Talk:Gordon Bell

Previous discussions without headers

This page is all messed up. The two most significant contributions of Gordon Bell are missing, and they are : The PDP-11 computer (not mentioned), and his work as a co-founder of Encore (one of the first multiprocessor computers to support > 2 or > 4 CPU's efficiently, using snoopy caches I believe.)

cgordonbell comments based on my page of articles http://research.microsoft.com/users/gbell/gbvita.htm

A PDP-11 Reference: Bell, C. G., R. Cady, H. McFarland, B. Delagi, J. O'Laughlin, R. Noonan and W. Wulf, "A New Architecture for Mini-Computers -- The DEC PDP-11, Sprint Joint Computer Conference, pp. 657-675 (1970). Bell, G., W. Strecker, "Computer Structures: What Have We Learned from the PDP-11" IEEE Computer Conference Proceedings, Florida (November 1975).

What was his draft nubmer . ... I thought so — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.163.218.83 (talk) 21:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

The Encore Multimax operated with up to 20 cpu's as one of the first machines with snooping cache. Bell, C. G., H. B. Burkhardt III, S. Emmerich, A. Anzelmo, R. Moore, D. Schanin, I. Nassi, C. Rupp, "The Encore Continuum: A Complete Distributed Workstation Multiprocessor Computing Environment", AFIPS Conference Proceedings, Vol. 54 (July 1985).

See also Bell, C. G., "Multis: A New Class of Multiprocessor Computers", Science, Vol. 228, pp. 462-467 (April 26, 1985) that describe the basis of snooping cache computers. I called them "multis, but alas the name didnn't stick. I did claim (correctly) that computers, for the foreseeable future, would be built this way.

This is Wikipedia so you know what to do: be bold! If you can improve this, have at it. But I think you'll find his earlier work long-predates Encore Computer; witness the Cmp multiprocessor that was built at Carnegie-Mellon University. :Atlant 12:00, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't know aenough about Bell (yet) to edit this article, but here's a partial timeline of his career, taken from the New Yorker article (which I've added to the page):

1957 - graduated from MIT with an M.S. 

(user:cgordonbell). 1958 - Fulbright Scholar at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia (user (user:cgordonbell). see Microsoft web page for viate (user:cgordonbell). 1959 - began work at MIT Speech Research Lab, including start of studies for a doctorate.

1960 - went to work for DEC
1966 - went on sabbatical to teach at MIT... 

(user:cgordonbell). NO IT WAS CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY AS THE PAGE CORRECTLY SAYS.

1972 - went back to DEC.
1972 - wrote "Law of Computer Classes".
1983 - left DEC.
(don't have a date for when he started working for Microsoft) 
       August 1995 User:cgordonbell

--Michael K. Smith 14:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible References

If somebody has time, please check these sources and try to revise the article and incorporate footnoted references. I recommend using {{cite}}.

• http://www.psc.edu/publicinfo/news/2003/2003-11-26_bell.html

• http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/bio.htm

• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/09/10/BU90714.DTL

I may be back later to help out. Feel free to leave me a reminder if I forget. Jehochman ^☎ / _✔ 17:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Or http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/06cohenintro.html?ref=books about his "life-logging". --Gwern (contribs) 16:12 5 January 2008 (GMT)

Neutrality ?

The neutrality of this article disputed ? Why ? It is all true, what has been written there. C. Gordon Bell is really a pioneer in computing of his time. I am familiar with his publications and with the history of DEC.

Important items missing? This is a matter of space in Wikipedia. Most biographies will be more or less incomplete.

Best regards, 87.177.248.130 11:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move at this time. JPG-GR (talk) 23:17, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Gordon Bell → C. Gordon Bell — Based on the article traffic tool, more than half the users are arriving at the wrong page. —TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 13:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support - Based on the article traffic tool this is the right thing to do.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 13:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose based on the subject's own webpage[1]. — AjaxSmack 02:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply You are missing the point. It is not that he doesn't call himself Gordon Bell. It is that it is not the case that the vast majority of people looking for Gordon Bell are looking for him.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 23:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I assume what you mean is that this is not the primary topic and that Gordon Bell (disambiguation) should be moved to Gordon Bell. If so, that should be specified in the nomination and evidence that this Gordon Bell is not the primary topic should be presented. I'm not even sure what the article traffic tool has to do with anything. — AjaxSmack 23:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Gordon_Bell has been viewed 1132 times in 200802
      • Gordon_Bell_(American_football) has been viewed 280 times in 200802
      • Gordon_Bell_(artist) has been viewed 189 times in 200802
      • Gordon_Bell_(QNX) has been viewed 168 times in 200802
      • It seems to me that the half of the Gordon Bell page views are probably people who click through to the other guys. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs)

How does this prove that the computer engineer is not the primary topic? How do you know that half of the page views are click throughs? Some other qualitative evidence should accompany this nomination. — AjaxSmack 06:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

• Support. I'm not convinced that Gordon Bell is the primary subject, so this should be a disambiguation page. Dan1980 (talk ♦ stalk) 18:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced that the computer engineer is the primary topic either but I need something better to go on than statistics that show the computer engineer's page has almost twice as many page views as all of the other Gordon Bells combined. — AjaxSmack 06:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't think that just 77% more page views compared to all of the other Gordon Bells combined is enough to indicate that this is the primary topic – a large proportion of these page views could be from people who were looking for the other Gordon Bells. WP:PRIMARYUSAGE also states: If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no "(disambiguation)". Dan1980 (talk ♦ stalk) 10:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, for now. Using wikipedia page views to determine primary topic is problematically solipsistic. At the very least there needs to be a wider discussion about the appropriateness of using the tool for that purpose. older ≠ wiser 18:58, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Leaving DEC

I am not sure about the comment that Gordon Bell left DEC because of a heart attack. I do know that prior to leaving he sent a flaming email to all employees denouncing the refusal of the executive to adopt the Windows, Icons, Mice and Pointers interface. I know because, like every other employee I got the message and I remember discussing it with a couple of Vice Presidents.

I am sure that this fact could be verified by any other DEC employee of the day —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.102.112 (talk)

Why does Gordon Bell default to this article?

I understand this individual is Gordon Bell but there are many other Gordon Bells within Wikipedia. Why not make the default land on a neutral page which would direct you to other persons of the same name? Check out Gordon Bell here! HJKeats (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Page traffic statistics suggests the current arrangement enables the majority of readers to arrive at the desired article. The current standard requires that the primary topic is much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. Traffic for Gordon Bell was 6435 for the last 90 days. Total traffic for all the other pages listed on the disambiguation page (including the dab page) was 2651. Absent any other evidence (such as long term significance), it seems the current arrangement is satisfactory. older ≠ wiser 18:40, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

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Hoax disappearance

User:2600:8807:4400:3cb0:503e:cacb:1ddc:a61d added disappearance hoax a few days ago. Why target this person and this article? Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:06, 17 April 2018 (UTC)