IIW 2008A - Day Three
The third and final day of IIW was full (for me) of one-on-one conversations rather than a lot of session attendance. Devlin and I had a chance to present a summary of our lab's research, which got a generally good reception... I think a lot of people disagree with the premise of our research, until they get a chance to talk with us about the use cases we're aiming for.
After lunch we headed down the the "visible storage" section of the Computer History Museum, where I saw my first VAX, my first PDP-11, etc. They had other historic systems there as well... an OS/360 machine, one of the first homebrew Apple machines (autographed by Woz), and even a panel of vacuum tube memory out of ENIAC. The museum's current special exhibit is a working reconstruction of Babbage's Difference Engine #2... one of the coolest looking, most complex mechanical devices I've ever seen. The museum staff very kindly gave us a demonstration - one fellow cranks the handle on the side, and on the other side of the machine, the roots of a seventh-order polynomial get pressed into plaster, read to cast a block of type! It even includes multiple fonts! Very, very cool - go see it if you get a chance.
In summary, another IIW has come and gone; there were fewer announcements this year, but I think that the community is maturing somewhat, so the discussions in which I participated were better the those at the last couple of iterations. Less posturing, less (observed) political maneuvering, and more cooperation - good job, everyone.
Tags: iiw may 14th 2008 conference museum babbage