Visitor to SAIL on Wednesday 21 April 1976.
A photographer, working for the Digital Equipment Corporation,
visits Stanford to photograph the recently delivered KL-10 computer.
Gerald Ford is president. Consumer GPS and cell phones do not exist.
The internet node count is about one hundred.
The personal home computer population may be a couple thousand.
The following 82 images are the Stanford subset from 190 images
recently found, April 2019, at Hewlett Packard Company
in the debris field left by the Digital Equipment Corporation.
The analog black-and-white film negatives were
donated by HP to the Computer History Museum, CHM.
CHM assigned catalog number 10276500 to the lot,
and ascession numbered the digitized TIFF files from 1 to 190,
and converted the TIFF to smaller JPG files for convenient web display.
This CHM web page is titled PDP-10 testing,
and it presents a pleasantly mixed up, uncaptioned,
combination of the 82 Stanford University images
with 108 images from UC Berkeley and
from Costa Mesa High School.
Arrival
Arrival
Image#1 Front Steps
The Visitor drives down a road lined with eucalyptus trees,
to arrive at the Donald Clinton Power Laboratory,
1600 Arastradero, Palo Alto, California.
Home of SAIL, the first Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
The Visitor walks up the wide steps
to the front door of the unusally shaped semi circular wooden building.
The ramps are for the Robotic Mobile Vehicle named "The Stanford Cart".
The visitor had passed the yellow diamond "Caution Robot Vehicle" sign on the driveway
from the road, going up the hill, to the parking lot,
and expects to see the robot as well as the laboratory workers and managers.
Image#2 Front Door
Closer to the building there are four steps that lead from the concrete walkway to the wooden deck.
There to the right is a long larger ramp for "The Cart" to climb those steps.
The front double door is left of center in the recess.
Laminated roof beams stick out the front.
Image#3 Signage
Close up of signage mounted on the front railing of SAIL's deck.
The visitor will go straight ahead to "Main Entrance" of "Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project".
Nothing further is to be found concerning "Drug, Crime & Community Studies",
it would have been a long walk to the right around the outer circumference of the upper deck.
It is now 1976, and the further signage concerning community studies disappeared years before.
Image#4 Signage again
Near duplicate of Image#3. The camera has panned slightly left and up.
The image has gained a corner of a roof beam at the top,
but loses a fence post at the bottom.
Counting fence posts is important for cybernetic vision,
but insignificant for analog filmed publicity snapshots.
The parked bicycle stands out as being slightly odd.
It is parked alone; at university sites bicycles usually are parked in heaps.
That bike doesn't seem to have a visible lock or chain.
Expensive bicycles were simply taken inside to one's office.
Image#5 Window Reflection
Front window of the D.C.Power Lab is dominated
by reflection of distant Eucalyptus Trees,
with front deck railing posts middle right,
and shadows of the roof beams on the deck,
and the parked bike is reflected within the railing posts.
In the middle of the window is gold lettering, move closer to see next...
Image#6 PROJECT in gold letters
The gold lettering on the front window spells
Project not
Laboratory.
Departure
Image#7 Redwood steps
Upon leaving the building,
the Visitor has gone down those wooden steps,
out on the grass, towards the volley ball court
and now looks back at the building
for a wide angle shot with spring weeds blooming in the foreground,
and the dark profile of the Eucalyptus trees showing behind the building,
the distant gray skyline on the right is the Santa Cruz mountains,
looking at the Russian Ridge and Windy Hill segments.
The whole front fascade - every post is without shadows, as it should be around 1 pm.
Image#8 Redwood railing posts
This is the front of the lab as seen from further out onto the grass.
The left edge foreground weeds disappear,
the darker weeds shift left to mid frame.
Some of the Eucaluptus trees now peek out above the roof line on the right side of the building.
Image#9 A.I.Lab from out in the weeds
Out in the weeds of early Artificial Intelligence.
The Volley Ball court is just to the left of this view.
The parking lot is directly behind the camera, perhaps too is the Visitor's car.
The visitor turns around 180 degrees,
walks ten steps to a rental car,
and drives away.
Lester
Visitor mets Lester Earnest
Image #10 Met Lester Earnest
In 1976, Queenette Bauer and Linda Hubly occupy the office nearest the front door.
