Donald Bitzer has died | Hacker News Reader

Donald Bitzer has died

computerhistory.org

221 pointssohkamyung24 comments

This makes me sad, more than other recently seen obituaries, but I can't picture an image of him without his smile that could stretch his whole face up and back. I'll always remember him as his mirthful and investigative mind.

I think my first interaction with him best describes the influence he had on me as an educator, adviser and scientist. I hadn't met him yet, I was in his office because I noticed a few of my fellow Comp. Sci. undergrads there, just chatting as we do. I didn't even know whose office it was, at that point, now that I think about it.

In he walks with one of those wall-mounted soap dispensers that I recognized from the gym locker rooms. He sits down and starts fishing out screws from it, all while jumping right into our conversation without missing a beat. At my first chance, I ask him what he's doing, I was a little confused but my curiosity was clearly something he had an appetite for. He starts describing his investigation of which screws to replace. You see, the things kept falling down because something in the soap was causing the coating or material of the screws to disintegrate. I think I inquired about why he had to do it, or maybe the question was written on my face, because I also remember he was not obligated to, just that kind of person to see an open question as an opportunity for experiment.

Twenty-plus years later, and many many experiments of my own, I still remember this interaction. Here he was describing a very practical approach (rather than hit the books on the components in the soap and what *-oxide coatings were added or developing on the screws, just throw the experiment together -- its answer will be as good or better). He was affable and delighted to share knowledge, and he didn't exude any of the pretentiousness that you might expect from someone whose walls were covered (literally, to the ceiling) with framed copies of his patents and awards. He was still actively going to the gym even at his clearly advanced age (even 20 years ago, I think he was already emeritus, and he played racquetball at least weekly). I learned what a convolution was just from looking at what he'd done. All this and he managed to inspire without personifying it.

RIP Dr. Donald Bitzer

He is the main character in The Friendly Orange Glow [1], an amazing history of the PLATO system that has many valuable lessons on how to foster technological innovation and create thriving online communities.

[1] http://friendlyorangeglow.com/

PLATO is notable for being the origin of the of the computer role playing game. The history of early CRPGs is murky, because PLATO was intended for educational use and games programmers had to work in secret to avoid the administrators deleting their work, but it's possible that the first ever CRPG was the Reginald Rutherford's 1975 game "The Dungeon" (a.k.a. "pedit5" after its inconspicuous lesson name). The Dungeon was probably earlier than the lost game "m199h" that was previously thought to be first. These early CRPGs are all influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, which was first published in 1974.

The Dungeon is still playable today. The CRPG Addict blog has details:

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2019/01/revisiting-dungeon-19...

And more information about lost games:

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2021/06/brief-everything-we-k...

And not only the beginnings of the CRPG. The 1977 PLATO game Oubliette definitely was the model for the 1981 Apple II/C64 (and later NES) gane Wizardry and the later games like The Bard's Tale and Might & Magic.

Well Wizardry was written by two PLATO gamers at Cornell, a university that had a PLATO terminal or two connected to the U of I system. Very much inspired by PLATO games like Oubliette and Avatar.

Donald Bitzer was the first Computer Science professor I had in college. He taught a discrete mathematics course (boolean logic).

Though he was on the older side when I took his course, he still brought laughter and enthusiasm to his classes, and set the tone for the rest of my college career. He will be missed!

Yeah, there were some other older professors at NC State who had clearly aged out of knowing the state of the art, but Bitzer was an enthusastic teacher who cared about engaging students, and still knew his stuff.

Same. It was my first CS class after transferring to NCSU in 2000. I was pretty lost at times but he was super kind and patient whenever I went to office hours. He was an older professor at that time and it was always cool to see was still teaching well beyond when I graduated.

Ditto, I took his discrete math course at NCSU in 1998. It was mainly taught by Tiffany Barnes day to day (who was also nice and a great explainer), but Bitzer was often present and always smiling and jovial.

I really regret having spent so little time interacting with my professors though. I was one of those kids that spent the least amount of time in class possible, almost never going to office hours, aiming to get the course work out of the way asap so I could "have a life". So much wisdom and life/industry experience was concentrated on that campus and at my fingertips, but I totally took it for granted. Seeing his obit amplifies this feeling; I wish I had cared enough at the time to meet and know the guy.

IBM did a roadshow around 79-82 time frame in the UK and showed off plasma displays. They were very cool. Orange glow, very fast response they were built into the walls of an IBM mobile trailer hauled around the country drumming up business in the university towns. I didn't see one again until a very early Toshiba luggable in the early 90s.

PLATO seemed to me to kind of not lead anywhere solid. The field of computer aided instruction went on of course, NATO funded summer schools across Europe looking at it for decades. Maybe if you're in the field it has strong roots and a context. I worked alongside people in the space in that time and it felt like it wasn't living up to the promise.

That said, lots of things stem from it. All across the surface of things we do today. Mice, workstations, immersive experience, scripted interactions. I'm not sure I buy "email was born in PLATO"

I was assigned a Compaq portable with a plasma screen in the early 1990s at my first job. "Portable" was relative to the era; the thing was the size of a small suitcase.

I think it was a bit too far ahead of its time. By the mid-1980s when I encountered it, it felt dated; the communications increasingly felt slow. Attempts at commercializing it, and on running it on newer hardware didn't really go very far.

There were implementations of TUTOR for MS-DOS as well, with TenCORE being one that I saw. Early in my programming career, I came across it when we were rewriting a financial planner that was originally written in it into C. I was flabbergasted when my Lotus 1-2-3 importer was twenty times faster then the original. On reflection, I realized that TenCORE so completely imitated its CDC Cyber heritage that it used Cyber floating-point format for its math, and had to emulate every math operation.

There’s a photo of him in the hall outside my office (@ NCSU), with his Emmy award. It’s nice to read stories here from people who knew him. He left big shoes to fill.

Ah, they broke the mold when they made Don Bitzer. Nobody can ever fill those shoes.

I took his course at NCSU. I remember that every time I saw him he was friendly and cheerful, eager to chat with anyone. He may have been the warmest professor I had in college.

Ah this is sad news. I came to know of him by way of UIUC's Engineering Open House. Back in 03' or 04' a rag tag group of us put together an "asymmetric capacitor" exhibit -- a sort of simple ion thruster. A kind hearted TA put our project in for an award Bitzer had sponsored, and it went in our favor.

It was not a large amount after dividing it up, but it was so rare in the college days to have any spare change for anything, and it sure meant a lot at the time. https://ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/scholarships-and-aw...

Dr. Donald Bitzer on the Phil Donahue Show (1981) https://www.youtube.com/watch/k8Ovbmql8wI

(29 years later) Watch Steve Jobs announce the original iPad in 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch/eZ87BRCrh0w

Did Phil Donahue use the word “Application” for a graphical software program in 1981? Interesting.

Bitzer was on Donahue twice. This is the second show. A couple years earlier he was on as well.

I was at the UDel at the early part of Plato. He came a few times to visit. He was a great presenter and interesting to talk to after his talks.

Having been at UofI in the 80’s PLATO was still in use. I despised it for the computer based learning for Physics 107, loved it for Empire and thankful that I never got good enough at it that it became a problem.

Donald Blitzer Has Died - https://mailchi.mp/ea26bdcfbd65/donald-l-bitzer-rip-1934-202...

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bitzer

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