[rootbear]

Hello! This was a great read, thanks. I'm slightly amazed that we've never met as far as I know. I was at the U of MD at the same time as you (late 70s) and remember the 1108 and 1106 well. Friends in the Computer Vision Lab on the fourth floor introduced me to Unix in 1979 and I never looked back. I worked at Goddard from 1995-1998 in Building 26 for the NSSDC, then again from 1998 to 2022 in building 28 (SVS) and Building 11 (DCL). My father worked there from 1971 to 1987, in Building 11. It was a wonderful place to work.

[mek6800d2]

Wow! Thank you! I had dropped out of school, got interested in computers, and returned part-time in 1978, eventually getting my degree in 1981. Although I used the Univacs, I never actually saw them! In 1980-1981, I worked as an undergraduate programmer for Dr. Kanal (pattern recognition and image processing), whose office was a step across the hallway from Dr. Rosenfeld's office (who founded the Computer Vision Lab). This gave me access to the graduate student computing facilities -- no more punch cards, but the extremely diverse array of terminals at that time made me understand the need for Unix's termcap! I also did work on the new VAX they got and Dr. Kanal's PDP-11/Unix in the computing lab, but, not yet being a hacker, I didn't take as full advantage of them as I should have!

Yeah, Goddard was great. I was in Building 28 off and on from 1982-1984 and then in Building 23 from 1994-1996. Good times! Thank you for sharing your memories and your father's.