Bauer would have directed the Visitor to met the chief bureacrat, Lester Earnest, whoes office, room #206 is named Imladris.
Most of the Tolkein names for each office have been forgotten;
except the break room, with the coffee machine, is named The Prancing Pony;
the computer room is named Mordor;
the conference room is Mirkwood.
Earnest recalls Imladris.
Baumgart recalls Dale.
The Visitor sits in one of the two chairs across the paper strewn desk from LES Lester Earnest, the Executive Director of SAIL.
The antique telephone in the foreground is not a collector's item.
That telephone is a 1976 desk top model
that is connected by copper wires
to an analog circuit switching network.
Image #11 Les stares at screen.
Lester is checking his email or reading the AP news wire.
He seems to be ignoring the visitor and the camera.
Image #12 portrait
Les turns to speak to the Visitor.
The photographer takes a portrait images,
then switches to landscape for the next three images.
I can hear even now, Lester explaining, yet again,
how that in the future every office will have a Time-Sharing TV-screen and keyboard like his.
I sit here in 2019,
with my replica of Lester's keyboard that I have special ordered for writing about SAIL in the 1970s;
and I have eight large screens today,
not counting my phones and clocks.
Like the aged Dave at the end of Kubrick's 2001 movie.
I turn around and look for you out there in 2076, looking at me in 2019, looking at Les in 1976;
but you are not quite there yet,
I can not see you clearly.
Image #13 Double Bucky Fingering
Here Lester's left hand is demonstrating
the famous SAIL
keyboard
Double-Bucky piano chord,
holding down both Control and Meta shift keys.
In 1964, Niklaus Wirth, who was nicknamed "Bucky",
implemented an extra shift key to toggle the eighth bit on ASCII input
for the PDP-1 at Stanford. After inventing the Bucky Bit, Wirth designed Pascal.
However, Les has not yet hit a command key with his right index finger.
That TV screen is NOT a touch screen,
it is displaying a green raster with one bit per pixel !
There are no mice at SAIL in 1976, because typing key chords works better
than mousing around when compute cycles are expensive and resources are shared.
Bucky reviewed, in 2005, the entire potpourri of computer ideas since the 1960s,
Good Ideas, Through the Looking Glass by Niklaus Wirth PDF.
Image #14 Black and Green raster, 480 by 512 pixels, 34 lines of 85 characters
Each pixel is a single bit and can display exactly two colors: BLACK or GREEN.
The raster has 480 rows of 512 columns,
the normal font is a dot matrix, with 12 rows by 6 columns per glyph.
The normal font size can display 34 lines of 85 characters per line.
The Data Disc storage capacity could refresh 32 video channels at 30 hertz.
Image #15 Who Line at top of screen
LES is pointing at the Who line which dynamically displays your status in the Time Sharing queues,
your keystrokes actually echo in real time, and getting you results to each command is faster than key-punch batch turn around time.
Proud SAIL management poses with the awesome KL-10.
Image #16 KL-10 computer with JMC and LES
Landscape:
John McCarthy (standing) and Lester Earnest (seated)
near console of the new KL-10 (left) with
the old KA-10 behind John and the KA-10 console keyboard which is a TTY-35 to the right of Lester's shoulder.
Image #17 fashion statement
Portrait: JMC standing and LES seated.
John McCarthy is over dressed,
possibly he is going to some other event
or possibly because he thinks he can save DEC from abandoning the large machine market.
He would never be seen at the lab looking like this, except for a photo op.
His left lapel square tag has an AI logo on,
it which might from some conference he has recently attended.
Lester is wearing the same style African print shirt he always wears.
Image #18 lift the paper
Landscape: same foreground, notice how deep the background row of equipment frames goes.
Image #19 hold the paper
Photographer takes one step left.
"Look at the camera" snaps Portrait: again JMC standing and LES seated. Only shot showing one of the two blank front panels that are hiding the real brain of the KL-10; the buttons, lights and DEC Tapes
behind the DEC Writer are actually just a 16-bit PDP-11/40 which is the console interface to the KL super computer.
Image #20 Don't Blame Me I'am from Massachusetts
Turn of the photographers wrist to portrait.
SAIL management looks at the paper.
A final sad publicity shot,
the DEC Writer with wide paper was a simple, cheap, slow hard copy computer interface.
