Peter Samson

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Peter Samson
Born 1941
Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Residence U.S.
Fields computer science
Institutions Autodesk, Computer History Museum, Digital Equipment Corporation, NASA, Systems Concepts
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Known for music, Autodesk, NASA, Spacewar!, New York City Subway, Fortran II

Peter R. Samson (born 1941 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts)[1] is an American computer scientist, best known for creating pioneering computer software.

Samson studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) between 1958-1963. He wrote, with characteristic wit, the first editions of the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) dictionary, a predecessor to the Jargon File. He appears in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution[2][3] by Steven Levy.

Contents

[edit] Career

[edit] Dawn of software

Working with Jack Dennis on the TX-0 at MIT Building 26, he developed an interest in computing waveforms to synthesize music. For the PDP-1 he wrote the Harmony Compiler with which PDP-1 users coded music.[4]

He wrote the Expensive Planetarium star display for Spacewar!.[5]

Also for the PDP-1 he wrote TJ-2 (Type Justifying Program), the predecessor of the troff and nroff page layout programs developed at Bell Labs[6], a War card game, and, with Alan Kotok, T-Square, a drafting program that used a Spacewar! controller for an input device.[7]

[edit] DEC

Samson was a contributing architect to the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-6, and wrote the machine's first Fortran compiler. He is the author of Fortran II.[8]

[edit] Chinese

At Systems Concepts, he programmed the first Chinese-character digital communication system, while he was director of marketing and director of program development.

[edit] Synthesized music

Samson designed the Systems Concepts Digital Synthesizer. Built at Systems Concepts, it was for ten years the primary engine for the computer music group at Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).

[edit] NASA

Samson oversaw manufacturing engineering for hardware including the central memory subsystem for the ILLIAC IV supercomputer complex at the NASA Ames Research Center.

[edit] Autodesk

At Autodesk, he contributed to rendering, animation, Web browsing, and scripting languages. He received U.S. patents in software anti-piracy and virtual reality.[9]

[edit] Subway racing

In 1966 Samson attempted to ride all lines of the New York City Subway in the shortest possible time. True to the MIT hacker culture he enlisted a computer in planning for the event. Despite missing out on the then fastest time, Samson's attempt was to act as the inspiration for many similar subway racing attempts.[10][11]

[edit] Current

Samson appears in the Computer History Museum Mouse That Roared panel discussion recorded in May 2006 to celebrate the restoration of a PDP-1. For the restoration project he reverse-engineered music tapes from the PDP-1 era and built a player for the museum[7] where he is currently a docent.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Computer History Museum (2006). Peter Samson. Retrieved on 2006-07-20.
  2. ^ Levy, Steven (Updated 2 January 2001). Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Penguin (Non-Classics). ISBN 0-1410-0051-1. 
  3. ^ Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy, available at Project Gutenberg.
  4. ^ Morris, Joe (1996). "Debuggers (Was: blinking lights ...)". alt.folklore.computers. (Web link). Retrieved on 2006-12-22.
  5. ^ Graetz, J. Martin (August 1981, Spring 1983). The origin of Spacewar!. Creative Computing and Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games. Retrieved on 2006-07-01.
  6. ^ Smith, Daniel P. B. (1993-1997). TJ-2: A Very Early Word Processor. Retrieved on 2006-07-02. Transcription of the 1963 memo describing TJ-2, with annotations by Daniel P. B. Smith
  7. ^ a b Samson, Peter. (2006). The Mouse That Roared: PDP-1 Celebration Event Lecture 05.15.06 [Google Video]. Mountain View, CA, USA: Computer History Museum. Retrieved on 2006-07-01.
  8. ^ Stevens, Jack H. (1996). "A History of TOPS". alt.sys.pdp10. (Web link). Retrieved on 2006-12-22.
  9. ^ Computer History Museum (2004). Peter Samson. Retrieved on 2006-12-21.
  10. ^ Miscione, Michael. "The Golden Age of the All-System Subway Races", New York Post Online Edition, NYP Holdings, Inc, 2004-10-07. Retrieved on 2006-08-25. 
  11. ^ The Rise and Fall of the Amateur New York Subway Riding Committee, Personal Web Page of Peter R. Samson

[edit] External links

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