This is a list of most of the employees of the Systems group of the MSU Computer Laboratory, from about 1970 - 1988. (The group was disbanded during the massive reorganization in August 1988.)
Where dates of employment are noted, they are usually approximate. They were obtained from memory (mine and others'), and from scanning source code correction histories. "Current" means 2006. In some cases, the employee's most notable accomplishments are briefly described.
This page was created in preparation for the MSU CL (now ACNS) 50th anniversary celebration on Friday, 29 September 2006.
| Name | Comments |
|---|---|
| Anderson, Brent D. (BDA) | Student, ~1978-79. CDC dependent products (?). |
| Barlow, Mark S. (MSB) | Student, ~1985-86. |
| Barton, Keith Eric (KEB) | Student, ~1981-84. CDC dependent products; briefly sysgen. Probably the only former MSU CL employee to still be working on CDC mainframes, as of 2005. |
| Barczak, Paul | Student, ~1987-88. |
| Bautista, Lester A. (LAB) | Student, 1987-89. Worked on the VAX; left for Telllabs for 13 years. As of 2006, helps design Sprint Nextel's network. |
| Beach, Covert C. (CCB) | Student, 1985-87. |
| Bedoll, Robert F. (RFB) | ~1970-Nov 1972 and ~1973-1978. Ace programmer of MSU EDITOR and FREND, both with John Renwick; wrote BID (Bedoll Interactive Debugger). Left for Boeing twice. Before Brian Berry was hired, he often went by "BBB". |
| Berry, Brian B. (BBB) | Student, ~1975-76. |
| Beyer, Donald W. (DWB) | Student, ~1985-87. |
| Bixler, Dave | 1969 - 1972. Worked primarily on LHG's version of APL. Graduated and went to TRW in Los Angeles. Some say he started in July 1971. |
| Blackson, James A. (JAB) | ~1975. |
| Bolyard, Nelson B. (NBB) | Student, ~1971-76. |
| Bright, David A. (DAB) | ~1982-1987. Ported SCOPE/Hustler to the CDC 180/810 dual state mode; ported CDC on-line manual system and U Texas C compiler; wrote QWIKIO (FTN5 replacement for MSU FASTIO). Left for ETA. Now works at Symantec. |
| Britner, Preston | CDC 3600 era. Fortran 60 (F60) and Fast Fortran (FF). Perhaps also RUNT (?). |
| Brunyate, Fred W. (FWB) | ~1972-75. Left to become a hockey coach. |
| Burnsides, Dennis | Student, ~1971-72. |
| Carl, Brian [R.?] | Student, ~1986-88. |
| Carney, Mike R. (MRC) | Student, ~1984-86. Worked on design of DROPJOB (later abandoned). |
| Chou, Hsiao-Yu | Grad Student, ~1987-88. Managed the little-used Fermi ACP machine. One of the very few graduate students to work for Systems. |
| Clarke, David B. (DBC) | ~1977-78. |
| Colwell, Dean | Student, ~1986-88. Worked in the IBM mainframe group. |
| Cowles, Dewayne L. (DLC) | June 1978 - October 1979. 9-track tape drivers. |
| Davis, Thomas D. (TDD) | ~1979-current. Permanent file I/O queues with Ken Josenhans and Jeff Piper. Later became Director. |
| Dornberger, Roger | ~1971-72. |
| Dunshee, David M. (DMD) | ~1971-77. Group leader and ace programmer heavily responsible for Hustler - MANAGER, CPU 1SP, PP driver for our third party character division multiplexer, etc. He and Bob Bedoll designed the essentials of Hustler by drawing in spilled beer in a local bar. Cowrote CPUMTR with Kingsbury. Left for SRI with many others. |
| Dykstra, John W. (JWD) | ~1974-1977. Tape and disk drivers; one of the few Systems employees to design hardware (disk controller). |
| Eicker, Steve W. (SWE) | 1971-76. Full time starting 1973. Worked on E/I 200? Left for MSU vet school. Taught at UW-Madison from 1983 to 1990. Founded Valley Agricultural Software (www.vas.com) in 1981 to provide tools for dairy farmers. |
| Ely, Kathy E. (KEE) | ~1974-75. Worked on APL. |
| Emery, Jim E. (JEE) | Student, 1971 - ?. Hung out with and married Anna-Marie Gauthier. |
| Etelamki, Robert | ~1972. Assigned by CDC to provide software support; remained a CDC employee. |
| Ferguson, Ronald C. (RCF?) | Student, ~1987-88. Implemented accounting on VAX/VMS. |
| Fleck, Art | CDC 3600 era. Manager. Initially discovered that the 160-A could do simultaneous I/O for the tape scope system. Got PhD and went to work at Universiy of Iowa (retiring from there soon). |
| Fox, John | ~1968-1973. Responsible for idea of LSD's. First systems integration manager. Left to work for CDC. |
| Gaty, Nora M. (NMG) | ~1979-81. One of the few project leaders to not come up through the ranks. |
| Gautheir, Anna-Marie | 1971 - June 1972. First technical assistant. First hung out with David Dunshee, then JEE. |