SAIL management and the publicity photographers failed to see the 36-bit KL computer.
In fact the work horse PDP-10 KA is better represented in the background,
photo bombing these five images from the right rear.
John McCarthy poses at the Hand/Eye Table
with the Robotic Vic Scheinman Manipulators
and a 3 minute session at the Triple-III display console running the program DPYCLK.
Professor John McCarthy, all dressed up, runs DPYCLK.
Image #21
JMC
JMC John McCarthy that day at 12:15 was logged in for THIS picture#35 for 3 minutes !
in the picture he is at Triple-III display#1 which is session line tv#021 !
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| prj | prg | ln | login | logout | minutes | sn | runtime | kcticks |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| F75 | JMC | tv#015 | 1976-04-21 02:48:00 | 1976-04-21 03:03:00 | 15 | 211352 | 11257 | 392448 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#015 | 1976-04-21 08:27:00 | 1976-04-21 08:28:00 | 1 | 211352 | 68 | 880 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#037 | 1976-04-21 11:18:00 | 1976-04-21 11:55:00 | 37 | 211352 | 89 | 1188 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#021 | 1976-04-21 12:16:00 | 1976-04-21 12:19:00 | 3 | 211352 | 170 | 5512 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#037 | 1976-04-21 14:45:00 | 1976-04-21 16:36:00 | 111 | 211352 | 3190 | 51776 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#777 | 1976-04-21 23:23:00 | 1976-04-21 23:24:00 | 1 | 211352 | 32 | 1166 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#015 | 1976-04-21 23:05:00 | 1976-04-22 00:32:00 | 87 | 212425 | 2654 | 67504 |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
Image #22 The Principal Investigator
JMC.
Image #23 John at Hand-Eye work station
JMC
Image #24 John runs DPYCLK
JMC logs in for 3 minutes to look at a BIG CLOCK display.
Music – Leland Smith.
Image #25 Score Smith
displayed time illegible.
Walking to the computer room,
the Visitor is escorted through the display room past Music Professor Leland Smith,
who is working on displaying musical notation using a vector display.
The vector displays were custom made for Stanford by Information International Incorporate and so are call Triple-Eye displays,
which is spelled "Triple-III" in this narrative as a reminder for the proper prounciation.
who:LCS what:Triple-III #2 Music Score
where:display room#229 CHM#106
Image #26 Score door
displayed time illegible.
This image is a wider view of the Triple-III #2.
One can verify that on this date III#2 was the middle one of the three in the display room.
The double wooden doors to Mordor are in the background behind the upper right corner of the display console.
who:LCS what:Triple-III #2 Music Score
where:display room#229 CHM#107
Image #27 displayed time 12:24
who:LCS what:Triple-III #2 Music Score
where:display room#229 CHM#108
Image #28 displayed time 12:26
who:LCS what:Triple-III #2 Music Score
where:display room#229 CHM#109
Image #29 displayed time 12:27
who:LCS what:Triple-III #2 Music Score
where:display room#229 CHM#110
Image #30 displayed time 12:27 again
who:LCS what:Triple-III #2 Music Score
where:display room#229 CHM#111
Music – Gareth Loy.
Image #31 Hand Eye Loy
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3 Hand/Eye
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#144
Image #32 Kintel Loy
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#168
Image #33 DGL typing
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#169
Image #34 DGL thinking
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#59
Image #35 DGL pointing
24 hour wall clock
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#141
Six feet to the right of the wall clock is a line printer digital image of a female face.
This piece of paper was there on that wall in 1969 when I arrived at SAIL,
and that same piece of paper was still
there in 1982 in a noir CCRMA film showing the lab building in its decline.
This ghost appears from 36:22 to 36:35 in this spooky
VIDEO.
Who is she ? Are there any better photographs of this computer room wall ?
Image #36 sheet music
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#142
Image #37 music sheet
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#143
Image #38 long view of III#3
who:DGL what:Triple-III #3
where:Mordor room#233 CHM#152
Hardware
Image #39 Tape Drives
who:nobody what:DecTapes+MagTape where:Mordor room#233 CHM#150
Image #40 Kludge Bays
who:nobody what:kludge bays where:Mordor room#233 CHM#145
Image #41 PDP-6
Note: The telephone head set is placed on the desk top phone in its normal position.
