> The most influential decision maker on the Brown faculty was a computer science professor named Andy van Dam. I was one his teaching assistants during my senior year, so I got to know him pretty well. He was high strung and hard driving, and a little bit like Steve in his tendency to think that the universe revolved around him. I thought that it would be interesting to see how they interacted.
I didn't have that impression of him. Many people will say he has high standards, and can seem intense or maybe grumpy on occasion, but AFAIK, many of the countless people he's helped will also say that he has a heart of gold. (I personally knew two undergrads who said they'd gone through rough spots, and he above-and-beyond helped them.)
Also, at times it seemed that Andy knows everyone. My own small experience with this... Years after I'd graduated, a non-tech friend mentioned they'd love to work at this super-cool tech company, but friend did qualitative research, not code. So I email Andy (who I might never have even spoken 1-on-1 with), out of the blue: long shot, but does he happen to know how someone would approach that company, when they probably don't know why they might want this skill they've never heard of. He replied back: sure, the head of engineering there had been his student, and here's how to reach him, with a referral from Andy.
I vaguely recall the NeXT marketing materials touting their first machine was 3M. Sounds like this is where the seed for NeXT was first planted.
Andy van Dam cleared his throat and looked right at Steve. "Well, its really impressive, Steve, and of course we'll want to join your program. But it's not exactly what we've been waiting for."
Steve looked a little angry. "What are you waiting for? You're going to have to wait a long time to find something better than the Mac!"
"Well, 128K isn't nearly enough memory to do what we want, not even close, and the screen is just too small. We're waiting for a 3M machine, and most of the other colleges are, too."
"A what?"
"A 3M machine. There was a recently published paper that coined the term. You know, a workstation with at least a megabyte of memory, a million pixel display, and a megaflop of computational horsepower. We believe that's what we need for an effective educational workstation."
Jobs met Paul Berg, a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, at a luncheon in Silicon Valley held to honor President of France François Mitterrand.[4]: 72 [6] Berg was frustrated by the time and expense of researching recombinant DNA via wet laboratories, and suggested that Jobs should use his influence to create a "3M computer" that is designed for higher education.
Some of the people listed in the "Whats a Megaflop" post went over to NeXT with Jobs.
neilv|1 year ago
I didn't have that impression of him. Many people will say he has high standards, and can seem intense or maybe grumpy on occasion, but AFAIK, many of the countless people he's helped will also say that he has a heart of gold. (I personally knew two undergrads who said they'd gone through rough spots, and he above-and-beyond helped them.)
Also, at times it seemed that Andy knows everyone. My own small experience with this... Years after I'd graduated, a non-tech friend mentioned they'd love to work at this super-cool tech company, but friend did qualitative research, not code. So I email Andy (who I might never have even spoken 1-on-1 with), out of the blue: long shot, but does he happen to know how someone would approach that company, when they probably don't know why they might want this skill they've never heard of. He replied back: sure, the head of engineering there had been his student, and here's how to reach him, with a referral from Andy.
(I want to call him Prof. van Dam, out of respect, but reportedly he finds that "stuffy and undemocratic": https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2010/11/call-him-an... )
canucker2016|1 year ago
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT:
Some of the people listed in the "Whats a Megaflop" post went over to NeXT with Jobs.