横切智慧口述历史:罗伯特·埃弗雷特

2016年8月24日

克里斯塔费:欢迎来到横切的智慧。我的名字叫克丽斯塔费,今天我们在罗伯特·埃弗雷特的房子在海角。谢谢你今天加入我们。我想问的第一个问题是什么是在麻省理工学院工作的旋风项目吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:这是一个美妙的经历。我们知道我们做的事情真的很不寻常,这将对未来有巨大的影响。有各种各样的困难的问题需要处理。我们有一个老板,Jay Forrester,他是一个卓越的人。我们知道这是会成功的。是问你真正提出和解决这些问题。看到电脑成长,看到所做的其他工作。这是完全不同于圣人,但一件美妙的事情对于一个年轻人参与。

克里斯塔费:所以的主要创新之一是磁芯存储器。的是什么,是什么工作?和你们是如何作为一个解决方案吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:杰弗雷斯特的发明。

克里斯塔费:是的。

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:这是一个漫长的道路,发明转化为一个可行的系统。但要求在计算机的内存中。人们工作和其他事情,微波管和阴极射线管,等等,为记忆,不仅很难使工作,他们没有很多的可靠性,而且他们的能力有限。你把第一台计算机记忆1000个单词。现在,他们数十亿。你的手机有数十亿单词的记忆。这是电脑的最紧迫的问题。和周杰伦的解决方案,真正使电脑业务,在早期。当我们得到我们现在用的那种,芯片,当然这都是不同的。我们必须得到正确的材料,我们必须找到方法让核心字节以合理的方式。 We had to have all the testing, all the drivers and so on, for the working memory. So, it was a great job. And I spent a lot of time on it. If it were not for that, we would not have been able to do SAGE.

克里斯塔费:对,因为圣人要求实时、快速计算。

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:是的,有很多。很多和高度可靠。这是独特的旋风。其他人是建筑被称为数字处理器,和解决方程和标记图的场合和事情。我们唯一控制计算机的工作。这要求高速度、高可靠性和大量的内存。在某种程度上,旋风是一个初学者,前期的电脑。大多数的计算机控制电脑的另一个地方。还有数字处理器,他们做重要的工作,他们花费了很多钱。但数百万和数十亿的电脑,也有越来越多的,在我看来,真的,旋风的后裔。

克里斯塔费:所以,大约在1956年,有一个决定的旋风项目Barta建筑在剑桥,麻萨诸塞州大道近,或到附近的空军基地,在现在所谓的林肯实验室。你能谈谈移动和林肯实验室的创建和部门工作六的样子吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:发生了什么事,突然一个伟大的需要更好的防空。和俄罗斯有一些飞机清的副本。他们已经开发了原子弹。突然,而不是数千英里之外的任何人都可以做任何事情,我们有一个为敌人攻击我们,并杀死很多人造成巨大的伤害。所以,一个高优先级的工作。这使得很多在很多地方工作。但是乔治谷空军科学咨询委员会的一项研究。他想有很多小雷达所以他可以低空报道。因为有担心飞机进来在非常低的水平,我们也看不见。和管理,他需要一台电脑,一些系统的引进很多好大量的雷达数据融合,形成一个系统,这将是有意义的。 And he needed a computer. I can’t remember but, I can’t remember anything anymore, but I think it was Gerry Weder, who introduced him to Forrester, and Forrester had the computer and he was looking for a job for it because the Navy, which had paid for the development of Whirlwind wasn’t at all sure what they were going to do with it. And so suddenly, there looked like a big possibility of doing something wonderful. And this led to a study, an internal study, which was done at MIT, but it had lots of people brought in, and a decision to go ahead and work on this. And MIT said they would start a laboratory to work on this problem based on the way they had built the rad app during the war. But they didn’t want it on the campus. So, the plan was to build a new system out there, in the Lincoln Lab, which still exists. And with the tech responsibility for the development of this thing. We were involved in the Weber building and the Barta building on the campus. But these did not have the space required for this very sizable operation. We started out on the campus, where Whirlwind existed. MIT not only took us, that is the parts the we’re working on and everything, but various and sundry other classified things that were on the campus, and moved us all out to Hanscom. We’re still part of MIT, but it’s not those war mongers, not on the campus. So the first decision to make that was about 1951, when Lincoln was created. The first building that they put it in, put up on Hanscom Field to house Lincoln, was several years later. And then they built subsequent buildings. And as these building were built, we were able to move more and more out to it. Eventually all this activity ended up at Lincoln. And Lincoln is still there, doing lots of wonderful things.

