after some discussion I ended up on Des Moines, IA. The job was not technical at all and one I did not like. So, I called my friend Danny Massarotti and asked him if there were any jobs at Univac. He thought there might be one and fortune smiled once more with a Sr. System Engineering position in Ground Systems at Univac Defense Systems.
    July 1971 was the start of my seventeen-year career at Univac Defense Systems. I had already been programming Univac computers for several years and felt right at home. The company was at the leading edge of technology, a good place to work, and I enjoyed the people.
    This time frame was the dawn of the sixteen bit computer and I helped put together the AN/UYK-20 winning proposal that eventually led to my first project engineering job, updating the AN/TYA-20 from the CP-808 to a cluster of four AN/UYK-20 computers. The CS-1 code used in the CP-808 was updated to CMS-2 and we employed MEANS statement to fully embrace structured programming constructs. Since we had very limited space in the shelter we had to find a way to use a single set of peripherals. Ethernet or Token Ring was not yet available so engineering developed a shared bus device called the Data Bus Controller or DBC.
    We had a requirement to interface with different types of serial communications that in no way resembled commercial communications, eliminating the use of any off the shelf commercial chip set. Glen Kregness came to the rescue with a variable character length serial interface that was to be known as VACALES. {Editor's note: Glen created the concept, Dick Erdrich did the basic hardware logic design.}
    As we were getting to the end of the project the IBEW was in contract talks and threatening to strike. That had the potential of preventing us from delivering on time so the decision was made to ship the shelter to Camp Pendleton (MCTSSA) and finish the software there. The challenge of finishing on time was increased significantly, especially when we discovered wiring errors. We finally did finish and the Marine Corps accepted the system.
    The next big event was the MACCS-85 project. This was the next generation air command and control system for the Marine Corps. The company made a very large commitment to this program, developing a strong team. I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a large and close-knit team that worked grueling eighty-hour plus weeks for two years. We had the right technical approach and the Marine Corps liked it, but we did not win. I’d like to go back to the evaluators and ask them to eat their words about our pricing. They dinged our proposed display pricing because they felt we did not provide sufficient justification for reduced semiconductor memory cost in the future. This was one of the most ridiculous reasons ever. Lower semiconductor memory cost has enabled a wonderful array of products like laptop computers, iPods, digital cameras, and cell phones.
    We might not have won MACCS-85, but we set the stage for our next large contract, the Marine Air Traffic Control and Landing System (MATCALS). The first competitive procurement between MACCS-85 and MATCALS was winning the Multi-Mode Display or MMD. That win, combined with our air traffic control experience, NTDS, MTDS, SHINPADS, etc. positioned the company to win the MATCALS program. This was one the first large command and control systems with embedded computers linked by redundant serial buses. For Sperry Univac it became a real showcase for switching, displays, communications, distributed computing, etc. It also put Sperry Gyro in a good position to win the air surveillance radar contract for MATCALS.
    After so much time in Ground Systems it was time for something different. I moved into Airborne Systems and worked special programs. Here is what I can tell you about that experience _____________________________. Let me just say that it was enjoyable and I thoroughly enjoyed working with the airborne team. Everyone who worked special programs got to know Ernie Ryan. {Editor’s note – Ernie took care of security clearances and associated facility access.} He ran a tight ship and it was fun for a former Marine to link up with retired Navy guy. We even got along.
    After the merger with Burroughs and the birth of Unisys I decided to take a look outside the company. Sid Rundell had successfully ventured out of Univac - I joined Sid in Lockheed Missiles and Space, Austin Division. Shortly after I moved to Austin, Sid was offered the GM position in Salt Lake City and I replaced him as the Director of Business Development. Lockheed was much like the old Univac with great technical talent, always on the leading edge of technology. The late eighties was the start of the decline in the defense industry and there was not enough business to support the large facility Lockheed had built in Austin.
    In 1990 I could see what was happening and moved back to the Twin Cities to work for a small high-tech commercial company, Ancor Communications. After some entrepreneurial efforts and start-up management positions at NEO Networks, NuSpeed, and Cisco - I retired in early 2003.
    Lady luck has been nice to me throughout my career. I’ve always had the opportunity to work with some the best and most talented engineers and the companies I’ve worked for have been technology leaders great at operations. The softest spot in my heart is reserved for all my friends and co-workers and Univac Defense Systems. We were a bunch of raw but talented folks who conquered the new world of high technology and did some amazing things. I can’t wait to see what the next generation will do.    

4. Career Summaries - K:

4.1 Bill Kenny,

    My original position at Univac was as an engineer in the Process Control Research group in the Research Division, headed by Dr. Leroy Stutzman. The Research Division had four departments: Physics, headed by Sid Reubens; Math Research, headed by Arnie Cohen; Process Control, headed by Jack Tierney; and a Systems Department. The goal of the Process Control group was to research the potential for computers in the analysis of chemical processes and ultimately for process control. The analysis part was successful, but the control part was premature. Computers in those days failed about every few hours and chemical processes could not be allowed to fail even over a period of two or more years. We had a great group: manager Jack Tierney, Dale Ruud, Chuck Homan, Bob McCarter, Jim Nikitas, Curt Brasket, and myself. Dr. Neal Amundson, head of the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota, was a consultant. After a few years, the Research Division, except for the Physics Group, was closed down as not profitable, and the staff migrated to either other parts of the company or to other careers. We had published papers on digital control and chemical process models, but could not generate serious industry interest.
    I joined the Navy NTDS project as a section leader of a group developing algorithms for military interceptor and AA missile control systems. Other projects involved algorithms for the SPN-42 Automatic Carrier Landing System. We used the Univac 1103 computer for our analyses. In this period I had to travel extensively to various Navy facilities: Washington, China Lake, Newport News, San Diego, and Los Angeles. In 1960 I spent a week or two on an aircraft carrier (probably CV-62, the Independence) for observing command and control and air operations. We planned to computerize them in NTDS. During the ride a hurricane came up and the big ship really bounced around. The carrier was summoned to aid a passenger ship that had a seriously ill passenger. I remember going up to the deck and being completely disoriented since it was totally dark—no horizon and the ship was operating under battle conditions with no lights. I could not even see the deck. I learned a lot about Navy customs and etiquette. I made the mistake of showing up for dinner without a tie and suit—no one would speak to me. Dinners in the officers’ mess required suits and ties. We bunked in the pilots quarters that were under the flight deck so it was pretty noisy, especially when the catapults were operating. I was able to explore the entire ship. The chain locker impressed me. This is a gymnasium sized room where the anchor chains are drawn up. A link was about waist high on me. The scale was hard to believe. The steam catapults were improbable designs but worked very well.
    Other projects included developing algorithms for missile tracking ships and for a tracking station on Ascension Island. Some of my people had to go there but I worked that project from St. Paul. Univac opened a branch office in Cocoa Beach, FL to support the Cape Canaveral Launch Facility. I managed the facility from St. Paul but we had a local manager on the site. We had about 40 programmers there but the productivity was far less than that of the 30 or so we had in St. Paul. The staff there was not as qualified for the tasks. We solved the coordination problems by temporarily relocating key staff to Cocoa Beach. I was always impressed when a rocket was launched. The noise, especially in the low frequencies, was terrific.
    In 1962 I left Univac to join with Leroy Stutzman in a new startup, Tronchemics Research, Inc. with the goal of researching computer applications for the chemical industry.     

