IP: flunking drafting

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 17:12:03 -0400
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: "Lance J. Hoffman" <hoffman () SEAS GWU EDU>
> Subject: flunking drafting
>
>         Reading your story, Dave, I wonder how many of us got into computers as a
> result of being good in math but hopelessly unable to do drafting.  I
> recall that we *had* to take Engineering Drawing at Carnegie Institute of
> Technology, now Carnegie Mellon, and I was doing miserably, since not only
> could I not draw, I could not visualize anything in 3-space (let alone
> N-space).  In addition, the course was taught by a professor who
> interjected sermons from a local radio show he had on the weekends.
>         Somebody took me aside and said that they were trying to populate a new
> course, would I take it?  I told them I would take *anything* to get out of
> drafting.  Thus I was introduced to Alan J. Perlis and his great group at
> Carnegie and learned how to sleep behind the computer until the bell rang,
> signifying the end of one job and, thus, time for me to load punchcards
> into the hopper for the next.  This was, ahem, before the days of "batch
> processing".
>         Drafting.  If we had the tools and software then that we have now, we
> might have been in totally different careers.
>
> Lance 
>
> (you may share with IP if you wish)
>
> Lance J. Hoffman, Director, Cyberspace Policy Institute
> and Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The
> George Washington University, Washington DC 20052.  Phone (202) 994-5513
> Fax (202) 994-5505.  http://www.seas.gwu.edu/seas/institutes/cpi/