W1SEG

Amateur Radio Station

I think mostly I tend to believe important things get done by small groups of people who all know all about the whole project. That is, in those days all the software people knew something about hardware, and all the hardware people programmed. It wasn’t a group of unconnected people. It was a set of people who all knew a lot about the whole project.
—Frank Heart, project manager for ARPAnet IMP

quote Watson 6600

Last week CDC had a press conference during which they officially announced their 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing this system there are only 34 people, “including the janitor.” Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers, and only one person has a Ph.D.… Contrasting this modest effort with our own vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world’s most powerful computer.
—T. J. Watson, Jr., CEO of IBM

It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question.
—Seymour Cray, CDC 6600 designer

W1SEG Amateur Radio Station

quote Watson 6600

Last week CDC had a press conference during which they officially announced their 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing this system there are only 34 people, “including the janitor.” Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers, and only one person has a Ph.D.… Contrasting this modest effort with our own vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world’s most powerful computer.
—T. J. Watson, Jr., CEO of IBM

It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question.
—Seymour Cray, CDC 6600 designer

I think mostly I tend to believe important things get done by small groups of people who all know all about the whole project. That is, in those days all the software people knew something about hardware, and all the hardware people programmed. It wasn’t a group of unconnected people. It was a set of people who all knew a lot about the whole project.
—Frank Heart, project manager for ARPAnet IMP