4.2 Dick Kistler, 1964-

Univac’s Radio Guidance of Missiles at Vandenberg Air Force Base
    I joined Univac as a programmer in April of 1964 and was assigned to the real time missile guidance group in Bob Hanson’s organization. Ed Solheim and Bob Russell were the two managers in the organization and my immediate supervisor was George Smith. The real time programmers in the group worked on the Athena computer, which I was to learn was probably the most reliable computer ever built. I attended an Athena programmer’s class although I never got to write any guidance programs for the Athena.
    The Athena was originally developed to provide guidance to the Titan I Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) that were housed underground. The guidance computer needed to be extremely reliable but did not require much versatility since the guidance equations were fairly simple. Targets for the ICBMs were known in advance and implicit guidance equations (fly a wire trajectory) were sufficient to get the job done and guide the missile to the target. The program was stored on a large revolving magnetic drum that only had room for 8K of instructions. There was a small “scratchpad” memory for data. It contained 256 24-bit words of rewritable core memory. One of the biggest challenges in Athena programming was spacing the instructions around the drum so they would be under the read head at the proper times. A basic instruction time was 40 microseconds and the various instructions would all be some multiple of 40 microseconds. Programmers developed the instruction spacing program on another computer.
    The early space programs from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base used the Athena as the guidance computer. However, as missile guidance technology evolved toward explicit guidance equations, where all the targeting did not need to be done prior to launch, the Athena could not provide the needed capability. Thus, the move toward more general-purpose computers became the next logical step. This would lead to major changes in philosophy as well as hardware and hardware interfaces.
    Philosophically, a general-purpose computer meant that programmers could very easily change the program in the computer’s core memory, so many security processes needed to be developed to insure the integrity of the guidance system. The hardware changes were extreme since the new computer and all its peripherals would be much smaller than the nearly 400 square footprint required by the Athena’s large cabinets. Also, a new interface needed to be developed to tie the general-purpose computer to the ground radar system. Univac engineers developed a small (about 3 feet by 3 feet by 1 foot) Radar Interface Unit (RIU) that effectively made the computer change transparent to the radar.
    An Athena computer also guided the Air Force Program 437 on Johnston Island, but the follow on program, Program 437AP, needed more sophisticated guidance equations, and it was the first radio controlled ground guidance program to be written on a general purpose computer. In late 1964 or early 1965 a small group of real time programmers was assigned to develop the new guidance program on a Univac 642B general purpose computer. The small group consisted of Paul Becvar, Steve Chodos, Wayne Hiller, Dick Kistler, Don Neff, Dick Olson, and Wayne Walther. We were given Special Access clearances and sequestered in a small office area of Univac Plant 1. The team not only programmed the real time guidance equations per a specification from another contractor, but also designed and developed the real time executive that would control the program and interface with the new RIU. The team also designed and developed the non real time support software that was needed. All the real time software was written in the CS-1 assembly language. The assembly language programming enabled more efficient programming and (we believed) more reliable programming that could be more easily debugged.
    Shortly after we finished the Program 437AP programming we were given a new task: to develop the guidance program for the Air Force Program 110 (a Titan IIIB booster and our Agena D upper stage) which would be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), CA. It was going to be a much larger task than the 437AP task so the team was expanded by the addition of several programmers: Larry Buhr, Ron DeMars, Bob Homyak John Neeson and Jack Pittenger.
    Starting in the fall of 1965 the Program 110 programming team worked out of offices in Univac’s Plant 1 in St Paul but spent considerable time in Plant 5 where the computer system was setup. Members of the team who developed the non real time portions were able to use the computer center in Plant 1.
    In December of 1965 Univac management informed us that they were going to establish an office onsite at VAFB and would be staffing it with the Program Manager and a staff of programmers. It was to be a two-year semi permanent move with plans to return to the Twin Cities at the end of the period.
    The team continued developing the guidance program and all the support software until late February of 1966 when Charlie Gardner, Program Manager; Dexter Pehle, Systems Engineer; Harold Tuset, Programming Supervisor; and six programmers relocated their households to Santa Maria, CA. The programmers who moved were: Larry Buhr, Steve Chodos, Ron DeMars, Bob Homyak, Dick Kistler, John Neeson, and Jack Pittenger. Other members of the Program 110 team made prolonged trips to VAFB to help develop and debug the software in preparation for a planned July launch. Dick Olson spent almost all of the following five months (March to July) on site although he did not move his household.
In addition to Univac the Program 110 guidance team consisted of Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) (Sunnyvale, CA), Bell Telephone Labs (BTL) (Greensboro, NC), and Western Electric Company (WECO) (Winston Salem, NC and VAFB). LMSC, under the guidance of Bill Chapin, developed the trajectory optimization software that would provide the ideal trajectory for the launch. BTL, under the guidance of Bob Tarrant, developed the explicit guidance equations that would use the targeting information and provide the guidance commands to be sent to the missile. WECO was the guidance station integrator and provided the ground radar system as well as the antenna and radio guidance box on the Titan IIIB.
    The months of March through June were a very intense period of final development and checkout for the Univac programmers at VAFB. Everyone spent up to 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, except for Easter Sunday, getting ready for a late July launch date. Bob Tarrant was onsite for several months as the equations were also being debugged using the WECO analog simulator with the ground radar system. Also present were Del Driver and Herb Lewis, two members of The Aerospace Corporation from El Segundo, CA. As the technical advisors to the Air Force The Aerospace engineers asked all the necessary, penetrating questions and evaluated reams of data to ensure the guidance system was working properly.
    Finally, in late July the guidance system was declared ready to support the first launch of the Titan IIIB, Agena D. On launch day the countdown was delayed for many hours as the launch team solved one booster/payload problem after another. The guidance station was located under ground in a former Titan I launch facility with no view of the outside or the launch pad. Most if not all the programming team were present in the guidance station in the unlikely event that they would be needed to solve some unforeseen problem. Once it became obvious, after hours of holds, from the countdown network audio that we were finally going to launch in a couple minutes Harold Tuset and I went outside the complex so we could view the launch. After all, we had seen countless simulations and knew what everything looked like in the guidance station computer center and we wanted to see the Titan liftoff, even though the launch pad was about 10 miles from the guidance station.
    As we stood on the hill above the guidance station without a worry in the world, we soon realized that more than two minutes had passed and we were probably in another hold situation. Then we heard shouting coming from the tunnel leading to the guidance station: “Tuset, we need you in here.” “Kistler, we need you in here.” Then came our most embarrassing moments and probably career low points. After all, Univac had never had a problem that caused a launch hold or a launch failure, but we were informed that our guidance computer had just caused the launch to be held.
    To insure the integrity of the software we had designed a feature in which the computer would perform a checksum of the guidance program when the guidance system was switched into launch mode. When the WECO guidance control officer placed the guidance station into launch mode the computer dutifully performed its checksum and, unfortunately for us, detected a checksum error. This was not a problem that could be quickly solved and the decision was made to scrub the launch and try again another day.
     It did not take much analysis for us to find the cause of the checksum failure. Using a technique we called core dump comparison, in which we compared the entire core memory of the computer after the problem with the core memory of the computer when it was loaded that morning, we quickly found one instruction in the guidance program that had picked up an extra bit.
     Since timing pulses, data and action interrupts from the RIU drove the real time executive, we had decided to have the executive sit and wait in one place for the interrupts. We did this by putting in an instruction that jumped to itself, thus the program would cycle on the one instruction until it needed to take action to process the next interrupt. During the many hours that day that the guidance program was just cycling, processing interrupts and waiting for the signal to go into launch mode it probably spent 95% or more of that time executing the single jump to itself instruction. As we found out later, the repetition caused that particular circuitry to heat up and eventually the instruction picked up a bit that then caused the checksum to fail when the launch mode was initiated.
     Once we were able to point out the location of the additional bit and explain the executive’s software design to the hardware engineers they quickly deduced the overheating problem. They replaced the card that had failed, we modified the real time executive to loop through about ten instructions while waiting, and we reestablished the guidance program software integrity to everyone’s (our Air Force program office representatives, the Aerospace engineers, and the WECO guidance station integrators) satisfaction. A couple days later on July 29, 1966, we successfully guided the first Program 110 payload on its way to orbit.
     That, as far as I know, was the only time that a Univac ground guidance system was responsible for a launch hold and it never was responsible for a launch failure. We continued to successfully support Titan IIIB launches at a rate of about one launch every six weeks for many years.
     Not only did Univac provide years and years of successful support but the information on one of the guidance system peripherals was used to save a mission. One of the guidance computer’s peripherals was a 30-inch by 30-inch Milgo plotter. Prior to every launch the guidance program would run the nominal mission and plot the expected flight trajectory on the Milgo plotter. We displayed two plots: the downrange versus the cross range plot and downrange versus the altitude plot. We would plot the nominal trajectory plots in green ink and then plot the real time (whether it was a simulation run or a real launch) in red. These plots were very useful in the analysis of various dispersions during simulation runs and the plots gave a real time view as to how well the missile was following the nominal trajectory during an actual launch.
     One day during the last two minutes of a launch countdown the final “go” or “no go” decisions were being given on the audio network. When the Launch Control Officer went down the list asking for readiness from the booster, the payload, range safety and the guidance system everyone said they were “green” except the Range Safety Officer, who said the range was “red.” There had been a power failure in the range safety system and the Range Safety Officer had no information available from the range safety radars. For whatever reason the Launch Control Officer did not acknowledge the “no go or red” condition from range safety and cleared all systems to proceed to launch. The Titan lifted off and proceeded nominally toward orbit. It was the prerogative and probably the responsibility of the Range Safety Officer at that time to send the destruct command and destroy the missile and its payload since he had no visual information as to the position of the missile. However, as he did during every launch, the WECO Guidance Control Officer stood in front of our Milgo plotter and gave a “play by play” commentary over the network as to where the missile was with respect to downrange, cross range and altitude and how close we were to the nominal trajectory. The Range Safety Officer had enough faith in the Guidance Control Officer and our trajectory plots that he let the Titan continue on to orbit. A day that could have ended with a failed mission instead ended with a successful launch thanks in part to our trajectory plots.
     In the late 1960’s another major missile program development effort was being planned for VAFB. That was the Air Force’s Program 467, which was to be launched on a Titan IIID. Charlie Gardner had visions of an expanded role for Univac for Program 467. For Program 110 all the trajectory analysis, trajectory optimization and trajectory design work was done by LMSC in Sunnyvale, CA, under the direction of Bill Chapin. Charlie thought that if he could lure Bill Chapin and his key people away from LMSC that the Air Force would be willing to give Univac the trajectory contract as well as the guidance program contract. Charlie successfully hired Bill Chapin and his key staff members: Dick Kallaus, Jamie Lavios, and Ed Tilford. B ill then hired Bill Exely, who had worked with NASA in trajectory analysis and simulation design for the Saturn V moon rocket.
     With such a talented staff of trajectory experts working for Univac at VAFB the Air Force did indeed give Univac the Program 467 trajectory contract. For a period of several years the level of development at VAFB was at a very high pitch as 1230 computer systems were installed to support the Program 467 trajectory optimization and design and the new guidance program development. All the effort culminated in the successful launch of the first Titan IIID on June 15, 1971.
     During the first few years after the Program 467 development efforts concluded, many members of the programming staff and all the key members of the trajectory development staff relocated to Univac’s offices in Sunnyvale or St. Paul or left the company. Univac however continued to provide support at VAFB to both the Titan IIIB and Titan IIID for many years. The final launch of the Titan IIID occurred on November 17, 1982 and the final launch of the Titan IIIB/Agena D occurred on February 11, 1987.    