克里斯塔费:是什么在早期林肯实验室吗?我的意思是,类似于在麻省理工学院的校园吗?它有不同的感觉吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:嗯,首先,我们是在校园里,但我们在校园的边缘。如果你是在校园里,你不得不处理建筑和力量,各种各样的规则,涵盖实验室在校园活动。但我们在马萨诸塞大道几百码,跨越铁轨。所以我们有我们自己的人,照顾我们的建筑和我们的人民。我们有我们自己的机器商店。我们有我们自己的人事部门。所以我们非常不同的操作附加到它。当我们搬到林肯,实际上我们的服务,旋风军人了。林肯有自己的服务。我们有我们自己的服务,林肯圣人。 This was a source of some argument. When you’ve got a tremendous priority that comes with something like defending the Unites States from nuclear attack, all these things which ordinarily cause a lot of trouble, disappear. You know, you say, well, we’re doing this wonderful thing, and we need this. And they say, alright. You’re always asking for things, but you can have it.

克里斯塔费:服务,你在谈论去那里的电力,以及…

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:哦,不,它顺利。

克里斯塔费:人力资源,是的。

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:我们使用剑桥电动我们没有生产我们自己的。虽然我们电动发电机,把电脑的生活必需品和主要业务。我不知道,这回答了你的问题吗?

克里斯塔费:它的功能。下一个问题是关于下一个从林肯实验室过渡到斜接。是什么工作在林肯当他们决定创建新公司运行圣人?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:我们没有预见到持续的工作保持的像圣人。这是,你没有让它,然后把它给别人使用。这是软件的基础,它需要改变。武器改变,改变,威胁程序改变,培训改变了。有人不得不强迫它看看整体的设计。这是我们在做什么。所以,当很明显,美国包括空军,有些事情必须得做,从长远来看。麻省理工学院已经同意只监督建设所谓的第一个模块,由三个方向的中心和指挥中心。首先,他们让人们谈论MIT持续的基础上这样做,他们说他们不想做。你可以理解为什么。 But then, the job is there, and it had to be done. So, the Air Force looked into all kinds of things. They asked the telephone company to do it. And they said no. They talked to all of the contractors who worked on SAGE about picking one of them to do it. And nobody wanted, a lot of them wanted to be the one, but nobody wanted to have somebody, one of their competitors, telling them what to do. So, they wouldn’t do it either, that didn’t work. So, finally they came back to MIT and said you’ve got to help us. MIT then, this was a major decision. Jeb Killian had been President of, head of MIT. And he was followed by, I can’t remember his name. But anyway, their decision was to spin it off. So we knew while all this was going on. And we knew about the decision. And we knew we were the part that was to be spun off. But then, we never paid an awful lot of attention to the rest of Lincoln anyway. So, it had to be done. And we were willing to do it. There were lots of decisions to be made about what the company would be like, and who would run it, and what they’re gonna. But basically, the technical people from the SAGE program at Lincoln agreed to go to a new company. It really wasn’t much of an issue but it was gonna happen. We took a few people from the other parts of Lincoln, like radar experts, and so on, and Lincoln kept some of the pieces of our basic computer work. Which I didn’t like very much but had to put up with. They had the new rules. Deciding about paying people and how do you handle the pension system? MIT had their own pension system. How was that to be transferred, if at all, to the new company? A whole bunch of problems with us. Which we had to deal with. So it was part of the job. I’ve only had one job my whole life. I came to MIT to go to graduate school, and to serve the lab in Whirlwind and SAGE and MITRE. It’s all one job.

