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Computer Engineer Wes Clark Dies at 88

Posted by timothy on from the let-us-now-praise-famous-men dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Wesley Allison Clark, a revered computer engineer whose work from the 1950s through 1970s underpinned the revolutions in personal computing, computer graphics, and the internet, died Monday. He was 88. Among other things, Clark was one of the two people (Charles Molnar being the other) who created LINC, the first mini-computer.

16 comments

  1. I was almost ready to cheer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I first read that as Wesley Clark, the fascist scumbag who almost started WW3 with Russia in the 90's.

    1. Re:I was almost ready to cheer by Progman3K · · Score: 3, Funny

      I first read that as Wesley Clark

      I first read that as Dick Clark and I thought "What, again?!?"

      --
      I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
  2. Internet by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One thing that people don't know about Wes is that during his service at Washington University he was one of the many who took the initiative to create the Internet. So you can thank him for that.

    1. Re:Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      https://www.computer.org/web/awards/eckert-wesley-clark
      "Clark had a small but key role in the planning for the ARPANET (the predecessor to the Internet). In 1967, he suggested to Larry Roberts the idea of using separate small computers (later named Interface Message Processors) as a way of standardizing the network interface and reducing load on the local computers."

      A Brief History of the Internet
      "1967 - A man named Wesley Clark designed and presented what today is commonly known as the router."

    2. Re:Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Apologies for that first broken link...
      Wesley A. Clark: 1981 Eckert-Mauchly Award Recipient

    3. Re:Internet by jonwil · · Score: 2

      If you are interested in all that stuff, the excellent book "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal" is a really good read, it talks all about the men behind the network and how it happened.

      Men like Wes Clark are the reason computers are interactive boxes connected to the largest repository of information in the known universe instead of being batch processing beasts that eat punch cards and spit out fan fold paper (or more punch cards) a few hours later.

  3. Greybeards, tell us your war stories! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am relieved to see that under the new ownership we're seeing relevant submissions here on Slashdot!

    If any greybeards have survived the social justice hell we've been through these past few years, please tell us your war stories.

    Did you ever meet Mr. Clark?

    Did you ever work with him?

    What did you work on with him?

    Tell us about him and the work!

    Tell us about your experiences with VMS and VAXen.

    Tell us about your experiences with OS/360.

    Tell us about your experiences with Digital UNIX, SunOS, AIX and HP-UX.

    Tell us, Oh Mighty Greybeards, of your exploits.

    Enlighten us, Masters of Yore!

  4. If nothing else ... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Informative

    in a 1981 lecture, he mentioned that he had the distinction of being, "the only person to have been fired three times from MIT for insubordination."

    If for no other reason than this, this man deserves to be remembered. :-P

    one of the fathers of the personal computer... he was the architect of both the TX-0 and TX-2 at Lincoln Labs. He believed that "a computer should be just another piece of lab equipment." At a time when most computers were huge remote machines operated in batch mode, he advocated far more interactive access.

    I guess being one of the fathers of the personal computer is pretty cool too.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:If nothing else ... by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      in a 1981 lecture, he mentioned that he had the distinction of being, "the only person to have been fired three times from MIT for insubordination."

      If for no other reason than this, this man deserves to be remembered. :-P

      Yes, with the emphasis on the fact that they kept re-hiring him. That or MIT administration was particularly flaky with firings like that.

  5. TECO, a real editor for real computers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, in my day young man we used to use real editors - non of this namby pamby stuff. See here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    We also used to write full applications in 32Kbytes of memory. Try that you IDE/framework users. :-)

  6. Another site suggestion by sootman · · Score: 2

    This thing where some stories show up collapsed on the front page? Kill that. If it's worth posting, it's worth showing.

    Example: pixelcity.com/collapsed.png

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    1. Re:Another site suggestion by psyclone · · Score: 1

      That's been there for years - comments under a certain threshold will collapse the story, but it's still on the front page.

      I don't disagree with your statement that all stories on the front page should be expanded by default. (The double-negative means I feel 'meh' about changing it.)

  7. Solemn occaision then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Happy National Engineers Week

  8. Yep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're all gonna die someday, no avoiding it.

  9. Let's not overdo the praise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think it's great that he was a great contributor on great projects, and a true pioneer of many things...

    But assigning him accolades for the personal computer or the internet is a bit much, making computers smaller, more capable, and connected was everybody's goal, it was going to happen no matter what, and it took the work of many teams of people. If you want to give credit to any small number of people it would be for the transistor and then the integrated circuit.

    I just think it cheapens praise to spray it everywhere, his actual accomplishments were praiseworthy on their own, they don't need to be relabeled.

  10. So in essence, he invented the router by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One of the linked articles says: "In 1967, he suggested to Larry Roberts the idea of using separate small computers (later named Interface Message Processors) as a way of standardizing the network interface and reducing load on the local computers."

    IMPs were not routers in the modern sense, but they were the germ of an idea. And yes, it's one of those ideas that somebody was bound to invent someday. But he was the somebody who actually did it.