Pat Waddell

I'd like to discuss the "ripple effect" Dr. Culler had beyond those who worked with him directly on his projects. The effects he had on "the rest" of the students and staff. I can only describe it by my own story:

When I arrived at UCSB in the Fall of 1965, I was one of the few high school students to have had hands-on computer experience. Furthermore, I had the opportunity to learn FORTRAN courtesy of my future employer: Control Data. On campus, I found where the 1620 was hidden (in the lower level of the Art Building, as I recall), and set about to learn the machine. It wasn't long before I had found my way into the Computer Center in North Hall. There, in addition to the IBM 360, was this strange collection of cabinets against one wall. "Oh, that's Dr. Culler's system" I was told. Since I was self-supporting, I turned my attention to the 360 and the graduate students who were struggling with being told: "Oh, go do your thesis calculations on the computer...." (That sort of work fed me for three years...)

As I worked with the 360, I began to make friends with the programmers who were working on Dr. Culler's system. Eventually, I understood that they were working to tie it with the 360 (running one of those nice IBM operating systems that were so user friendly...

As a Junior, I finally got the chance to USE the On-Line System. What a revelation! A computer that you could interact with! And one that did graphics -- albeit with Tektronix storage oscilloscopes. And I could do calculus on this beast! Wonder of wonders (and where had it been all my undergraduate years?).

Meanwhile, in the new Engineering Building, a new machine, the IBM 1800, had appeared. It had new abilities: analog to digital and back. And in a lab next door, Dr. Culler began to work on speech synthesis. Pretty crude at first -- but what a concept -- a computer that talked and listened. (Was there a writer from Star Trek hiding in a corner of the room then?) Please remember (especially those of you who are younger) that this was 1967 or 1968. Interactive, networked computers? This was a revolutionary concept and eye opening to those of us who used it.

In the "real world" of the computer industry I found myself working in only a year or so later, a lot of these concepts were indeed revolutionary. It was a world still ruled by the punch card and the line printer. "Remote" meant remote batch terminals, simply extensions of the "glass box" computer room. The real-time interaction with the machine was reserved for the select few who could sit in front of the console, and even then, most of it was really baby-sitting.

I had the opportunity to work on several projects in the early to mid-seventies that built upon the work done by Dr. Culler with the On-Line System. Those, for the "mainstream" computer industry were revolutionary, but paved the way for the widespread use of networking and on-line systems today.

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