I met Norm at weekly Mill CPU meetings. My honest observation is that he has somehow gotten younger over the five years that I've known him. I'm honored that Norm, Ivan, and I enjoyed morning coffee during those meetings.
One memorable time for me is Norm's meeting with me at Peet's in Menlo Park before my DConf 2016 presentation. He filled me with stories, knowledge, and confidence.
He was the speaker at our local C++ meetup on February 10, 2016, presenting "Reliability and security of today’s software platforms". His voice and slides are captured on a video linked there: https://www.meetup.com/ACCU-Bay-Area/events/227325917/
I still remember my first interview with Norm at Tymshare. My wife Peri said that I came home from that interview floating on air. I had found something I really wanted to do. I was excited.
After being hired by Tymshare, Norm and I worked on the IBM/370 VM system and Norm helped introduce me to the design of Tymnet. I ended up being the software guy on the team that build the hardware and software to connect the VM system to Tymnet. We built a networking system that impressed a lot of IBM fans with its world-wide scope and its usability.
But then came the real fun. After years of discussing Gnosis, a capability operating system during stolen time on Friday afternoons, a small group of people, lead by Norm, started officially working on it. It was a funded project. After long months of work, with nothing really visible to show, I remember when we got the first terminal message from Gnosis via Tymnet. I specifically ran that test on a printing terminal and proudly handed Norm the resulting message.
I also remember Norm's strong preference for not designing solutions to problems before such solutions were needed. This kept us from wasting a lot of time, since when we finally had to solve a problem, we knew a lot more about it and could design a much better solution.
Gnosis developed more quickly after the first terminal message and progressed to a stage where it was actually useful. We built some real production applications that meant real revenue for Tymshare.
Somewhere during this time span, I remember riding with Norm in his Porsche out to Livermore to hear Seymour Cray give what turned out to be a technical sales pitch for the Cray 1. I learned a lot from that talk, including the fact the the speed of computers is significantly limited by time it takes for the signals to pass over wires as short as 6 feet.
When the axe fell, after McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare, the Gnosis group found itself trying to justify its existence. We failed to find a place within McDonnell Douglas and a small group including Norm spun out to form Key Logic, with Ann Hardy at the helm.
We developed Gnosis, renamed KeyKos, to the point where it could host its own development. A handful of people in an office in Santa Clara managed to make a million dollar technology sale, and built a world beating transaction processing system which was installed at the ANZ bank in Australia.
We even managed to have Gnosis live on at McDonnell Doublas providing Tymnet access to an unmodified VM system for the Army Corp of Engineers contract. That system outlasted KeyLogic and remained in use for may years.
Afterwards, Norm and I continued to be friends, although we were working on different things. We joined forces with people from many other parts of the industry to spread the idea of capabilities, a project which has seen a lot of success in recent years. I continued to regularly see Norm at the Friday morning meetings of capability fans.
Shortly after my Dad passed my sister asked "Who will I call now when I have a question about particle physics?"
YES! The question broke the tension. We all laughed. It was exactly the kind of humor that Norm would have appreciated. And it's so true. The thing about having Norm for a Dad was that I could ask him just about any wild question about the newest science and he would have a fascinating insight, and a cheerful explanation. He loved being asked questions like that. Who do I turn to now?