| Goss, Michael E. (MEG) | ~1972-75. Did much of the work of
porting the 66x tape drivers to SCOPE/Hustler (completed by Dykstra). |
| Gossman, Susan E. (SEG) | ~1978-80. One of the few Systems employees to work at home. Wrote firmware for disk controller that never went into production. Formerly Sue Dunn. Formerly worked in User Services. |
| Greenberg, Lewis H. (LHG) | ~1968-2002. Started as strictly a Computer Science professor and gradually became more involved with the Systems group. Created the MANAGER concept; wrote APL compiler for CDC contract (they picked another one); designed CDC 6000 channel interface to Interdata 7/32. Succeeded L. W. VonTersch as Director when Julian Kateley left as Associate Director. |
| Groll, Steven T. (STG) | ~1975-1979. MSU EDITOR maintenance. Later became manager of User Services, then moved to Center Line, Michigan. Lives in Central Lake, MI as of 2006. |
| Harvath, Steve | ~1972-77. |
| Hoffman, Carol L. (CLH) | Student, ~1984-86. Later married James Taylor. |
| Hoffman, John | Student, ~1987-89. Apparently unrelated to Carol. Worked on IBM mainframe(?) |
| Horner, Don | CDC 3600 era. Developed 160A assembler on 3600. Later went to head up User Services, then worked in the Main Office. |
| Hunter, Kenneth D. (KDH) | ~1981-85. MSU EDITOR maintenance; also ported it to NOS/VE. Wrote VAX/VMS programs for plotting and accounting. Ported SCOPE/Hustler to Desktop Cyber. Worked on CDC mainframes until December 2005. |
| Johnson, Christopher T. (CTJ) | ~1981-84. Left for Naval Ballistics Research Lab. |
| Josenhans, Kenneth R. (KRJ) | ~1978-current. Worked on PF I/O queues with TDD (and BTK in the beginning); implemented the FREND interface to MICI, allowing X.25 sessions. |
| Kanya, Sara Jean (SJK) | ~1974-78. Worked on CPUMTR and was crash analyzer. Hung out with Roderick. Left for State of Michigan; still there as of 2006. |
| Katz, David M. (DMK) | ~1976-85. Networking guru; implemented FREND printing and other FREND enhancements, and X.25 in MICI (also on the Interdata 7/32). Left for MERIT; later worked for several networking companies and became very wealthy. He got Cisco to buy a T1 line to his house in Santa Cruz back when T1's were very expensive. Played bass guitar. |
| Keating, Laura A. (LAK) | Student, ~1980-81. Ported NOS APL to SCOPE/Hustler. RRM: "One of the better students that i was not able to convince to stay full time." |
| Kestenbaum, Mary C. (MCK) | ~1979-82. Rewrote STL (PP Resident). Hung out with Koch. Left for Cray Research. |
| Kimball, Conrad E. (CEK) | ~1974-78. designed shared PF system (Koch implemented). Left for Boeing. |
| Kime, Glendon J. (GJK) | ~1980-86. Systems integrator. Ported SCOPE/Hustler to CDC 810. Left for an MS in Comp Sci at U of Maryland; later worked for STSC. Now (2006) a self-employed developer. |
| King, Carol L. (CLK) | Student, ~1987-88. Married JAP; lives in WA with him as of 2006. |
| King, Margaret Ann (MAK) | Student, 1984-87. Left Systems for another CL job (IBM OS maintenance); still there as of 2006. |
| Kingsbury, Lawrence J. (LJK) | ~1973-78. Mr. DSD; hired along with Lou Poppler after they exploited a security hole in SCOPE. Also known for the "Kingsbury button"--the emergency power off toggle switch that got a shield after being activated while he was wiring the systems response alarm. One of many who left for SRI. |
| Knight, David | CDC 3600 era. Worked on EZ IO for FORTRAN. Left for DEC where he did work on the PDP 11. |
| Koch, Bryan Troy (BTK) | ~1975-82. Group leader. Implemented shared permanent file system and began implementation of shared queue files. Hung out with Kestenbaum. Left for Cray Research. |
| Kopson, Patrick J. (PJK) | Student, ~1980-85. |
| Kuenning, Geoff | Spring 1970-June 74. Heavily involved
with MERIT work on the PDP-11 side. Well known for the error message "Tell GHK it happened" in some recovery code. Caused the extensive code review system being instituted. Left to go to work for Lawrence Livermore Labs. Now a professor at Harvey Mudd College in the LA area. Maintains the ispell spelling checker. |
| Law, Wai-Kin | Student, ~1978-79? |
| Leung, Sik-Chuen | ~1978-80. |
| Lunde, Ron E. (REL) | ~1979. |
| Mausner, Dave | ~1973-75. |
| McAllister, Jerry R. (JRM) | ~1979-current. PF system maintenance; added file upload/download to SCREDIT. |
| McAllister, Richard | ~1972-73. |