4.3 Steven Kloner, 1973-

    So many things that went on, that one could write volumes
I started with the old Education department in December 1973. I had some great people to work with. Names at the time were Ken Boehm (deceased), Gary Hagen, Dan Newton (Mgr), Don Kimball, Mr. Engelke, Paul Burley, and of course many others. It was a great place to work. We got the job done and even had fun along the way. I must say that I appreciated the help and support that one received at the time.
     One can even remember many of the things learned. I can recall working on a topic that was part of something listed in one of the items mentioned in the sample viewgraphs that you provided was the 1652 Dual Display console. I did most of that work at Air Force bases. What I did not realize at the time was that I was doing state of the art graphics programming before it was common. That was a real personal achievement. Now with all the PC’s and packages, it’s not the big thing that it was at the time. Back then, one had to actually code in assembly language to make that happen.
     Looking at funny events along the way, and we all had our share of them, makes me think of one in particular. I was conduction an AN/UYK-20 Programming class at NUSC in New London, CT. (The facility is no longer there - it has been torn down and replaced by a Pfizer facility.) Anyway, it was a very busy week and Friday afternoon had finally arrived. Now in those days, there were no CD’s or anything like that so we carried all these technical documents with us. I was starting to summarize and also pack up boxes of reference documents. Now we would tape these boxes up, label them, take them to the airport with us and ship them along with our checked baggage. Well anyway, I had just put these manuals in a box, taped it up and was getting set to finish when a person raised his hand. He asked this question with very serious look and with determination. The question was “Does the UYK-20 have a Pie Cost? Well, when you hear that, you think Pi (as in circumference stuff). Upon hearing this – remember the look and the sound “Pi”, I started checking. Well the first thing that came to mind was that they had recently come out with the Math Pac option for the UYK-20 and I knew that there were trigonometric functions in that. So with that in mind, I checked the material that I had not packed and found nothing. Then I though I better check in the big heavy UYK-20 hardware manual that was already packed away. I cut the tape and opened the box, took the hardware manual out and started searching. Well after 10 minutes, I could not find a thing. Finally I had to ask, “What’s a Pi Cost?” The fellow then says to me, going from a stern serious look to a smile “Three dollars and forty-nine cents”. Well talk about hook, line and sinker, that was me.

     Inthe old Univac training department, one of the classes taught was the Computer Fundamentals Class. We had a Study Guide for use in the class and it was pretty good. In those days it covered things like Octal and Hex numbering systems and also things like logic blocks, i.e. AND, OR, XOR logic functions. The course was five days in length most of the time. We had a variety of students in the class. The students ranged from people from the assembly line in old plant 1 to technicians, new engineers and people who were in administration positions. We had a computer for this called the Univac Digital Trainer. It could even be hooked up to some kind of Flex Writer. The computer could let you input programs from the panel. Dan Newton, who was the manager at the time worked on this before becoming manager. I have no idea of what became of this computer but it would be interesting to see it again. This digital trainer would be an historic item to locate [Maybe it’s in a warehouse someplace?] Another item that we had was a 16mm sound movie that was an introduction to computer fundamentals. I think it ran between 25 and 30 minutes. I have no idea as to what became of that film.
     Another item of interest was another movie. This movie was produced by one of the major television networks and it involved a former employee of Univac. In 1976, I was conducting an AN/UYK-20 Programming Course for customers from Japan. These customers represented the Japanese Navy and various companies i.e. Toshiba, Mitsubishi, etc. The Japanese naval representative requested that time be allotted to view this documentary film. The film was a story about a P-38 Lightning plane that was shot down in New Guinea during World War II. The plan crashed in the jungle and the pilot was found by the local natives. He was on the verge of death but the local population nursed him back to health. He even returned in later years to thank them. He was an employee of Univac later on. Don Lovely would remember this story as he was involved and I believe he knew the pilot involved.   

4.4 Bruce Klugherz, 1959 - 1999

     It is amazing to me that I am considered “an old timer” to make a contribution to the history of the company. Times have really changed. When I joined the company in 1959 I was part of the Titan ICBM program. We used to attend meetings with other companies, and we were always the youngest guys in the meeting. Funny thing, that all changed by the time I retired in 1999.
     I was fortunate to be part of the Titan Missile Project as part of Remington Rand Univac. After some training in St. Paul I was assigned as Engineer in Charge of one of the missile guidance systems at Cape Canaveral. It was great to learn about missiles and guidance systems. The guys from all the other companies were more than willing to teach you anything you needed to know about their equipment, so you could do your job better. As the years went by, companies who would some day be competitors were not so willing to share information. As part of the ground guidance team I had an opportunity to do something that not many people have done. We were launching a special payload one day which included an inflatable 100 ft. diameter aluminized balloon called ECHO. It was the first communications satellite and you could bounce signals off of it. The computer was supposed to send the signal to eject the payload but the signal was not received by the missile. My job was to change the computer controls from automatic to manual and then punch in the octal code on the control console three times at five second intervals. Luckily for me the signal was received and the payload was ejected and the balloon was inflated. I received a joke award from our launch team called “The Order of Digitis Extensionis”.
     My next assignment was to manage the installation and test of an operational underground Titan Missile complex near Beale Air force Base in California. Our team was requested to staff the Titan ground guidance system during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were all very relieved when the crisis was ended and we were not required to fire the Titan missiles in response to a Russian attack.
     Upon return to St. Paul I was assigned to work as a programmer and later as a manager of the Automated Design Department. A programmer in those days worked in machine code because compliers and high level languages were not yet available. During this time of early 1963, Univac was far ahead of the industry in the development of software for design automation. One of the important software programs developed in this group was the wire wrap router program. As computing speeds increased the designers required the routing programs to take into consideration the shortest wire path possible to transmit the digital signals.
     My next assignment was to the Program Management office for the US Navy S-3A anti submarine aircraft program. This was my first business relationship with the Lockheed Martin Corporation. Little did I know that one day I would become a Lockheed employee. I also worked as a Systems Engineering manager in support of Avionics Programs. This work involved many challenging new systems. Some of this work involved classified intelligence gathering systems.
As a Systems Engineer I was also required to support the Marketing Department on presentations to customers. It was at this time that I also had to opportunity to participate in the generation of proposals to the government customers. Writing proposals is a hard job but it was great for building team spirit. Those were the days when we would celebrate a win with a gathering of those involved on a project to enjoy a barbeque and sweet corn picnic at the lake. Oh yes, there may have been some beverages served also. After a few beverages had been consumed, there would always be a round of singing which included the song ANEW We Love You. This song was a parody to recognize all of the contracts we had received over the years from the US Navy for hardware and software produced in support of the Lockheed P-3-C aircraft.
     In the later years of my career I mostly worked in Program Management on a number of different programs. There are two programs that have many memories associated with them. Those programs were the 6977 Communications program for the Government of Israel and the Q-70 computer and display program for the US Navy.
    A part of the program management team, I worked on the 6977 program. It was one of the first international programs won by Univac. This program involved subcontracts with companies from Israel, Italy, and several US companies. This program was a learning program for our company. Doing business with foreign companies has many challenges above and beyond the language issues. The system got installed and as far as we know is still achieving all of its objectives. This program did result in a two year international arbitration of a contract dispute. Participating in the court proceedings was a lesson in business practice. As I learned, you cannot avoid a contract dispute in the way you write your business memos, but if you take the time to ensure that the business memos truly say what you intend to say, you can avoid multiple interpretations of your words at a later time.