克里斯塔费:所以,我看过一些记录和斜接的命名。你能告诉我们公司的命名呢?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:嗯,我一直问这个问题很多次。这是名叫吉姆·麦考马克。吉姆·麦考马克是一名退休的空军将军,一个很有能力的人,他是副总统在麻省理工学院,并得到了那份工作,设置这个东西,这个主教法冠。他说,他发誓他经历了它,他很好奇,他查阅了字典,他遇到一个主教法冠而闻名。他认为,它看起来像一个盾牌。这是一个防御计划,所以不会是一件好事,你知道吗?所以他把它命名为斜接。我听说过这个,我说,我的上帝,我不相信他们会把麻省理工学院。但是它对我来说太好了。

克里斯塔费:是什么工作在整个60年代,70年代和80年代,在主教法冠,你的任期?是什么公司喜欢总统后第一个技术总监?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:就像我说的,斜接形成的防空工作。但我们知道那不是一个永久的工作。首先,洲际弹道导弹的游戏。突然,我们的节目,说你有任何你想要的,也许没有,我们不认为自己是一个防空计划。我们认为自己是一个基于计算机的信息系统装备防空,而每个人都有一个信息系统。每个人都需要帮助。所以我们的观点是,我们要走了。但过了一段时间每个人都明白。我记得在董事会讨论。我不是董事会成员在这个时间; I was Vice President for Technical Operations, which was essentially all the company. So I was talking about, to the board, about how there are many opportunities. So they said, why don’t you write down something about this? I got my gang together and we worked to talk of opportunities that we saw and how it would be good. And this came out to be a company of about five times the size of the existing company. And so I wrote this all up and gave it to the board. And they said, what? Are you crazy, man? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Finally the chairman, who was a wise old guy, he said, well, we did ask him. So, don’t get mad at him. Anyway, so a large measure got new work of the same kind, of this basic structure that we had. And as the air defense business died away, we could grow and do more things of that sort. That took a lot of work. And the Air Force was very nervous about our going into all these things because they thought they’d set up this organization to help them with air defense. And why were we doing all these other things? And that was a real problem for many years. MITRE is still growing, still working for different people. But still the same basic idea. Another problem we had was we had lost most of the technical basis, which had stayed with Lincoln. And we had to grow our own. And that was very difficult to do because that costs money and people were always saying, oh, well we’ve got labs through the Air Force. They’ve got labs, Lincoln Labs, I’m sorry, why do we have to pay you guys to do research? And I would say, I know the people at Lincoln, we know them, they’re friendly. If we have a problem and talk to them about it, they’ll tell us anything they know, but they won’t stop what they’re doing and work on it. We need some people in the house who will work on our problems. And they have to be good enough, the knowledge of the technology. And this was a big struggle. But, MITRE now has good, solid, technology base. I think it’s that they still think it’s important.

克里斯塔费:你能谈谈与理事会合作,特别是詹姆斯•施莱辛格博士和他工作的样子,即使有一些重叠。嗯,有很多的董事会成员。通常非常好的男人。最近,女性,但不是在早期。董事会成员,董事会主席。他们必须处理。处理鲍勃狡猾的人。我想和他谈谈我的计划是什么高级人员的工资。当我进去跟他在他的办公室。首先他会告诉我,他付他的人在卡博特,总是很多钱。 And then he had bonuses that he would give to the people. And I would tell him that he had to take those into account and not just compare my people with his people’s base pay. But he said that it was different. And I said that’s not different, this is pay. Anyways, we had this fancy dance that we went through after everybody’d had his say, we’d get down to business and solve the problem. I did not work with Schlesinger. That was when Charlie was president. But Charlie and I talked to each other and said he’d make a great Chairman. So we invited him to dinner, now that I remember it. Took him out to dinner and talked to him. And he started out not wanting anything to do with MITRE. So we gave him a big sales pitch about all the wonderful things we did, what we’re trying to accomplish, and so on. Brought him around to believing that MITRE would have been a good thing for him to do. And he made a superb chairman. But, like I say, I didn’t have to deal with him. You should ask Charlie if Charlie were around.

