Chapter 7

STEVE - October 60

On the first Sunday in October, I took the train to New York City. Then, after a taxi ride from Penn Station to Grand Central, I got on another train to go up along the Hudson to Poughkeepsie. I was amazed with what I saw when I emerged into the cavernous Poughkeepsie station - it was a real relic from an earlier era!

I took a taxi to the Poughkeepsie Motor Inn on South Road and checked in. After an unimpressive dinner at a Howard Johnson's in front of the motel, I turned in for the night.

Early Monday morning, I took another taxi to the IBM Education building. When I saw how close it was to the motel, I decided that in the future I would walk between the motel and IBM unless the weather was really foul. In the lobby, I, along with a group of other visitors, signed in with the receptionist who gave us all badges identifying us as visitors. Soon, an IBM engineer came into the lobby to met us, saying, "Welcome to IBM Poughkeepsie; we are very happy to have you here for this class," With that, he escorted us to a large classroom. Once we were in the room he closed the door, and then continued, saying, "As you know, this class is going to expose you to the new 'Stretch' machine. Some of your organizations have one on order, and the rest of you have expressed serious interest. Please sign the non-disclosure agreements in your packets and return them to me. We'll be telling you a lot more about the machine than is public knowledge at this time."

We all introduced ourselves; most of those of us from outside IBM were quite vague about our associations. The exceptions were the group from the U. S. Weather Bureau and another group from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was well known that Los Alamos was slated to get the first machine. Interestingly enough, there were three Frenchmen and a couple of British gentlemen that seemed to know each other and many of the Los Alamos people.

It was a strange group. There were a number of IBM engineers and programmers; some of them would be teaching some of the classes, others were there to learn about the machine.

The class got underway, and for the next week, the organization and architecture of the machine was described. In addition to the familiar fixed and floating point binary arithmetic instructions, there was a rich repertoire of "Variable Field Length" (VFL) instructions intended for handling character data. I took particular notice of the only female instructor, a pretty, dark-haired young woman who had introduced herself as Sandy Rhule. When she got to the lectern, she told us that she would be describing the VFL unit. Initially, she started out shy, but, because she was very sure of her material, she rapidly became more confident. It soon became evident that she was a smart and creative engineer.

When she explained that the VFL architecture allowed for variable-length characters that she called "bytes" (note: that term was created by the Stretch designers) to be any size between one and eight bits, and that a character field could start in any bit position of a word, I was astounded. From what I had studied about logic design, I knew that there was a high price in complexity and machine performance (logic signal delay) for such flexibility. I asked, "Isn't this flexibility going to cost a lot in terms of circuit count and logic path length? I don't understand why this was done,"

Sandy answered that this was the decision of the architects who were responsible for the design of the instruction set of the machine, but I could sense that she was not totally comfortable with this herself.

At the next coffee break, I found myself at a small table with Sandy. She told me "Actually, I agree with your concern about the design complexity. In fact, I raised it myself not long after I started in the VFL group. I was told that on this issue, I should just go along with the party line - the architects have grand visions!"

We continued to talk for a while, and agreed to continue our discussion at lunch.

When we broke for lunch and had selected our food, we put the machine talk aside for a while. I told her about growing up in Massachusetts, how I had been a tinkerer from an early age, explained how this had led me to MIT and eventually into the Navy and my interest in programming. Of course, I couldn't tell her much about my work at the agency, and she was astute enough not to ask.

I said "That's my life story in the Reader's Digest version. How about you?"

She said "Well, I grew up on a farm in upstate New York. I was fascinated by the machinery as a kid, and was determined to go to college and get an engineering degree. Not many of the girls from our small town were encouraged to get a college education, unless they planned to go into teaching. In college, I gravitated towards electronic engineering and logic design, and here I am, Let's talk more later, but we need to get back to the class. I still have another hour and a half to go."

I followed her back to the classroom and took my seat. I realized that she was really smart, obviously very driven, and in spite of all that, a very nice person; she was one of the first young women I had really felt comfortable with.

The classes continued. After Sandy wound up with the VFL discussions, the instructors went on to discuss the fixed and floating point units. We barely got through them by the end of the first week. I was quite intrigued when we were told that we would get a full description of memory addressing and index register operations in next weeks classes. I planned to spend part of the weekend reading up on these topics.

Friday after class, some of the instructors told the group, particularly the visitors, that there was an IBM Poughkeepsie tradition that we were invited to join in - a "happy hour" at the Treasure Chest just south of IBM on Route 9.