One of most memorable programs was the Q-70 program for the Navy. This program was the first time that the US Navy decided to make use of commercial off the shelf hardware (COTS). Until this point in time all of the computer and display parts were ruggedized special design and the software was written in a special Navy software language called CMS-2. It was also true that for many years Univac had been the Navy supplier of computers, and Hughes had been the supplier of the CRT displays that were connected to the computers. Top management in St. Paul was not at first willing to fund a proposal effort that would promise to build a hardware and display system, since it was assumed that only Hughes could win the competition. After several presentations to Univac management, we were given permission to bid the Q-70 program, and we were extremely happy when we won the competition. That program has been a major business area for the company over the past several years.
In the last years of my career, I worked as a program manager on several programs. I am glad to say that one of those programs was the newest most modern class of submarines called the Virginia Class. This program gave our company experience in some of the most technology challenging communications systems available. The once Silent Service, has now become an integral part of almost every military operation of our military service.
Our company has changed a lot over the years, but one thing has not changed, and that is the many good people who have contributed to the company success.     

4.5 Dave Kolling, 1958 - 1994

REFLECTIONS ON MY CAREER WITH UNIVAC
     After graduating from Mankato State College in 1958 with a degree in Math and Physics, I was hired by Remington Rand Univac (RRU) as a Programmer. I didn’t really know what a computer was so I was scheduled to attend the infamous Dr. Brown’s digital computer logic class. Besides learning about computer gates, it was my first exposure to the binary and octal number systems. What an eye opening experience.
    My first assignment was working on the Threat Evaluation & Weapon Assignment (TEWA) module for the Service Test version of the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS). The strategy and mathematics for this “shoot-look-shoot” philosophy was developed by Dr. Alex Radcliffe at the Johns Hopkins University-Applied Physics Laboratory. It was a pioneering effort to automate this function on board naval ships.
    This was just one of many “firsts” developed for the three Service Test ships during the early 1960s. Some of the others included the first production solid state digital computer (AN/USQ-20), the real-time operational software executive which allowed asynchronous operation and automatic computing load balancing, automated intercept control and automatic radar/target tracking. It was this latter capability, developed by RRU, which led to the awarding of the first Air Traffic Control contract and a long and successful association with the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA). Through all of this, we emerged as the unofficial system contactor for all subsequent NTDS variations and implementations.
The programming that we did was originally in absolute code, written in octal numbers and punched in paper tape to be read into the computer. This being very inefficient, led to our development of the R-3 Assembler (which allowed relative addressing) and then the CS-1 Compiler which allowed the programs to be written in English language logic statements. This made it much easier to develop operational programs that would exceed the 32K of 30 bit memory that was available in each computer.
    After the original service test software was ready in the early 60’s, Univac assisted the U.S. Navy in establishing the Fleet Computer Programming Center, Pacific (FCPC, Pac)in San Diego. Their responsibility evolved into that of developing the “official” operational software since this was something that could not be done by a private company since it involved devising and implementing naval strategic and tactical doctrine. In essence, UNIVAC became the proof of concept and prototype system developer and FCPC, Pac became the production developer.
    UNIVAC also pioneered the use of computers to evaluate the actual installation and integration of NTDS shipboard systems. This was accomplished with specific test software programs developed for each piece of equipment, diagnostic programs for the computers, Programmed Operational and Functional Appraisal (POFA) programs for each piece of equipment interfacing with the computer and Integrated Programmed Operational and Functional Appraisal (IPOFA) programs to test the overall installation. This software turned out to be very instrumental in the quality of system installation ultimately achieved by the shipyards.
    During the late 1960’s, we were contracted by the Navy to develop a specification for the process of software development that became affectionately known as “SHIPS 0011,” an abbreviation of the official specification number. This document addresses the entire development process from developing the functional requirements, through design specifications, programming and software testing. The specification has evolved over time and became a Navy wide standard. This also led to Univac developing the software quality specification that was used Navy-wide for subsequent software procurements.
    Because of the significant R&D that was being conducted by Univac, the U.S. Navy created a digital computer combat system integration and test center at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, Ca. It was at this facility that the cutting edge digital technologies for digital fire control and automatic radar control for detection and tracking were proven to be viable prior to implementation in the fleet. The digital closed loop control of the fire control radar, rather than the previously accepted analog control, really opened the door to the eventual domination of the digital computer in all of the combat system functions.
    The Univac 1218 and 1219 18-bit computers became standard for the Naval Weapons Systems Command for the digital replacement of the older analog fire control computers for the Tartar, Terrier, and Talos missile systems. Digital control of the AN/SPS-48 radar beam for detection and tracking heralded a new concept of radar. T his eventually led to development of the Aegis phased array radar system that is the mainstay in today’s fleet.
    The 1218 computer was also the heart of the AN/SPN-42 Automatic Carrier Landing System that was developed by Univac in conjunction with Bell Aero-Systems who had developed the original analog system. This system was eventually deployed on all of the active aircraft carriers.
    The next major technology breakthrough was in the early 1970s, the development of the AN/UYK-7 computer, the first computer with multi-processing capability. The first operational implementation of this capability was in a two bay/dual processor configuration on the SSN 688 (Los Angeles) class submarines. Closely following was a four bay/triple processor configuration implemented on the DLGN 38 class surface ships. The key advancement was the systems tolerance to hardware failures. The system would automatically detect the failure, isolate the failed component and adjust the computational load until it could be removed and repaired.
    This computer architecture rapidly became the standard for several offshoot computer architectures that were used by the U.S. Marine Corps in their tactical air control and command center shelters as well as the Apollo program for their satellite tracking. The last major Mil-Spec computer developments were the 16-bit AN/UYK-44 and 32-bit AN/UYK-43 computers. Both of these production contracts were won by Univac in 1983 after competitive development runoffs against IBM. These computers really marked the end off the “bullet-proof” Mil-Spec computers, for from that point on, the military’s hardware procurement emphasis switched to utilizing commercial off-the-shelf components and open architecture concepts as much as possible.
    During the foregoing time period, I was personally involved in these technology advancements either from a Systems Engineering or Program Management standpoint since I spent about equal amounts of time in both functional organizations. Probably the most challenging assignment I had during my career was first as Program Director for Eagan’s combat system software development for the Canadian Patrol Frigates (CPF) and my subsequent transfer to Montreal, Canada, from 1988 - 92 as the Program Director for the overall program at Sperry/Unisys Paramax division. CPF was a major $2.4B system development and management contact that required Sperry/Unisys to design, develop, procure, install and test all of the electronics for the combat system and machinery control systems for 12 patrol frigate class ships. The contract started in 1983 and completed in 1996 with delivery of the 12th ship. The first frigate was delivered to the Canadian Naval Forces and commissioned in time for it to be deployed as the centerpiece of Canada’s commitment to the first Gulf war coalition forces.
    The CPF was significant in that it featured 33 computers networked on a SHINPADS data bus, working in a shared processing environment that was completely fail-safe. The ASW and AAW modes of operation were also capable of being controlled manually, semi-automatically or fully automatically. This was the first warship that had these features operationally implemented.
    In 1986, Burroughs purchased Sperry and Unisys emerged from behind the white curtain. Unfortunately, this was the beginning of end of the legacy of UNIVAC as we all grew to know and honor over the years - a legacy of leading edge technological innovation and customer satisfaction. Fortunately, I had the pleasure of working at UNIVAC during the “Glory Years,” starting my career as a programmer in 1958 and retiring as Vice President, Engineering in 1994. It was a great ride!   