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:他周围施莱辛格呆了好长时间在黑板上。

克里斯塔费:是的。你开始工作的人之一在林肯实验室斜接过来,是约翰·雅各布斯。你能谈谈你的关系和谈论约翰雅各布?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:好吧,约翰,他来到我们的基本工作后旋风。圣人和设计工作刚刚开始。我们会得到我们的许多人,曾在战争和雷达技术人员做技术工作,等等。和学士学位,进入了战争,做了一个高级职位,出来,去了麻省理工去获得一个研究生学位。他们中的许多人结婚,家庭。麻省理工学院的一群建筑物容纳这些人。我们有很多。事实上,这惹恼了校园教授因为我们这个可爱的电脑工作,是很有吸引力的研究生。所以,杰克来到麻省理工学院和他去电子研究实验室的工作。他不是很高兴,他听说我们的工作,他走过来问。 He was obviously a first class guy. We took him. And he played a very large role in the design of SAGE. Forrester was the boss of Division Six. I was sort of right hand man, I guess. When Jay left, I was astonished when he left. It was 1956. We were right in the middle of getting SAGE going. And suddenly, he says he’s going back to the Institute and teach. Why? Well, all the interesting things in the computer business had been done. So he was gonna do something different. Only Jay would’ve taken that position. Anyways, he left, and he left us, he left us with a job and all those people and everything. So we carried on as best we could. Jake was a very senior man in that stage of the game. So, no question about his going to MITRE. He was my right hand man. He did many good an wonderful things. And then he came down with Parkinson’s. The worst decision I ever had to make, being a manager, was to tell Jake he couldn’t be a Vice President anymore, ’cause he couldn’t do the job. But he was a great friend as well as a comrade. Probably never got the credit he deserved.

克里斯塔费:横切进化,联邦也研究和开发模型。1976年,有一个巨大的改变,国防部决定重新定义联邦研发中心。你是总统的横切。你能告诉我们关于通过改变工作吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:有很多这些联邦政府资助的,空军是FCRCs,联邦政府研发公司。发生了,有一些人由于各种原因,像兰德从飞机公司剥离出来,使其独立于公司做事,你不想给profit-maker竞争对手公司。有原子能实验室。他们都有些单独的规则,他们已经制定出来。所以,这是一个问题出现,而不仅仅是在70年代中期,有辩论自60年代以来,在70年代和80年代,已经有了,我理解,从现在有几个评论这件事。因为有这些组织,他们加起来很多钱。所以它适合政府看这笔钱是否正确的问题。我认为我们有大量的FFRDCs设置流程和规则。我不认为他们已经改变了很多。不时地,但他们长大。 And usually they come out all right. But sometimes there is a big fuss about it. And that’s the job of the various companies to defend their process. Which we do, and I assume all the president after I left do. And Al does. And Al’s successor, whoever that is, will have to put up with that. But I think the fundamental purpose of the thing, it sits on the government’s side of the table, and supplies first class technical help and does not compete with profit-makers, doesn’t manufacture stuff. They’re non-profits, they don’t make money. Once you start making money, some interests other than the government had had. And I think that set of things makes a good prospect. A good purpose and a good foundation. There’s an infinite number of odds and ends that have to be settled and worked out. Which happens because it’s fundamentally a very important thing. The government could not operate the way it runs now. My argument was always that the government started out and had to have people working for it. When there was a political change, in the beginning what they’d do was fire all the guys from the previous administration and put in all your friends. That’s understandable from a political point of view, but not very good for the operation of the government. So, the solution to this was to put in the Civil Service. Which meant, to our first approximation, that the old system fired everybody, every job, they say. Now you couldn’t fire anybody. And if you can’t fire anybody, you can’t run a good operation. And that makes it very difficult for them to run first-class technical apps. There are good people in the company. But it’s very hard to have a really large organization that will run. I don’t know what other solutions there are, but this is the one we’ve come down to.

克里斯塔费:在1985年,你发表演讲横切的长期目标。和你说,我引用,“在未来数百万年,”当太阳越来越冷,“地球变成沙漠,还有世界上只剩下一个组织,”该组织将横切。”,显然是夸张,但你继续说,关键是横切将一个继续提供价值的地方。你认为横切的做过吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:我们当然想。我认为我们做得很好。我们继续做的最好,因为每年公司变得更强。和人的质量,工作的质量,和我们的关系与我们的客户的质量,这一切,在我看来,应该继续,因为我认为政府,如果有一件事你可以依靠,总是会有政府和它总是需要帮助。和斜接的工作,这项工作我们的姐妹组织,是提供帮助。这就是我意思总是要有政府和他们总是会有信息系统,他们总是需要帮助,斜接有提供帮助。我不知道另一个。可能有另一种选择。你可以改变政府的方式处理其雇员。然后你可以建立一个事情。 MITRE is a collection of technical people. You could have that group of technical people be organized as a profit making organization. But then they would find it difficult to make relationships with them if they were paying. A few years ago, a aerospace company, which is our sister spacesuit systems outfit on the West Coast, there was a serious attempt made to convert it to a profit-maker. I didn’t think it would work, and it didn’t. But, maybe. Anyway, that’s what I meant.

