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Richard Greenblatt

By Gabby_P

  • Birthdate

    Born in Portland, Oregon

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Enrolled in MIT in the fall

  • Tech Model Railroad Club

    Towards December of his first term at MIT, Greenblatt gained the courage to hang out at the Tech Model Railroad Club (Levy, 53).

  • FORTRAN

    FORTRAN
    Greenblatt ended up writing the first FORTRAN for the PDP - 1

  • Tech Model Railroad Club Contribution

    During the summer after his first year, Greenblatt created a prototype and finalized this design of the cab equipment for the Tech Model Railroad Club (Hendrie, 5).

  • Student Employee

    Greenblatt managed to get a job as a student employee after he started to help people trying to work the machines (Hendrie, 7).

  • Flunked out of MIT

    Greenblatt flunked out of college as his hacking "phases" did not work with his class schedule, making him miss a final exam that marked the end of his enrollment in MIT (Levy, 54-55).

  • Worked for Charles Adams Associates

    After losing his job from being kicked out of MIT, Greenblatt was working at Charles Adams Associates, which later granted him an opportunity.

  • Rehired

    After working for Charles Adams Associates, Greenblatt was given the opportunity to return to the AI Lab, where he got rehired (Levy, 63).

  • Created MacHack

    Created MacHack
    Greenblatt created the chess program, MacHack on the PDP-6 (Levy, 67).

  • Incompatible Time-sharing System

    Incompatible Time-sharing System
    Greenblatt helped create the Incompatible Time-sharing System, which was able to run several programs at once, used a lot of the display, and had a very advanced system of editing (Levy, 99). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF-vy8b4r-Y

  • LISP compiler

    LISP compiler
    Greenblatt started working on the LISP compiler, which was able to "carry on intelligent dialogues" with users on multiple topics (Levy, 360).

  • MacHack Loses

    MacHack Loses
    MacHack loses after facing off against Bobby Fischer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4DntQrrsHI

  • Beginning of LMI

    Beginning of LMI
    In a meeting, Greenblatt expressed that he wanted a "hacker-style" company and power over it (Levy, 360). This would be the beginnings of him starting up his company, LMI.

  • Interview

    Interview
    Geeenblatt was interviewed by Gardner Hendrie, discussing his life, his achievements, and the people he got to know.