Just recently, I was researching some CG stuff and I had an impulse to look up an old system I had to work with. The system was called Graphics Kernel System, or GKS. It was an ISO standard and it was designed to make graphics easier… for systems in the 1970’s :-). It could work on anything from an old Texktronix storage tube terminal to a ‘modern computer with a raster display’. ‘Raster’? Who came up with that word?
Anyways, if you aren’t getting the inference, the system was not designed for ‘interaction’, but I had to try and wrangle that out of it anyways. The user (a Dr. of Neurology), needed to zoom or focus on layers, etc. Why was I even using such a system in 1990/1991? Lets just call it ‘external reasons’. In reality, a Macintosh or the new ‘Microsoft Windows’ product would have done a better job.
Short story, whenever I did try to turn on the input device sample mode (or whatever that was), I would bring consume 100% CPU from my machine, SOMA. Soma was a 3mips Microvax. Anyways, this ‘sample mode’ stunt would then cause the cluster to go down… which would then start affecting all the file shares and terminals in the lab 🙂 I did this 3 times, and then declared GKS ‘a little too ancient’. (Side note: Dave’s machine was AXON. I can’t really remember if my machine was SOMA or GLIA… so long ago!)
Then I started looking for information on the machine that I was working on. It was some device that would push solutions through various micropore filters and analyze the conductivity or flourescence as time went on (UPDATE: I emailed the Principal investigator of the lab and he told me it was an HPLC – High Performance Liquid Chromatographer). I still can’t remember the name, but… I remembered the Dr. I worked with.
Dr. Mordecai Globus was the researcher. He was an Israeli, I believe, who was quite known in his field. As I did a google search, I found out several things about him.
First. This is the lab that I worked at and here is the great stuff that they did on hypothermia as a treatment for stroke.. I now the faces behind each of those names. I worked with those people every day for a few years and hey were all the real deal… good people.
My searches also revealed that Dr. Globus died in 1996. I wasn’t very close to him, but I did have a work relationship with him. The guy had a great laugh, and he laughed often. I never remember him saying anything negative about anyone (truth!). We all called him ‘Morty’.
Then I find out that he has an award named in his honor! The American Heart Association has the Globus Award. This is such a good thing.
If you haven’t read the links above, I encourage you to do so.