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Happy Birthday
Alan was an only child, he was raised in Vineland, New Jersey, where he was considered to be a very bright child. His father owned his own business and often he would spend time there setting up model trains, Alan also had a fascination with gadgets that ran on batteries. Alan often said he got his early start in electrical engineering around five or six. -
High School Field Trip to SOCONY Mobil Research Lab in Paulsboro, New Jersey
In Gardner Hendrie’s, Oral History of Alan Kotok - Computer History Museum, Alan had this to say about his school field trip, "...they had some...giant thinking machine of the day... [and someone] took the class...through a programming exercise, where we programmed.... [and that was] the spark that triggered me, and said, you know, Computers! This is it!" (3). This was the turning point for Alan at sixteen he graduated from high school which led him to apply to a few colleges. -
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
He was accepted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) so in the fall he came across the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and joined, but his interests didn’t lie with the buildings but the actual signals and power (S&P), so he became a part of the S&P subcommittee quickly. In Steven Levy’s book Hacker Heros of the Computer Revolution, he described Alan as “… a plump, chinless, thick-spectacled New Jerseyite…” (9). MIT was the place where Alan grew into the hacker that he was. -
PDP-1
MIT was gifted a brand-new PDP-1 by the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), in the summer and per Levey, “…Kotok naturally began writing systems software for the PDP-1 that very summer, using all the spare time he could manage.” (22). This was what he was passionate about and loved to do. -
Started working at Digital Equipment Corporation
A new graduate Kotok was hired on to the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which at the time had a handful of employees. He would stay here until he retired 34 years later. He had a remarkably successful career while working at DEC. -
The Spacewar! Joystick
Alan’s friend created the first computer game, Spacewar, which was addicting. Kotok noticed that it was hard to play on the PDP-1 so he and a fellow TRMC friend set out to create the joystick. “Constructed totally with parts lying around the clubroom and thrown together in an hour of inspired construction, the control boxes were made of wood, with Masonite tops. They had switches for rotation and thrust, as well as a button for hyperspace.” (Levy 27). The rest is history. -
Writing the FORTRAN Compiler for the PDP-4
His first major assignment while working for DEC was writing a Fortran compiler for the PDP-4. -
Chess Thesis and Graduating
Kotok accomplished writing his thesis. As a freshman he was approached by a professor to tell him about a chess program he had been working on and asked if Alan and a few others would be interested in taking on the project to which they agreed to. Alan said “…we worked on it as a sort of an undergraduate research project for the next three years. as it came time for me to graduate, there was a thesis requirement…” (Hendrie 4). He made this project his thesis and graduated from MIT. -
PDP-6
His next assignment was being an assistant logic designer for PDP-6. What made this computer so revolutionary at the time was that it was the first commercial time-sharing computer. -
PDP-10
Later Kotok became the principal architect and designer of the PDP-10. Alan had this to say about the whole process, “the first PDP10 came out in ’67 I believe, so we learned how to take longer to design computers than we used to, there may have been some false starts in that process as was noted. And that machine was technically a pretty good success, that’s really the machine that made the reputation for DEC…” (Hendrie 34). The PDP-10 would have many successful variations for DEC. -
Teaching at Berkley
For about a year Kotok taught at the University of California, Berkely thanks to a friend of his, Elwyn Berlekamp, who invited him to be a guest faculty member and teach computer science. Alan Kotok said, “…I took a leave of absence and went out to Berkeley and taught computer science for a year, and it was a reverse sabbatical kind of thing and it really worked very nicely to change, get into a different environment for a year…” (Hendrie 39-40). -
VAX 8600
After his short sabbatical he returned to DEC where he got to work on the VAX 8600 aka Venus. Kotok was the system architect for what was referred to as the ‘highest-performance computer’ in DEC’s history. -
CERN Geneva
The next major project that Alan took on was in 1994. Kotok and some colleagues from DEC traveled to a European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) convention in Geneva, Switzerland to speak with Tim Berners-Lee about the need for creating a consortium to help create open standards and coordinate Web development. This meeting was a momentous success and it really set the wheels into motion in creating something new. -
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was created in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee and shortly after Alan Kotok retired from DEC, he joined the W3C in 1997 as an associate chairman. He helped in many management roles as well as getting an office set up in India for the W3C. -
Computer History Interview
In 2004 Alan Kotok was honored to be inducted into the Computer History Museum (CHM) and have his work highlighted as well as be asked to speak about his life and accomplishments for the CHM which was recorded for future generations to watch on their website.
Oral History Alan Kotok -
Passed Away
At the age of 64 Alan Kotok passed away from a heart attack. His many accomplishments have paved the way for many, and his memory is honored as a true hacker and a pioneer of computer innovation