[mistrial9]

definitely saw NN code in the 1990s ; I recall a hardback book with mostly red cover.. not sure of the title.. Prominent and rigorous code implementations were associated with MIT at that time (the Random Forest guy was at Berkeley in the stats department)

edit yes, almost certainly Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition (1995) thx!

[huitzitziltzin]

The book “neural networks and pattern recognition” by bishop dates to 1996 and has a red cover, at least in its current softcover iteration.

The random forest guy you mean is/was Leo Breiman. His student Adele Cutler deserves some of the credit there too.