4.6 Tom Kratz, 1965-

    I joined UNIVAC in 1965 right out of College, newly married, and ready to jump into this unknown new computer business area. Fortunately, I had taken the only computer course available before graduation; Fortran on an IBM 1620 using punch cards for the program instructions and data.
    After a few weeks of training in St Paul on a programming language called CS-1, our little group of 8 new hires [including Tom Hanson, Tom Rougier, Lyle Olson, Dean Sandifer, Roger Parker, et. al.] were transferred to Willow Grove PA to work on a new project called ANEW. ANEW was the US Navy’s attempt to put a digital computer on a Lockheed P-3-C to provide anti-submarine warfare operational capabilities. Initially, we had a 32K computer with flight testing being done out of Patuxent River MD.
    In 1968, I followed the evolving ANEW project out to Burbank where Lockheed, as prime, had the aircraft and a full laboratory mock-up for program development and system checkout. It was the type of project where the team was working 60-70 hrs a week for over a year; but the pay was good. After working in front of the computer console for so long, one could just look at the instruction execution light patterns and say if the program was running normally. It still amazes me the extent to which we programmers had to intimately know the computer architecture and instruction execution details to develop programs successfully in those days. Today’s normal SW engineer cannot fathom that HW/SW relationship. Being a part of the Lockheed flight test crew, one had to endure 10-hr long-range navigation test flights, MAD equipment alignment test flights which also tested who had a steel stomach and tactical ASW fights flying 100-200 feet above the ocean. One flight experience sticks with me. We were on a long inertial navigation accuracy test flight over the Mojave Desert when the airplane hit an air pocket. I occasionally stood behind the pilot looking out the cockpit to pass time. When the plane hit the air pocket, I went up or the plane went down resulting in my head jammed up into a metal part of the escape hatch. The blood was flowing down my face and the flight was aborted to return quickly to Burbank for some medical attention. What an exciting time for a guy from Minnesota. It was a time of real job satisfaction.
    P-3C [starting with ANEW] turned out to be one of the longest running projects the company had, not only with the USN but with several other world Navies.
    My experience on the P-3C 1830A computer brought me an offer to work on the German Fast Patrol Boat Project, which used the 1830B (shipboard version) computer. In 1971, my family and I transferred to the Netherlands where Signaal Co. (Prime contractor) was responsible for systems and software development. The development team, made up of Americans, Germans, French and Dutch, moved to Wilhelmshaven, Germany to complete the effort. Some of the American team included Lowell Benson, Bill Rogers, Dennis Christ, John Rachac, and Jim Gannon. Being a multi-national project, we Americans were lucky that both the work environment language and the social [party] language was English. That made life relatively easy but, regrettably, did not force me to learn German better than I did. My wife and I have maintained relations with many of these early acquaintances to this day.
    This started a 33 year long relationship with international business. I joined the international Program Management group around 1977 thanks to encouragement from Dennis Christ. Although my primary business area was with Germany, over the years I managed contracts with Canada, UK, France, Spain, Greece, NATO, Norway, and Italy. Visiting these customers allowed me to travel throughout most of Europe during the best of times. Besides the Fast Patrol Boat, other major German Projects included Frigate 122 (8 ships), Frigate 123 (4), Minehunter 343 (6). By the late ‘90s, Europe and Germany adopted the strategy that, with the availability of COTS equipment, system development could be done by their national defense contractors allowing defense spending to remain more within Europe. We lost the competitive Frigate 124 contract in 1998 mostly because of that and that loss started the downward spiral for the Lockheed Martin German business area. Since the time of the Fast Patrol Boat project, St Paul always had a branch/marketing office in the Bonn area handling the direct customer marketing interface and taking the prime contract on behalf of St. Paul. Some of the notable Bonn office Managers included Lee Dominick, Gary Holthusen, Gary Humfelt, Chuck Hammond, Dennis Christ, and Manfred Wiese. Prior to Wiese taking the lead position, St Paul always had an American heading up the Bonn office rotating every 2-4 years.
    For years, John Byrne was the St Paul international marketing man. John and I pursued many international opportunities (business) together. Having Don Blattie normally as the international contracts manager, made for many smooth running programs and Senior Management expected international programs to provide good margins for the Company. Not having exact figures, I would say the Japanese business area, run by Bob Pagac, was the only business area that produced better margins than Germany, over time. Over the years, I have had great bosses including Dennis Christ, Bob Alexander, Bruce Grewenow, and Doug Schmitt.
    In closing, it was a very good ride. I always enjoyed going to work, which also means I enjoyed the people with whom I worked.   

