eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) (03/21/91)
My officemate George Michael informs me Sid Fernbach has passed away
[about a month ago, in his sleep]. I didn't know Sid very well, but
I think I can say he will be missed.
I met Sid when my Division Chief asked me help with the now defunct
local ACM/SIGBIG (Mary Fowler chair). Sid was one who pushed for formation.
During the earliest days of the Usenet, when net.arch was the real name,
when people asked where did the DOE's Class system of rating computer
system was broached, I evoked Sid's name. The Cray-1 was the class Class VI
machine, the CDC 7600 and the ILLIAC IV were Class V, etc. When questions
about specific machine ratings occurred (as they did more than once),
I was able to ask both George and Sid (questions for the Mount?)
for their opinions:
"What's a VAX-11/780?" "It doesn't rate, it's not a supercomputer."
"What's an Apple II?" "Class 1/2" [facitiously]
I also had a chance to ask serious questions:
"Now that the Cray-2 [or ETA-10] is out, what are they?"
"Class VI machines." He later changed the Cray-2
to a Class VII.
He went on to edit a book:
%A Sidney Fernbach, ed.
%T Supercomputers, Class VI Systems, Hardware and Software
%I North-Holland
%D 1986
%K book, text, cray, cdc cyber, data flow, NEC SX-2, Fujitsu VP-200,
Hitachi 810/20, vector processing,
%X A collection of papers surveying existing computer architectures
rather than newer proposed supercomputer architectures.
%X A book from one of the men who set up the "Class system" of the DOE.
If the conversation ever turned too hardware oriented, I injected
"What should the operating system on a supercomputer be?
"Not, Unix."
"CTSS [Cray Time Sharing System] then?"
"Yes."
"What about on the machines surrounding them? The
front-ends, the workstations, the PCs?" [Sid didn't believe in
workstations or PCs at the time.]
"CTSS is adequate for all of them. Put it on all of them."
"And the editor?"
... (some people can guess)
Sid received numerous awards from all sorts of professional societies.
IEEE COMPCON was always giving him something. 8^)
I was at an ACM Chapter meeting when it was announced we weren't having
a speaker that evening: Sid had suffered a stroke (several years back).
I saw him one more time after that (at his make up meeting).
Despite the old dinosaur's opinions, I will miss Sid.
Follow-ups to comp.sys.super.
--e. nobuo utsunomiya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
{uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugeneefeustel@prime.com (Ed Feustel) (03/21/91)
I knew him as a savy politician when I was visiting at the Labs in 1972. We had many disagreements about what the Computer Group was doing and how it was being directed. However I still respect the effort that he put into the Labs and the effort to have US Supercomputers be the best. He also devoted or caused to be devoted a terrific amount of energy to the support of the CompCons in San Francisco. Clearly he was an important mover and shaker in US Computing history! Ed Feustel
rchrd@well.sf.ca.us (Richard Friedman) (03/23/91)
The passing of Sid Fernbach is certainly a milestone in supercomputing in this country, if not the world. He figured prominently in the early days of the first CDC supercomputers (6600/7600, starting around 1965) Always irascible and opinionated, he was a moving force. And he will be remembered. -- /\=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=/\ \/Richard Friedman (415)540-5216 | rchrd@well.sf.ca.us \/ /\Pacific-Sierra Rsrch (Berkeley) | or well!rchrd@apple.com /\ \/=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=\/