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2015 W. Morten Aye.Phoenix 21, ArizonaJuly 5, 1965

Professor E.A. FeigenbaumComputation CenterStanford UniversityStanford, California

Dear Ed,I was quite surprised to receive a reply from

Stanford with your signature. I had forgotten that youwere going to work for Stanford after your Russian trip.(By the way, I enjoyed your article in" Datamation. )

Your man-machine project sounds quite interesting.However, I am not sure if that sort of job is what Ihave in mind. At this point, I am more interested inprogramming in the broader sense; generating ideas asopposed to implementing those of others. This is not tosay that I am unwilling to implement my own ideas, butI am not attracted toward a job that is involved mostlyin coding. Also, my salary requirements may be too highfor this sort of project. If, on the other hand, thereis some part of the project that would get me a PhD myattitude might be quite different.

I am coming to the Bay area sometime around the endof July. I would like to come down to Stanford to findout more about the project, the Computation Center'splans for time sharing, and the Computer Sciences ProgramI shall call you when I arrive, and perhaps we can planto get together at that time.

Sincerely,-HiWilliam J. Sanders

WJS:gs

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STANFORD UNIVERSITY

STANFORD,

CALIFORNIA 94305

Area Code: 413CENTERPhone: DA 1-2300Extension 2895

June 18, 1965

Mr. William Sanders2015 W. Morten AvenuePhoenix, Arizona

Dear Bill,

Dr. Forsythe has passed on to me your letter for answering. I amcurrently handling problems that relate to long-range planning andthe next-generation time-sharing machine.

We are indeed planning to install a large time-shared "public utility"computer system sometime in the next year or two. We have not yetmade a decision as to which machine it will be. It is a bit too earlyto begin to worry about staff additions in the area of systems program-ming for this new machine. Hence, I cannot be too hopeful on thisscore, although I expect there will be a few staff additions withinthe next year.

I have another project which is looking for a good full-time programmer.The programming job is interesting, tricky and quite novel. However,it is not in the area of time-sharing systems design. It concerns aman-machine interaction program which operates on the PDP-1 under time-sharing using the fancy Philco displays. Instead of giving you a longdescription of this project in this letter, I am enclosing a briefproject statement that you can read. We are beginning slowly towardthe implementation of the ideas described in this working paper.

The ideas about how to improve the rather primitive man-machine inter-action that we now have going multiply exponentially every week. Weare gradually growing desperately in need of a hot-shot programmer whocan implement these ideas as fast as we can dream them up. We also arefaced with some tricky software interface problems between the PDP-1time-sharing system and the new 7090 monitor which will allow a rudi-mentary kind of 7090 time-sharing in conjunction with PDP-1 requests.

Would you be interested in being a programmer on this project? Atleast until such time as something may open up in the area of the newtime-shared machines? I think we will be moving rapidly toward acquiringa programmer for the chemistry project, so I would appreciate havingyour reaction to this idea as soon as possible.

Sincerely yours,

Edward A. FeigenbaumActing DirectorG. Forsythe

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Professor G-. E. ForsytheComputation Center f., i\y 2 7 1965Stanford UniversityStanford, California

Dear Sir,For the past several years I have been interested in

the implications of time sharing, especially in the areasof on-line programming and debugging. Because of thisinterest,, I joined the ARPA sponsored time-sharing projectat Berkeley. Shortly after joining the project, I wasgiven the opportunity to work for the General ElectricComputer Department in a group whose main interests arein the same area. I accepted, hoping that the Phoenixclimate would improve a long-standing allergy problem.Since coming to Phoenix, my allergy problem has greatlyworsened. I feel that returning to the San Francisco areawould help relieve it.

I recently learned that Stanford is planning to in-stall a large-scale time-sharing system. If it is possible,I would like to take part in this project. As you can seefrom the enclosed resume, I have quite a bit of experiencepertinent to the areas of time- sharing and large scale systems.I feel that I could make a valuable contribution to youreffort.

Would a job opening of this type exist for me in yourproject? I shall be glad to correspond with you furtherand to supply anji 3 Lform&tion you need.

Sincerely,

William SandersWS:gsenc:

2015 W. Morten Avenue v/ *- "^Phoenix, ArizonaMay 24, 1964

Resume William J Sanders

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PERSONAL INFORMATION:Born July 10, 194-0 in Detroit, Michigan. Resided in Detroit

until 1951, Battle Creek, Michigan until 1962, Berkeley, Californiauntil December, 1964. I am currently residing in Phoenix, Arizona.I am married, have one child 17 months old. I have had no militaryexperience, and my draft classification is 3-A. My Interests In-clude reading, music, camping, and photography.

EDUCATION:Undergraduate: B.S. from the University of Michigan in Engineer-

ing Mathematics (Computer Design Option). Areas of specialinterest were computer programming and switching and automatatheory.

Graduate: One semester in the Communication Sciences Program atthe University of Michigan. M.S. in Electrical Engineeringfrom the University of California, Berkeley. Masters researchwas under Prof. M.A. Harrison; the subject was The Equivalenceof Boolean Functions under the General Linear Group. I alsospent some time investigating problems in artificial lang-uages and the equivalence of automata.

WORK EXPERIENCE:Current Employer: The General Electric Computer Department,

Systejms Development Subsection, Experimental ProgrammingUnit. I have heen employed by the Department since December1964. Early in my employment I participated in the develop-ment of the Datanet-760, a CRT/keyboard remote terminalsystem. Later I developed a time-shared text processingsystem for the Datanet-30 computer. Most recently I havebeen attending a course on GE 600 line hardware and software.

Previous Employers: l.The University of California ComputerCenter. From July 1962 until April of 1964 my main duty wassystem programming for the Computer Center's 7090. I wasresponsible for the modification and maintenance of theFORTRAN monitor until February, 1963 and the IBSYS monitoruntil July, 1964. My immediate supervisor was Gio Wiederhold,the Chief Programmer at the Computer Center. From Apri1, 1964until December, 1964 I was engaged in writing a time sharingmonitor for the SDS 930 as part of an ARPA sponsored projectin remote station computer use. My supervisor was Prof. DavidEvans.2. The Ford Foundation Project in Engineering Education atthe University of Michigan, 1960-1962. My duties included709 programming, supervising an LG? 30 installation in theIndustrial Engineering Department, and the preparation andediting of project reports. My supervisors were Dr. ElliotOrganick in 1960, Dr. Silvio Navarro in 1961, and BriceCarnahan In 1962.3. Trie Keliogg Company, Battle Creek, Michigan. I worked inthe Systems Planning department during the summers of 1960and 1961. My main duties were programming for the Univac SS80 and assisting in such areas as forms design, operationsresearch, and data transmission. My supervisor was StuartKent .