Dawn in the Valley: A Quick Look Inside
1) Across the Prunefield Plane
At IBM, my dad was a Systems Analyst. To this day, I don’t know what that is. I used to ask him all the time what he did at work. His answer was always, “I go to meetings and chalk on the board.” Though I was never satisfied with that answer, I learned that there was some truth to his flippant remark.
2) A Very Good Place to Start
Because the Soviet Union was indirectly involved, supplying Cuba with most of its military equipment, many US citizens feared that tensions between the U.S. and USSR might be escalating to dangerous new levels. It must have been a big deal, as a news report was being piped through the entire school’s PA system. Our teacher, Miss Alsup, had a look of concern as the news unfolded.
3) Everything I know About Politics
I learned on the Playground
One of the first things I needed to learn was how to get along with others. Public school educators call it “socialization,” which is a scholarly way of saying “learning how to survive within a group of your peers without getting punched in the nose.” It was a vital skill that I’d have to master. And it was a skill as valuable as any academic lesson I could learn in the classroom.
4) The Sixties that Time Forgot: Part 1
Aerospace and Cold War technology always seemed to be inextricably linked. There was a noticeable US military presence that could be seen and felt throughout the Bay Area. A variety of military aircraft flew in and out of Moffett Field every day. The “sonic boom” of supersonic jet aircraft was something Silicon Valley residents tolerated before noise abatement regulations had come into existence.
5) The Sixties that Time Forgot: Part 2
By 1963, my dad was the manager of all random access memory products at IBM and he became director of engineering for the systems development division. He worked on the IBM 1311, the first hard drive with removable disks. Each removable pack contained six 14-inch diameter disks, and had a storage capacity of 2 million characters, which was comparable to 25,000 punch cards.
6) End of a Beginning
It was one of those moments when you think you may not have heard right. Everyone was confused. One student exclaimed, “Did you just say the President was shot?” Students looked at one another in stunned disbelief.
7) A New Decade
Al managed the development team that was working on the 2321 Data Cell, intended to be an integral peripheral device for the new 360. The 2321 was a storage device with flexible removable magnetic strips that had a storage capacity of 400MB and could store up to 400 million alphanumeric characters or up to 800 million decimal digits.
8) You Can't Do That Anymore!
Although the term “politically correct” hadn’t yet become part of American nomenclature, advertisers were more or less obligated to heed the complaints coming from various ethnic advocacy groups. The animated character Frito Bandito was a stereotypical Mexican revolutionary with a sombrero, handlebar moustache and a thick Spanish accent. He carried two pistols and robbed people of their Fritos corn chips at gunpoint.
9) Times a-Changin'
California wasn’t immune to racial strife. But it was something going on in the urban areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles. Within the comfortable confines of Cambrian Park, discord in the black community may as well have not existed. The first time I realized that there might be serious hostility simmering in urban black neighborhoods was August 11, 1965.
10) Creative Visions
Towards the end of 1965, the music scene on the West Coast was starting to gain a momentum that was being felt across the country. Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area were attracting music artists from major music centers all over the U.S. I could tell things were changing by what I was hearing on the radio. Artists I’d never heard of were getting airplay that gave me a glimpse of music trends that the rest of the country hadn’t yet discovered.
11) Foreward and Onward
That year, Hewlett Packard introduced their first minicomputer, the HP2100A, built using integrated circuits and magnetic-core memory. Introduced in November 1966, the machine sold rapidly in the business data processing market. Its original price was $22,000.
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Until the end of 1966, LSD was legal in California and its use was encouraged and actively promoted by many of the prominent figures of the counterculture movement. Most notably, novelist Ken Kesey gained notoriety for his “acid tests” parties he organized from 1965 to 1967 which centered entirely on the use of, and advocacy of the psychedelic drug LSD.
12) California Vibrations
Perhaps the most revolutionary component of the new IBM System 370 may not have been its hardware. As Direct Access Product Storage Manager, Al was charged with developing a reliable and inexpensive system for loading microcode into the System 370 mainframe. From this project came the first 8-inch floppy disk drive.
13) High Water Mark
Scores of young people from all over the country were converging on San Francisco in alarming numbers. It created a new population of the unemployed, the homeless and teenage runaways. Crime and drug abuse, followed. The hippie mantra “free love” resulted in cases of syphilis and gonorrhea that more than doubled.
14) The Sixties: Decline and Fall
When the Rolling Stones came on stage, it did very little to quell the growing violence. What Mick Jagger and his band mates didn’t realize was that the Altamont Free Concert wasn’t just underway, it was already out of control. While the Stones’ set continued, Hell’s Angels armed with sawed down pool cues were bashing people around the stage.
15) Moving On
Al Shugart and his former fellow IBM employees that followed him to Memorex must have had heads spinning at IBM headquarters. Memorex was building equipment in direct competition with IBM products. And they weren’t the only ones.
16) And the Rest is History…
In recent years, Silicon Valley has lost much of the luster of its romantic past of eccentric engineers, forward-thinking entrepreneurs, and daring investors.