Re: Welcome! DO NOT DELETE - NOT SPAM!!

[Alan Flippen <flippen@nytimes.com>]

Hi everyone,

Wow! I didn't think anyone else had even heard of the "Deltoid Pumpkin
Seed." That may actually go back further than Delta itself; I think it was
published sometime in the early to mid-70's.

I'll echo everyone else who thinks this project is great. Many, many thanks
to Bob and Cecelia for trcking everyone down and to Jim for setting up the
listserv. And I'll certainly try my best to attend a reunion if there is
one. Should we have it in Willard Hall or at the Deer Park?

And if we have one, I suspect we'll all need name tags to recognize one
another; the photos of Jim and Rich that I've seen on the Web don't look
anything like how I remember them, though Ernie doesn't seem to have changed
much.

Meanwhile, I'm having a great time reading everyone else's reminiscences of
Delta. If anyone else wants to see the one of mine that Rich mentioned, let
me know; it's a version of the memoir that I wrote and circulated at Delta
in the summer of '80, with the anti-Ed Jones nastiness toned way down (for
those who missed the original, it compared Ed quite unfavorably with
previous Delta leaders such as Dave Haislett and Gary Luckenbaugh, but since
I was 16 when I wrote it, I didn't take into account the drastically changed
funding and administrative context in which Ed had to work. I've come to
believe that Ed did quite a good job given the difficult nature of the
people above and below him.)

So keep those notes coming!

Cheers,
Alan Flippen

p.s. Am I the only one at this party who no longer works in computers? 

At 01:01 PM 4/23/98 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Speaking of "Deltoid", there is a book by John McPhee called "The
>Deltoid Pumpkin Seed".  Its actually not about computers in any way --
>its about an attempt to build a dirigible/airship/zeppelin type
>aircraft where the shape of the craft is an airfoil, giving both
>static and dynamic lift properties to the craft.  But I digress....
>
>I suppose I can take some of the blame (credit?) for shifting Bob into
>"search and locate" mode.  It occurred to me recently that its been
>20+ years since I first encountered Delta and its about time for a
>reunion!  It seems that many folks are still in the NE area so having
>a reuinion wouldn't be too far out of the realm of the possible.
>
>How does everyone else feel about that?
>
>I did a little searching on my own, and discovered that I have these
>archaelogical artifacts to bring to the party:
>
>	o TECO release notes from April 1979
>	o TECO reference manual from 1980
>	o a printout of one of Ralph Gonzalez' amazing mathematical
>	  simulation programs.  (And yes, there are virtually no
>	  comments and every variable is K5, L6, J2, etc!  Such a
>	  wonderful example of spaghetti code, but we still love your
>	  programs Ralph :)
>	o a magtape with various programs on it.  I don't even
>	  recognize what the programs are myself, but I think I have a
>	  copy of the 'xerox print queue' program I wrote on that
>	  tape.  I think the other stuff was just things culled from
>	  the DECUS library tapes
>	o a printout of a _very_ early version of the "Jargon File".
>	  Its so early it doesn't have a version number or a date (and
>	  it predates Eric Raymond's involvement in creating the
>	  Hacker's Dictionary).  Its also only 22 pages long!
>
>Bob mailed me Alan Flippen's "History of DELTA" essay, which I popped
>into MS word and converted to HTML and sent back to Bob.  If Bob
>doesn't have public web space to begin accumulating a "DELTA Archive",
>I can help provide that.
>
>I read the first couple pages of Alan's history and I like it!  Brings
>back all kinds of memories ;).  I take pride in being the youngest
>person ever to break security and then become priv :).  Its inspired
>me to write up a short essay of how I became involved with DELTA,
>which involves a few interesting Gestapo-like computer center stories.
>
>I'm out in Utah now, but I still think fondly of the DELTA days.  A
>fairly recent photo of me is at
><http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/images/caver.jpg>
>--
>                                               Rich Thomson
>                                               rthomson@ptc.com
>
>