Today’s posts (there should be three of them) will be covering the past, present, and future. The past comes from this morning’s email, which brings news of the death of Robert “Buz” Uzaglis. Buz was a character in the UCLA Computer Science department when I met him. I was in my second quarter. The first had included E10, the introductory programming class that I basically skipped, taking only tests (it was in PL/1, and I already knew well how program in FORTRAN). Second quarter was E20 (later called CS20), the “weeder” course. Buz was the instructor. He gets up and informs us there are two sections of the course this year… one in PL/1(X), the IBM PL/1 optimizing compiler. The other is this section. We’re using Algol 68C. He then holds up a book on Egyptian Hieroglypics, gives a maniacal laugh, and says that we’ll need this to decipher the error messages. Why Algol 68C? From what I understand, Buz was involved in the creation of the language.
This morning’s news brings the report of his death at age 71.
Coming up today… posts on the present and the future.
Music: Stop The World, I Want To Get Off (1962 Original Broadway Cast): Overture / The ABC Song / I Wanna Be Rich