克里斯塔费:你能告诉我们关于你让这篇演讲的那一天,你还记得背景吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:是的,我们有一个会议在华盛顿的人,高级的人。我们去一个地方在弗吉尼亚州在河上。我想它;我工作在路上在车里下来。晚饭后我给了客户组装。它很好。

克里斯塔费:好吧。这更多的是一个开放式的问题,但是你的工作你有什么最喜欢的故事和生活期间你在斜方?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:再说一遍吗?

克里斯塔费:对不起,你有什么最喜欢的故事吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:哦我告诉你其中的一些。

克里斯塔费:是的。

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:我不知道。我没有很多故事储存我的演讲可以带出泡沫。我认为,在我看来,我已经能够处理和知道很多美好的人,美好的人在横切,斜方的董事会,空军和我们的其他客户。空军军官是一群真正伟大的民族。这是一个精英。如果你是空军将军,你有球。他们很大程度上的人试图做正确的由空军和国家。这是真的,真的,我们的其他客户。我已经在很多委员会、国防科学委员会,和事情,总是引人入胜。再一次,有了不起的人。 If you just sit in your office and work on your own problems you get pretty dull after a while, unless there’s a catastrophe, or something or other, which your job in life is to prevent catastrophes. So, if you go off to Washington and work on something, and it’s very often something you don’t know anything about. I recently said it, phone rings, somebody’s calling you up, said, Bob, we’ve got this bug study going, we need you. Well, in the first place, you may have been the fifth guy they asked. But you say, I don’t know anything about that. They say, just what we need, fresh look. But then they’ll teach you about that thing, so you’re always learning things. Learning things one of the most valuable thing in the world. If you stop learning things, you stop being useful.

克里斯塔费:和你告诉别人新的斜方对公司和在那里工作呢?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:它的本质作为FFRDC冠冕,你可以把工作放在第一位。它应该的方式,我认为它是在斜接,你有一份工作是帮助政府做事情,各层,这是什么的。但是你的工作不是得到一份新工作。不是我们准备提案。再一次,我只能说,我是熟悉的。我们寻找新的工作。,人们在横切的形式去了解不同的人的政府,和帮助他们。过了一会儿,帮助变成了必需品。我们已经成功设置单独的FFRDCs在主教法冠,所以僧帽Fs的集合。这是它的一个优势,因为我们有很多好人在我们的整个事情。 And if somebody with a small job but has a problem, he can get help. And MITRE is set up in such a way that you’ll get help. We had problems in the early days about somebody with a division wanting to keep his own people. I understand that. ‘Cause the good people that will work for you and make you look good, make your department look good. But it has to be, the job comes first. And that will, in fact, protect you. And you can spend your time on that instead of looking for work, or writing proposals, or dealing with things. So you should learn. You should learn the new things ’cause they’re changing all of that.

克里斯塔费:所以我有最后一个问题。是什么喜欢布什总统和接收技术勋章吗?

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:我不知所措,很高兴得到那个奖。这是一个不寻常的事情。所以,我知道我很兴奋去白宫,花哨的奖项。这也许是最高的之一,我已经。我记得比尔麦克卡尼是宝丽来的总统。他是我们的主席。他说,他最后,退休后,我想,现在,我有一段时间,没有人让我做任何事。你知道,当我很忙,他们问我。现在他们不要问我。有一些真理。 Well, everybody does what he can. Usually, nobody says much to you while you are doing it. And after you’ve done it, they come around and say, isn’t it wonderful? Sometimes they say that. And then they give you awards. But you’re not doing anything useful. You do the useful thing before the award. It’s better to do the useful thing than to get the award.

克里斯塔费:好吧,谢谢你今天你的时间。真的很感激。

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:这是令人愉快的问道。我喜欢说话,喜欢每一个人。这些是不错,你很不错,一路下来的角来跟我说话。

克里斯塔费:这是我们的荣幸。

鲍勃·埃弗雷特:我认为你所做的让人们谈论僧帽,和如何使一个伟大的事物的集合。

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