The Folly of Prediction

Our first speaker is known throughout the industry as the Father of the Minicomputer, although I’m sure he has mixed feelings about this. And I guess he is the embodiment of the saying, “You only know where you’re going if you know where you’ve been.” He’s been a very significant part of the industry since the very early days, so when he talks about the matter of predicting, his views are grounded in considerable experience of doing just that in his 23 years, for instance, as vice president of R & D at Digital Equipment Corporation. He was educated at MIT. From 1966 to 1972, he was professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and from 1986 to 1987 was the first assistant director of the National Science Foundation Computing Directorate. He led the National Research Network Panel that became the NIIGII and authored the first high-performance computer-and-communications initiative.