| Moore, Richard R. (RRM) | 1964-current. Manager of Systems. Authored many internal standards; reviewed every line of code on the system. |
| Morse, Gail | Student technical assistant, 1972. |
| Murphy, M. Sean (MSM) | Student, ~1981-83. |
| Neil, Jim | Student, ~1971-72. |
| Nelson, Douglas E. (DEN) | ~1972-current. Long-time all-around guru. |
| Ng, Kin-Wah Nelson (KNN) | Student, ~1987-88. Famous for his many entrepreneurial schemes. |
| Nickels, Dale W. (DWN) | Student, ~1975-76. Left for SRI. Now works with Riordan in Madison, WI. |
| Nickolai, Dennis | CDC 3600 era. Helped on satelliting the 160A to Tape SCOPE. Left for Dow Chemical. |
| Nuber, Robert C. (RCN) | ~1976-78. |
| Oren, Lamott G. (LGO) | ~1973-77. HUSTLER scheduler. One of the few students to make substantial contributions to the OS. Left for Texas Instruments. |
| Parnell, Jan (Snyder) | June 1972 - now. Second full-time technical assistant. Previously in I/O; after Systems, moved to computer store. |
| Parsons, Scott | Student, ~1978-81. |
| Pendred, Paul V. (PVP) | Student, ~1985-87. |
| Piper, Jeffery E. (JEP) | ~1979-current. PF I/O queues with Tom Davis. |
| Poduba, Michael D. (MDP) | Student, ~1978-80. |
| Poorman, Peter Wilson (PWP) | ~1975-81. Tape support. Left for CDC. |
| Poppler, Louis W. (LWP) | ~June 1972-76. Worked on MERIT, among other things. He was hired after finding several security holes in the OS. Left to become a projectionist at a local theater; still there as of 2004. |
| Porkka, Joseph A. (JAP) | Student, ~1987-88. Some own-time source code of his can still be found on the Internet. Married CLK; works for Microsoft on Vista as of 2006. |
| Press, Barry | Student, 1969-1971. Graduated and went to TRW in Los Angeles. |
| Price, Eric D. (EDP) | Student, ~1979. |
| Renwick, John K. (JKR) | ~1973-81. MSU EDITOR and FREND, with Bob Bedoll. Wrote the error correcting ECS code which permitted us to really use ECS on the CDC systems. Flies airplanes. Left for Cray. Now retired. |
| Riordan, Mark Richard (MRR) | 1981-88. (Worked for other units 1975-81 and 1988-95.) SCREDIT screen editor and terminal emulator. Left for Standard Networks. |
| Roderick, David K. (DKR) | ~1971-77. Cigar-smoking group leader; hung out with Kanya. |
| Schroeder, Timothy P. (TPS) | Student, ~1980. |
| Severance, Charles Russell (CRS) | ~1988. Former User Services consultant; managed the BBN Butterfly. At University of Michigan as of 2006. |
| Shere, Howard M. (HMS) | Student, ~1982-84. Sysgen. Wrote comprehensive document on system generation process, which unfortunately has been lost. As of 2006, lives in Water Valley, MS, and has his own company, Mutant Egg. |
| Smith, Ernie | CDC 3600 era. Worked on dedicated interactive calculator system (RACS??) on Drum SCOPE. |
| Socolofsky, Tom C. (TCS) | ~1972-73? |
| Spear, Cynthia A. (CAS) | Student, 1982-84. Now Cync Brantley. |
| St. Amand, Gerry | ~1971-72. Later better known as being with the Business College. |
| Stembol, Leif E. (LES) | Student, ~1980-82. |
| Swain, Betsy | ~1987-88. Managed an IBM mainframe. |
| Szigeti, Valeria M. (VMS) | ~1971-June 72. Heavily involved in MERIT; author of ARGUS. She left to join MERIT in Ann Arbor, where she married one of the engineers who had designed the interface hardware and moved to the Bay Area to work for CDC. Also known as Valeria Welbeck. |
| Taylor, James E. (JET) | ~1982-85. Hung out with Chris Johnson; married Carol Hoffman. Left to become a radio engineer. |
| Throop, Dean D. (DDT) | ~1975-76. |
| Thurber, Don | ~1974-75. |
| Trainor, Todd E. (TET) | Student, ~1984-86. Sysgen. Left for Dow after graduating. |
| Vavra, Bob | Left in June 1970. Wrote the PP interpreter as a student, a major boon to systems programmers. |
| Wahl, Patrick T. (PTW) | Student (?), 1977-78. |
| Werner, Michael (MTW) | Student, ca. 1987. |
| Wiggins, Richard Walker (RWW) | ~1988. Primarily managed an IBM mainframe. Previously at User Services; left Systems but still at ACNS as of 2006. |
| Wolberg, Paul S. (PSW) | 1986-88. Worked under RWW in the IBM mainframe group. Left to pursue a Master's degree; works in Ann Arbor as of 2006. |
| Zinger, Anthony J. (AJZ) | Student, ~1978-79. Left for CDC, where he eventually worked on NOS/VE. |
The June 1972 Systems class was apparently the first. Lew Greenberg taught Mike Goss, Steve Harvath, Richard McAllister, and Doug Nelson.
/mrr 1 July 2006; last updated 3 April 2016