4.7 Dick Kuhns, 1960 - 2000

    I started to work with Remington Rand Univac (RRU) in June 1960 after receiving an electrical engineering degree from South Dakota State University. My first year at RRU was spent in the component test lab in Plant 2 and writing hardware specifications. Working in 1960 at plant 2, which was a converted glider factory from WW II [and the original home of ERA], was an experience. We covered our desks with paper when leaving each day to keep the sparrows off the desk.
    In 1961 I transferred into the Navy Systems Engineering department. Approximately 25 of my 40 years with the company were focused on Navy projects. It was an exciting and interesting time to be part of the continued development of NTDS. When I started, NTDS had already been introduced and tested on its first group of ships. In the early 60’s, I developed software for equipment test programs, system interface tests, and Radar Alignment and Designation Accuracy Tests (RADAT). These programs were initially tested at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard test site. This was a great time to be an engineer and software developer. The projects at Mare Island were focused on doing things with digital computers that had not been done before - automating command and control functions, automating radar processing, and establishing digital interfaces between NTDS, radars and Fire Control Systems. Once the RADAT software was ready, I took the test aboard all of the ships in the CG26/28 class (CG26-35) and three aircraft carriers to test the alignment of all of the search radars with the fire control radars.
    I’ll never forget my first trip at sea on board CG 26, the USS Belknap. Before the ship sailed I was playing around with the test software at a display console not realizing that my balltab (cursor) was directly connected to the massive multi-ton fire control radar. As I moved the symbol from one side of the display screen to the other side (i. e., violent sudden changes in bearing) there would be a whooshing sound and the ship would vibrate. After a minute or two a young fellow came up to me in a hurry and said “Whatever you are doing stop!!!” Apparently my designations through the system were being accepted directly with no damping or smoothing. The necessary controls were put into the system so the problem went away.
    As the ship sailed from the pier at the Bath Iron Works in Bath Maine, I was inhaling tomato goulash in the officer’s dining room not realizing that once out on the ocean it would be a bit wavy. My first experience with sea sickness was unforgettable. When the ship returned three days later my first task on landing at the pier, after putting my feet on solid ground, was to call CDR Boslaugh (When Computers Went To Sea) and Jim Mountain for whom I worked at the time. It was a new experience for them to send a young programmer out to sea so they were interested in a report. The experience gained from these trips at sea gave me a great appreciation for the magnitude and complexity of the electronic systems on board ship.
    In the late 60’s I left software test development and focused on system studies and hardware interface development. One of my projects was to manage studies and prototype development for the NTDS serial Input/Output (I/O) interface. It seems a bit unusual now, but at the time sending digital information over one wire was considered to be heresy by some people. Cmdr Drenkard was the Navy project officer supporting the studies and held fast to pushing for a serial I/O interface over one coaxial cable wire. During the development of the serial interface I read and adopted some of the interface philosophy defined by Dave Lundstrom (A Few Good Men from Univac) who left behind a number of I/O white papers when he left the company for CDC. Dave was considered to be the I/O expert for the development of the original NTDS interfaces. The result of these studies and prototype efforts resulted in the specification of the NTDS Serial Interface {Editor's note: This serial interface became MIL-STD-1397 Type D, preceding the later Low Level Serial.}
    Before leaving the 1960’s I would like to say something about the way work was performed. The 60’s can be characterized as a time “before PCs" and “before copy machines”. Our secretaries would type all of our documents usually with carbon paper. If we wanted something copied in Plant 5 we would go to the ozalid room for copies. In the early 60’s I would be debugging my software programs late at night in plant 5. All direct computer work was performed at the computer front panel in binary. Software would be compiled on the target machine and punched on paper tape. If the punch would erroneously punch the wrong holes, the whole process would be repeated. Work energy was high both in St. Paul and at Mare Island. After work hours in St. Paul, there were many intramural sports. I particularly enjoyed fast pitch softball (slow pitch had not been introduced yet) with Hank Zelenka as our pitcher. Everybody worked hard and played hard. Work hours at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard were scheduled 24 hours per day so it was not unusual to be assigned work time at night. I remember getting a speeding ticket late one night for exceeding the 10-mile per hour limit.
    I worked with the Navy to define the requirements for the Data Exchange Auxiliary Console (DEAC) during 1969 and then carried the project through the pre-proposal and proposal stages as the proposal manager. The DEAC became the primary auxiliary interface for keyboard/printer, paper tape reader/punch and magnetic tape interface during the 70’s and 80’s.
    The Junior Participating Tactical Data System (JPTDS) system development started in the early 70’s. I was the project engineer for the JPTDS as well as some related hardware system developments. The JPTDS was ultimately installed on the DDG-2 class of ships. Part of the JPTDS contract required the installation of a small JPTDS system in a forty-foot trailer that could be moved to various locations. Once completed the trailer system was located at Mare Island where it supported testing. The system installed in the trailer used the NTDS Serial Interface for the first time. One of the Magnetic Tape Transport’s (MTT’s) was removed from the DEAC and replaced with a small analog to digital converter [Integrated Circuit KCMX] to enable the input of ship motion synchro data. The trailer also contained either the first or second UYK-7 built so it became a test bed for new hardware concepts. The JPTDS contract work was initially performed under the overall direction of CMDR Campbell followed by CMDR Crandall. During the development of JPTDS the navy was promoting the system and the UYK-7 to foreign navies. On a number of occasions I would accompany the Navy and company marketing representatives on international trips to give presentations on the system.
    A large variety of system studies and proposals were generated during the 70’s, dealing with the application of digital computers to shipboard systems. One of the study efforts resulted in the definition and implementation of the Shipboard Integrated and Processing System Serial Data Bus (SHINPADS SDB). The study effort for the SDB started in 1976. Prior to 1976, we had been actively involved in distributed processing IR&D studies. Gene McCarthy from the Marketing department had established a relationship with the Canadian Navy and was instrumental in winning a study contract for defining the SHINPADS SDB. Gene setup a good working relationship between the Canadian Navy’s CMDR Carruthers and their engineering. CMDR Carruthers was a primary proponent of developing a distributed Naval Combat System architecture having a large number of computers interconnected with a serial data bus. CMDR Carruthers wanted to stay close with our engineering activity directed at the definition and development of the SDB since it was key to the ultimate success of SHINPADS. As a result, CDR Carruthers would call frequently to discuss distributed system philosophy and the status of the SDB development.
    The SDB proceeded from definition, prototype development, testing and many demonstrations to a final specification for the interface. These efforts were spread over a time period of about 3 years with many presentations and meetings to discuss the feasibility of implementing a distributed processing system with the SDB. A description of SHINPADS and the SDB was presented at the 1979 American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) annual symposium and published in the April 1979 Naval Engineers Journal. [1. Carruthers, J. F. CDR Canadian Forces, SHINPADS-A New Ship Integration Concept and 2. Kuhns, R. C. Sperry Univac, The SHINPADS Serial Data Bus]
    The 80’s were spent in various management positions coordinating system studies, proposal development, IR&D projects. I spent a few years working on a Master of Science in Software Engineering from the University of St. Thomas-finally earning the degree in 1988.
    For three years in the early 90’s, I was the Project Engineer on a classified project located in Camarillo, California (two plus years) and then back in Minnesota for the final few months.
    After returning from California I took a temporary assignment with the UNISYS World Trade Division where I was the Site Manager in Vienna, Austria for a few months and readied the project for transfer to Prague and then was the Development Manager in Prague, Czech Republic on a commercial banking system development. The total length of the European assignment was 14 months. One of the chief challenges of this project was directing the work of over 30 people from 7 different countries with all but two of the people being sub-contract programmers. One of the programmers on the project was from Slovakia and did not speak English. Another programmer was from Russia and lost his visa suddenly in Prague and was not allowed to stay in the country. I missed the services one would normally expect in a large company environment.
    After returning from Europe I worked for Larry Huff where I initially managed new technology studies for the UYQ-70 Display System and then managed a Communications business development group and Communications IR&D project until I retired in 2000.
    My focus over 40 years with the same company, starting with Remington Rand Univac and ending with Lockheed Martin with several company name changes in between, was on software development, system engineering, marketing support, and engineering management. Changes to the work environment before PCs and after the introduction of PCs were dramatic as were changes in computer technology. On many projects, we felt we were working with our customer as a team to accomplish our customer’s mission of introducing digital systems. I particularly enjoyed the people I worked with.  

4.8 Steve Koltes, 1977 - 2018

  In June of 1977, I was hired as a young man of 19 into Sperry Univac – Navy Systems Customer Service Engineering group lead by Bob Hedlund. After 4 weeks of maintenance training of various NAVY equipment (AN/UYK-7, UYK-20, OJ-174, 1532, and 1540 to name a few), I started my career are a field engineer.

My first company trip was with John Bly aboard the USS Ajax to refurbish the UYK-5 system (1218, 1540, CRIPI, and HSP). Little did I know at the time that I would eventually visit every destroyer, cruiser, and aircraft carrier through my future field engineering years supporting all type of UYKs and peripherals we provided to the NAVY. Along with ship visits I also had several site deployments including a three-year stint in Pascagoula Mississippi Ingalls shipbuilding supporting the DD-993 class and the last of the Spruance class build and a 1-year effort supporting the S3A aircraft flight-line in Burbank, CA.

In 1994 through 1996 I transferred to the Air Traffic Management group in Eagan where I led the deployment of the Common ARTS systems in Dallas TX and Denver CO and supported the STARS pursuit.

Back to Field Engineering in support of our new product, the Q-70. Along with Larry Cude, I was the original field engineer in support of Q-70 deployment. I spent numerous hrs between the factory and sites assuring our product would integrate with the various platforms. This was the first effort in integrating COTS into shipboard fire control and weapons systems. I supported the tiger teams on the USS Hue City and USS Vicksburg in the integration of Q-70 into the AEGIS Weapons System as well as the supporting integration into the SQQ-89 and NAVY avionics platforms.

In June 2009, I transferred to the Air Traffic Group as the Operations Manager supporting all the IS&GS Lockheed Martin activities in Eagan. In December 2012, we moved from 3333 Pilot Knob to our new site at 1303 Corp Center Drive. In August 2015, Lockheed Martin divested our organization. Thus, on August 16, 2016 I became an employee of Leidos Corporation’s. Air Traffic group. By Steve Koltes.

5. Career Summaries - L:

5.1 Archie Lahti, 1956-1989.

    The Nov. 2006 issue of the VIP Club Newsletter had an article about you working on compiling a catalog of patents. I am listed as an inventor or co-inventor on 9 US patents. The patent numbers and the titles are listed below. The two with the smallest numbers are probably from before 1975. The US Dept. of Commerce Patent and Trademark Office issued a Secrecy Order on one of the patents listed below when it was in the application process. I mention it mainly as a point of interest for your information as not many people are aware of the them. It probably isn't appropriate to include such info with the history anyway.

  • 4875161 Scientific processor vector file organization.
  • 4873630 Scientific processor to support a host processor referencing common memory.
  • 4791560 Macro level control of an activity switch in a scientific vector processor which processor requires an external executive control program.
  • 4789925 Vector data logical usage conflict detection.
  • 4722049 Apparatus for out-of-order program execution.
  • 4691279 Instruction buffer for a digital data processing system.
  • 4376976 Overlapped macro instruction control system.
  • 3812463 Processor interrupt pointer.
  • 3806716 Parity error recovery.