Along with a few others from the class, I got a ride with one of the IBM people, and found myself in a downstairs barroom well packed with people, almost all were in suits and still wearing IBM badges. As I was moving up to the bar for a beer, I spotted a familiar face from MIT - Chad Wilkinson. He was not only a classmate but also an Outing Club friend.

After hailing him, we both grabbed beers and found a quiet corner to catch up on what had been going with each other on since graduation. Chad told me "I joined IBM here right after graduation, and I've been lucky enough to get involved in tape drive design. This really works well for me, you remember that I had a dual major in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. How about you?"

I answered, "Yeah, I remember that infernal machine you had in your room that you were always tweaking! I still laugh my head off when I remember how scared your roommate's girl friend was when she set it off by accident, After that, tape drive design sounds like a natural for you. As you may remember, I was in Navy ROTC, and leaning towards the math and programming side of the computer world. The Navy gave me a choice between being a junior radar officer on a picket boat or going to work for a special agency in Washington. Going to the agency was an easy decision and one I've not regretted. I've been writing programs and going to more schools. Just don't ask me anything about my work - it's highly classified." We talked a little longer, and I mentioned "It's good to see you here! I'm going to be here in Poughkeepsie for another three weeks with no car and nothing to do weekends - maybe we can get together."

"Well, you're in luck, We have an IBM club group that hikes around here most weekends. Tomorrow we're going on a hike in the Catskills. I'll give you a ride if you want to come along; you don't have to work for IBM to go on the hikes."

Eagerly, I said "Sure - I wasn't looking forward to a weekend stuck in the motel."

Fortunately I had thought to pack boots and casual clothing - and Chad agreed to pick me up at the motel in the morning.

Saturday turned out to be a great fall day. It was sunny and a bit chilly at first in the morning, but with a promise to get up to almost 60 by the afternoon. After Chad picked me up, we drove across the river. After a stop at a deli for sandwiches and sodas, we headed north to Kingston and then west on Route 28 to a parking lot at the head of a trail that led up a mountain. Several other cars had arrived by the time we got there, and I looked around at the assembled hikers.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Sandy. I walked over to her, saying, "It's nice to see you here! I didn't realize that this was your thing."

She laughed and replied, "Well, I told you that I was a farm girl, and I've always liked the outdoors. Besides, it's a good way to unwind after a week in the pressure cooker at IBM."

I answered "I know what you mean. I've spent many weekend days on the Canal Trail outside of Washington just to forget the job for a while."

We assembled and the leaders of the hike gave us a rundown on the trail. I noticed that most of the others, including Sandy, had trail maps, and I asked her "Can I hike along with you? I don't have a map, and I see that you do."

She said "Sure. It's really nice that you are here today,"

The hike was fairly long but the trail wasn't steep for the most part. It was pleasant talking with Sandy as we walked. We stopped when we got to the top of the mountain and ate our lunches as we took in the panoramic views around us. After lunch, we hiked along a saddle ridge between the mountain we had just climbed and another nearby peak, climbed to the top of that peak, and finally downhill to the parking lot.

The group started to split up at this point; Chad and a few others wanted to get back home, but several hikers, including Sandy, suggested that we all go for pizza. When they told me that they could give me a ride back to the motel, I told Chad "Thanks for the ride, and for telling me about this. I'll see you later somewhere, but right now pizza sounds a heck of a lot better than another meal at Howard Johnson's,"

We had an easy relaxed time at the pizza place, that was helped by a few pitchers of beer. The leader of today's hike told me "We have some hikes scheduled both next weekend and the weekend after; I think you said something about being here for another three weeks. We'd be glad to have you come along. It's obvious that you've done at least as much hiking as Chad."

I eagerly told him, "That sounds great! I am very interested as long as someone can provide transportation; it will be a great improvement over sitting around cooped up in a motel room all weekend,"

Eventually the group split the check, and we headed for the parking lot. By chance, I found myself in the back seat of an old VW beetle sitting next to Sandy. The fresh air, the hike, and the beer had made me somewhat sleepy, and I found myself dozing on and off. I woke up to a very pleasant sensation - Sandy's head was resting on my shoulder - she was asleep. I must have stirred, because she half-woke up, moved closer to me, and went back to sleep. I put my arm around her, and then I seem to have dozed off again. The next thing I knew we were in front of my motel and Sandy was awake. She said to me "I'm glad that you were there today. I'll see you on Monday," as she took her time untangling herself. Reluctantly I let go of her, went through the contortions necessary to get out of the back seat of the VW, and said "Goodnight everyone. Sandy, I'll look forward to seeing you in class next week."