And a computer floor tile pulling suction tool (aka "The Floor Sucker") sits on the PDP-6 console next to the telephone,
who:REG+JBR what:PDP-6 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#155
Image #42 PDP-6 with REG switching
Now the Floor Sucker has replaced the telephone head set.
who:REG what:PDP-6 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#156
Image #43 PDP-6 with REG reaching for masking tape
Floor Sucker still on telephone.
Perhaps the phone had summoned Ralph to the PDP-6 console.
who:REG what:PDP-6 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#157
Wizards
Image #44 Tom Gafford appears, once only
who:JBR+REG+TAG what:between rows of racks where:Mordor room#233 CHM#159
Image #45 KL-10 all three bays
who:JBR+REG what:KL10 three bays where:Mordor room#233 CHM#153
All three equipment racks of the KL-10 can be seen on the left side of this image.
The console face-plate switches-and-light and DECWriter of the KL-10 is actually a 16-bit minicomputer, a PDP-11/40 machine,
which is used to control the two bays to its left housing the 36-bit PDP-10 ECL (Emitter Coupled Logic) model KL.
Image #46 Rubin and Gorin
who:JBR+REG what:PDP-6 row of racks where:Mordor room#233 CHM#154
Image #47 stare at bound listing
who:REG+JBR what:KL10 console where:Mordor room#233 CHM#161
Image #48 Ralph touchs DECwriter paper
who:REG+JBR what:KL10 console where:Mordor room#233 CHM#163
Image #49 Ralph lifts DECwriter paper
who:REG what:KL10 DecWriter where:Mordor room#233 CHM#162
Image #50 Fiche viewer blocks view
who:JBR+REG what:KA10 PEACE banner where:Mordor room#233 CHM#159
Image #51 XGP pops out of background
who:JBR+REG what:KL10 DecWriter where:Mordor room#233 CHM#160
While our wizards are waiting for something at the KL-10 DECwriter.
The photographer has captured the photo shy XGP,
the famous Xerox Graphics Printer,
jumps out of the backgound in the center of this image.
Image #52 STOP sign above Jeff's head.
who:JBR+REG what:KL10 DecWriter where:Mordor room#233 CHM#151
Image #53 PEACE Banner, wall clock,
BBN pager, Tektronix Scope
who:REG+JBR what:PDP-10s KA10 KL10 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#158
Image #54 KA-10 Ted Ralph Jeff
who:REG+JBR+TED what:KA10 console where:Mordor room#233 CHM#164
Image #55 KA-10 Ted fingers on Log book
who:TED what:KA10+CTY where:Mordor room#233 CHM#165
Image #56 KL-10 Ted and Jeff
who:TED+JBR+REG what:KL10+KA10 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#166
Image #57 KL-10 Ralph Jef Ted
who:TED+JBR+REG what:KL10 row of racks where:Mordor room#233 CHM#167
Robotics
Image #58 Hand-Eye Table
who:JBR+REG+TED what:hand-eye table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#55
Image #59 Hand-Eye Table landscape
who:JBR+REG+TED+DGL what:hand-eye table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#56
Image #60 TED positions vice
who:TED what:hand-eye table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#57
Image #61 TED positions wrist
who:TED what:hand-eye table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#58
Image #62 portrait TED at HE work station
who:TED what:Triple-III #1 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#147
Image #63 landscape TED at HE work station
who:TED what:Triple-III #1 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#148
Image #64 Blue Arm at vice
who:TED what:vice at Hand/Eye Table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#170
Image #65 Both arms at vice
who:TED what:vice at Hand/Eye Table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#171
Image #66 Robot arms, PDP-11/45, and Zonkers
who:nobody what:arms+11/45 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#174
Image #67 Both arns at vice
who:nobody what:Both arms with vice where:Mordor room#233 CHM#146
Image #68 landscape 11/45 behind table
who:nobody what:arms+11/45 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#173
Image #69 portrait 11/45 behind table
who:nobody what:GoldArm+11/45 where:Mordor room#233 CHM#172
Image #70 portrait TED with both arms
who:TED what:hand-eye table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#140
Image #71 IMP left TED middle
who:TED what:IMP+H/E_table where:Mordor room#233 CHM#175
Cart Walk
Image #72 bowling aisle looking north
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#20
Image #73 bowling aisle looking south
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#22
Image #74 approaching dots
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#23
Image #75 Polka-Dot wall
The grid of dots painted on the wall
are spaced one foot apart
and are used to calibrate the computer controlled cart camera.