    I worked for Univac/Unisys from June 1956 to March 1989, when there was a voluntary retirement offer. I worked mostly on the 1100 series (latter models were called the 2200 series) starting with the Univac Scientific Model 1103A. They were all for the commercial market although many were used for nation defense and security purposes. Starting in 1967 I worked as a logic designer at Roseville.

    Names of some people that probably have patents and aren't members of the VIP are listed below:

  • Gerald Erickson - He died about 8 - 10 years ago. He worked on the 1107, 1108 and also some military computers at plant 2 in St. Paul. He also left with Duane Anderson.
  • Duane Anderson - He left as part of a group that started a successful company in about 1968. He worked on the 1107 and the 418 etc.
  • James Ashbaugh - He transferred to Blue Bell in about 1968 or so. He also worked on the 1107 and 1108. Any patents they may have for those computers would be before 1975.

Thank you for your work in compiling this history.    

5.2 Bob Langer, 1957 - 2001

A Career of Design & Drafting of Printed Circuit Boards and Drawings by Bob Langer

Where would a computer company be without a key ingredient for its success such as the printed circuit board (PCB)? Of course it would not exist. The design of the PCB artwork patterns, the supporting documentation and the tooling used to manufacture and assemble PCB’s must be cost effective, very accurate and with fast turnaround. I was hired in1957 by Remington Rand Univac and retired in 2001 with the same company now called Lockheed Martin. I was in the same Design and Drafting organization for my entire career of nearly 44 years. This includes two years of military leave in the U.S. Navy aboard the very popular tourist attraction the U.S.S. Intrepid, a WWII aircraft carrier, which currently rests in a New York City harbor as a museum. It attracts over 750,000 visitors annually.
    My educational background was one year at the University of Wisconsin River Falls in a pre-engineering course prior to employment and during employment I received a Certificate of Completion in Electronics after 3 years of night classes at St Paul Vo-Tech.
    My career started as a draftsman working primarily with the design of PCB artwork patterns from circuit sketches designed by electrical engineers. In the early days we used black masking tape 1/8” wide and 3/8” round donuts or pads to create the circuit pattern for the artwork at a scale of 4:1 which would be photo reduced to 1:1 by the factory. That artwork photo tooling was used to etch the circuit pattern on copper clad board material. I would estimate hundreds of artwork patterns for many projects were developed by our PC Design Group for fabrication and assembly by our own factory during my career.
    A very significant advance in the development of PCB artwork patterns came with the new age of drafting automation called Computer Aided Design (CAD.) In the 1970’s Earl Vraa’s Software Group developed the software capability for drafting to input the electrical engineer’s schematic sketch into our company mainframe computers to automatically route circuit lines and generate artwork patterns for multilayer PCB’s. It also provided associated schematic and related drawings to fabricate and assemble circuit cards. I always felt this software provided our company a very competitive edge giving us the advantage over other computer companies to win major defense contracts such as AN/UYK-43 and other major projects. At that time I was responsible for the PC Design Group that did all the artwork designs and documentation for our Defense Systems organization. I would venture to say the peak workload for our group came in the1980’s during the design and development of projects for AN/UYK-43 and AN/UYK-44 computers.

    This was also the startup of integrated circuit design and development within the PC Design Group. I was responsible for 55 people in this new PC/IC Design Group including the photo lab area which produced the glass plate tooling and provided coordination with manufacturing. The IC Design portion of the group separated to become part of the new semiconductor facility during this period. In the1990’s the PC Design Group started using personal computers with proven vendor supplied PC design software required for the very complex PC designs. These new designs using complex integrated circuits significantly reduced the overall quantities of circuit cards needed for a project causing a reduction in drafting personnel, the closing of our manufacturing facility and was my time to retire.
    Overall I had a real interesting career experience going from a manual operation with a large number of great hard working people to a totally automated group requiring only a few highly skilled PC Designers using outside vendors for manufacture. I still meet monthly for lunch discussions with the retired designers and engineers and enjoy playing golf with them quite regularly. Bob Langer   

5.3 Ernie Lantto, 1960 - 1991

    I graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1952 with a BS degree in Mathematics and Physics. That first summer out of school I was a counselor at a summer camp for boys. After that I was notified that I was to be drafted into the army. The Korean War was in its last days, so I chose to enlist in the US Air Force.
    Because of my education they sent me from basic training to Wright Patterson Air Force base to support a new US Air Force facility for computers. At the beginning, my class received training on the IBM CPC equipment (Card Punch Calculators). After the training - we had a choice to work with IBM CPC equipment, analog equipment, or Digital equipment. I selected to work with the OARAC (Office of Air Research Automatic Computer) digital computer group.
My first job was to maintain the OARAC computer, a 2*421 ten digit with sign electron tube design with drum storage that had fixed heads. The OARAC computer was a copy of the Harvard Mark 4 computer built by GE. Early on, Phil Desilets of Univac instructed us on digital computer techniques. I was later sent for maintenance training on the ERA 1103 computer as the Air Force was planning to replace the IBM large scale digital computer with the 1103. The 1103 training started with CRT storage tube memory and ended with a core memory system. While in 1103 training, I watched the ERA sign being changed to Remington Rand on the entrance building to plant 2. When the 1103 arrived from UNIVAC the Air Force chose to have it with a maintenance contract.
    After the 1103 was in use, a fellow engineer and I were planning to build for the Air Force an 1103-like computer using repackaged OARAC components. My associate was to do the logic design and I the circuits and packaging. We worked on the design for a few weeks and than were stopped by management: we were told that the US Air Force does not design and build computers. A private company, SRL, took over the design and also the maintenance of the OARAC computer.
    I was selected for training and to accept a core memory storage system from Telemeter Magnetic for the OARAC computer. The design was originally with the use of electron tubes but the Vietnam conflict had stopped work on it. After the war, the memory was built using transistor logic. During the later part of my time with the US Air Force we were visited by Noel Stone, chief engineer of UNIVAC, for a couple of weeks. We learned about the design of the Athena computer, among other things. At the end of my time with the US Air Force, I managed a contract that we had with Harvard University using the MARK I computer to create ballistic artillery tables. I also handled a number of other small contracts in research related to computers.
    I came to work at UNIVAC on 01 February 1960 in time to be assigned to the NTDS AN/USQ-20 computer design. My first job was to document the design as it came out from the logic designers. I would check the validity of some of their designs and our group of technicians would tabulate the results. Jens Peterson and I were than asked to prepare the test procedure for acceptance of serial 13 computer, the first computer to be produced in our contract with the US Navy. At the completion of these early tasks, I was asked by Finley McCloud to take over the engineering support to manufacturing and final test for these first set of computers. Of interest to me during this assignment were a couple of questions which were asked by Arnie Hendrickson and Roy Hegler. Arnie wanted to know when serial 13 would be ready for acceptance by the US Navy; my response was 2 weeks after I receive it back from manufacturing.
    Little did I know that he started the clock and one week later I was told the US Navy would be in Monday for acceptance. That meant the weekend was a scramble with 24 hour days. When the Navy walked in we pressed the run button for the first time that morning and the computer stopped with an error, we pressed the run button a second time and the computer ran as it should and we told the UNIVAC acceptance team that it was theirs. The acceptance went well that day but it came up with a memory plane failure and the memory group showed that they could replace the plane within the 3 hours allowed to maintain the computer.  Later that day during the endurance run, the computer stopped with the same error we had had that morning. The failure turned out to be a logic error in the I/O. The Navy went away satisfied with the day. A short time later Roy Hegler asked when would serial 13 be ready to ship, again I said in 2 weeks, he went away laughing and saying no way. We did come close to shipping serial 13 in two weeks after his asking. The success of the NTDS computer design and build within an 8 month period can only be attributed to the diligent work of the engineering and the manufacturing teams.
    For a short time I was assigned to a supervisory position in the peripheral equipment engineering group but, I felt fully out of place with the many highly qualified peripheral engineers. A position became open as equipment engineer on the Ascension Island Real Time Radar Data Handling System for the Atlantic Missile Range program, and this fit me much better. We put together a group of peripheral equipments around the AN/USQ-20A, this also was the first application of the control console above the access doors and we painted the equipment Air Force green.
    After delivery of the system to Ascension Island it did not seem to be going together very fast so the lead project people at UNIVAC met and it was determined that someone needed to go to the Island to find out why: I was selected. First, RCA was in charge of facilities and we had just beaten them out of this contract. No help would be received from them so our people had to remove all the old equipment in a room in the FPS-16 radar building before we could install our equipment.
    Secondly, the radar system was not as we had designed the software for and we had to reprogram. Lessons learned: visit a site at the beginning of a program and get it right the first time. During my nearly two month stay on the Island, I learned how to pick locks so we could work more than one shift as we were not issued a key to the site. I also had to repair equipment without spares and be available to counsil my people who had been on the Island too long, as well as to be firm with them. We needed them all to be fully functional.
    The nights sure are dark on an Island in the middle of an ocean when you have to walk back from a radar site to your housing quarters. I made a decision that the UNIVAC people would leave the Island on December 8th for Christmas. Prior to leaving, a couple of engineers flew in from UNIVAC with a new compile of the software. A few days later after the RCA people on the Island had lost the nose cone using their manual techniques. We were told that our system would be used the next night and true to the diligent work of our system engineers and software programmers on site the FPS-16 radar was put on the nose cone as it came into the atmosphere and followed it to splash down. Victory!
    While the lead designers were assigned to develop the CP-642B, the next task I was asked to lead was the design of the 1218 computer - three young men did the logic design: John Lee (later of Lee Data), Leroy Olson, and Don Mager. The mechanical design was to use a common packaging developed for future equipment by the mechanical engineers under the leadership of W.W. Hemer. The mechanical engineer that I worked with on the 1218 was Jim Warwick. The 1218 program was a little rough for awhile at the start as we had many component problems, such as, indicator lights that seem to set the computer off running with no apparent reason. During the 1218 life I was able to have installed a number of modifications that were given to me by my engineers; this proved to give this computer a great boost in reliability and at the end it was the first computer to go thru all environmental tests without a glitch.
    For about seven years I functioned with increasing levels of responsibility from project supervisor to Manager of Computer Design with responsibilities for design and development of equipment for marine, transportation, and international systems. These duties included design of equipment used in the ARTS III program, 1218, 1224, 1219, 1230, M1218, Punch Control Unit (Crispi), 1224 [Project Tuggle], APOLLO display system, 1236, M555/MASU, 1230 MTC (1530), Mark 152 [Talos launcher computer], CP-901 [type 1830A], 1830B computers and accountability for Product Control and Engineering.
    After we completed the 1530 design in a 8 month period, from start to delivery, Red Phillips told me, "you have had an easy one now: I want you to take over the CP-901 program with all its environmental and documentation problems." This project led to the development of the Fast Patrol Boat 1830B computer system for the German Navy. We put a splash proof suit on the 1830B and had the memory system modified to make it more easily manufactured. I was than asked to transfer to MSD Operations in Germany as site Supervisor and Technical Manager for the UNIVAC portion of the German S143 program in Hengelo, Netherlands. After 6 months on site we were transferred to MSD Operations in Bad Gödesberg Germany where I was given the responsibilities as Director of European Defense Operations. I held this position for four years.
    In August of 1975 I returned to Univac DSD in St Paul MN. During these last years at UNIVAC/Unisys I worked on technical and proposal support of European programs, engineering support of the S-143 program, integrated logistics support to the F-122, S-143, S-143A and TRMS programs. I also provided technical and proposal support to Australian programs including a two month stay in Australia.
    I was system implementation and test manager of the 6977 test bed operation and was prepared to implement the system design in-country. I supported many domestic and foreign country proposals through out these last years. The Turkish Navy Control and Reporting Center (TNCRC) was my last real design project with responsibility for selecting and developing the installation design for the equipment in two interconnected S-280C/G shelters. The equipment shelter housed the power, communications, and interface equipment while the operations shelter housed the processing equipment, operator consoles, and operator interface equipment.
    On 31 December 1991, after 38 years in the computer business, I retired from Unisys to a country farm environment - learning new skills, working with nature, doing family genealogy, and living my Finnish heritage.   

5.4 Don Lovely, 1961-2001.

    Graduating in June 1961 from Iowa State with a BS EE, I accepted a job to test and checkout 1107, 490 and Univac III memories. I wrote the final assembly and test procedures for the 1107 and Univac III memories.
    In 1964 I become part of Navy Systems located in plant #1. After several years of writing POFA test programs for military peripherals, Mike Kokesh and I developed radar alignment tests (RAT) for the DEs 1047/49 [Voge/Koelsch] and the CVS-18 carrier, Wasp. I modified the RAT program for the German Navy DDG-28 class and went to sea four times in total on these three German destroyers [D-185/6/7 Luetjens/Moelders/Rommel]. Larry Duder later modified the RAT for the Japanese Navy DDG-168/9 ships [Tachikaze/Asakaze]. In March 1970 I received my MS EE from the University of Minnesota.
    My next major assignment in 1972 was in charge of writing operational program specifications for the Japanese Navy (JN) DDG-168. The software was then developed and installed by TSD Valencia. The success of this effort resulted in the Univac development of three more major Combat Direction Systems (CDS) for JN ship classes from 1976 to 1984. I was proposal manager and technical engineer supporting Marketing for these efforts.
    From 1974 to 1985 I was assigned to International Marketing to manage numerous proposals especially for Far East bids to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. This required many trips (~15) to Asian countries to meet with Navy officers of these countries. Mel Javinsky, Jerry Polk, and I spent the month of July 1980 inspecting Korean Navy (ROKN) Command Centers at Seoul, Inchon, Chin Hae, and Pusan as part of a Naval C & C funded study. Marketing managers were usually Jim LaCroix, Y. Tomagawa, Taki Saito, and Tom Knops. In 1977 Univac employed retired Vice Admiral John T. Hayward as a Republic of China (Taiwan) marketing consultant. Adm. Hayward commanded the first nuclear powered task force in naval history and was named president of the Naval War College in Newport, RI in 1966, and remained there until his retirement from the Navy. For several years he asked me to call him at home after each Taiwan trip to brief him on Taiwan programs and the Captains and Admirals that we had met with.
    During this same period I represented Univac at a number of meetings in Germany that initiated German Navy projects. The German Navy had requested that only company representatives attend who were fluent in German. Three of these trips to Germany were made with Dennis Christ then Navy Program Director. Over the years I translated numerous German Navy articles.
    From 1985 to 1989 I worked on the Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF), first coordinating the St. Paul efforts for the detailed presentations to the Canadian Navy for each of the major ship subsystems. My able assistant was Bill Lynch. Sperry System Management, Great Neck, NY was the combat system prime and Sperry St. Paul the major software supplier. For two years I worked with Mark Garber developing the CPF Combat System User Manual. In 1989 I was assigned to work at PARAMAX, Montreal for environmental qualification of the CPF Integrated Machinery Control System (IMCS).
    In late 1989 I supported marketing support for the German Navy F-123 frigate with several trips to Germany. For the first eight months of 1990 I was assigned to work at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany to help define the simulation system concept for the Wilhelmshaven test site and the overall planned combat system acceptance test schedule. Project engineer for the F-123 [Brandenberg class - four ships] contract was John Dagon. In the Summer of 1992 I was assigned for 10 weeks to Bremen, Germany to review and assist Krupp Atlas in the review of ship test documentation. All documentation was in German.
    In the Summer of 1996 after having been laid off from Unisys for 2 1/2 years, I was rehired and assigned as a test engineer working for test supervisor Tom Grenzinski and project engineer Dennis Abbott to develop test and acceptance procedures for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) P-3C avionics system software. My test procedures were for the display module and maximum system loading.
    My final assignment in 1999 was to develop test and acceptance procedures for the Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA) contract, an air traffic control warning system for the Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS), the German FAA. The system was developed under the direction of project engineer Joe Fellerer and lead software engineer Larry Scherber. I performed these acceptance procedures seven times in Germany at the Munich, Frankfurt, and Bremen regional control centers. My last certification test was September 2001.   

5.5 Richard 'Dick' Lundgren, 1967-2004

Richard F. Lundgren was an employee of UNIVAC/Sperry/Unisys/LMCO from 1967 to 2004. He was a computer and peripheral hardware maintenance instructor for most of his career. Dick was also in the Field Service organization for a few years and worked as a technical writer for a bit. He has been active with the VIP club Legacy committee since its inception; serving as liaison with the Charles Babbage Institute and as the principal Legacy reporter for the VIP Club’s newsletters. His writing skills and Legacy support were recognized with the Club's Volunteer Extraordinaire award in 2016.

In this Chapter

Topical Article Contributors [left]

Chapter 14 edited 5/14/2023.