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#01
Image #76 long view of cart near wall
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#02
Image #77 TED steering cart wheels
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#21
Image #78 Cart looking wrong way
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#24
Image #79 Cart looks at dots
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#19
Image #80 TED behind Cart
who:TED what:cart where:annex room#252 CHM#03
Lab Junk or Museum Exhibit
Image #81 TED left hand and ORM
who:TED what:orm where:annex room#252 CHM#05
Image #82 ORM and TED right hand
who:TED what:orm where:annex room#252 CHM#04
The ORM
is now Object ID 102678171 at the CHM appearing in the Robot Research exhibit.
DGL is Garreth Loy. On that date his login sessions were
MariaDB [saildart]> select * from session where left(login,10)='1976-04-21' and prg='dgl';
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| prj | prg | ln | login | logout | minutes | sn | runtime | kcticks |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| 1 | DGL | tv#023 | 1976-04-21 09:24:00 | 1976-04-21 11:45:00 | 141 | 211352 | 6315 | 298496 |
| MS | DGL | tv#062 | 1976-04-21 22:48:00 | 1976-04-21 23:16:00 | 28 | 211352 | 2099 | 73962 |
| 1 | DGL | tv#044 | 1976-04-21 23:05:00 | 1976-04-21 23:16:00 | 11 | 211352 | 369 | 3632 |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
3 rows in set (1.67 sec)
Garreth is pictured as sitting at III#3 which is indeed line tv#023
LES is Lester Earnest. Login sessions are:
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| prj | prg | ln | login | logout | minutes | sn | runtime | kcticks |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| S | LES | tv#030 | 1976-04-21 10:06:00 | 1976-04-21 10:45:00 | 39 | 211352 | 277 | 2928 |
| S | LES | tv#030 | 1976-04-21 11:47:00 | 1976-04-21 12:35:00 | 48 | 211352 | 449 | 8272 |
| S | LES | tv#030 | 1976-04-21 12:59:00 | 1976-04-21 15:03:00 | 124 | 211352 | 1504 | 20192 |
| S | LES | tv#777 | 1976-04-21 15:59:00 | 1976-04-21 16:00:00 | 1 | 211352 | 40 | 1510 |
| S | LES | tv#030 | 1976-04-21 15:31:00 | 1976-04-21 16:55:00 | 84 | 211352 | 291 | 2816 |
| S | LES | tv#111 | 1976-04-21 19:09:00 | 1976-04-21 19:32:00 | 23 | 211352 | 1199 | 112272 |
| S | LES | tv#030 | 1976-04-21 23:48:00 | 1976-04-22 00:02:00 | 14 | 212425 | 648 | 7248 |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
JMC John McCarthy that day at 12:15 was logged in for that picture#35 for 3 minutes !
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| prj | prg | ln | login | logout | minutes | sn | runtime | kcticks |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
| F75 | JMC | tv#015 | 1976-04-21 02:48:00 | 1976-04-21 03:03:00 | 15 | 211352 | 11257 | 392448 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#015 | 1976-04-21 08:27:00 | 1976-04-21 08:28:00 | 1 | 211352 | 68 | 880 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#037 | 1976-04-21 11:18:00 | 1976-04-21 11:55:00 | 37 | 211352 | 89 | 1188 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#021 | 1976-04-21 12:16:00 | 1976-04-21 12:19:00 | 3 | 211352 | 170 | 5512 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#037 | 1976-04-21 14:45:00 | 1976-04-21 16:36:00 | 111 | 211352 | 3190 | 51776 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#777 | 1976-04-21 23:23:00 | 1976-04-21 23:24:00 | 1 | 211352 | 32 | 1166 |
| ESS | JMC | tv#015 | 1976-04-21 23:05:00 | 1976-04-22 00:32:00 | 87 | 212425 | 2654 | 67504 |
+-----+-----+--------+---------------------+---------------------+---------+--------+---------+---------+
JBR Jeff Rubin
REG Ralph Gorin
TAG Tom Gafford
Bruce Baumgart 4/25/2019