Don’t know if you’ve managed to catch episodes of NerdTV (where Robert X. Cringely interviews “historically” significant luminaries from the rich history of IT) but you should. OK, rich history means the last 15-20 years I guess, but when 10-15% of what you know becomes obsolete each year that’s arguably a very long time. Cringely (you’ll recognize the name if you’re an InfoWorld reader) does a really good job pulling interesting tidbits out of his subjects but that’s not too surprising for a fellow who spent years revealing the secrets of Silicon Valley.
I stumbled across the podcasts a few weeks ago but only today (with a bit of time to kill waiting for various things) did I get around to listening to a few of them. Great stuff. For tech-oriented librarians, the Brewster Kahle interview is really interesting. I took a special interest in Brewster’s recounting of the history of the WAIS software since George Mason (at my urging) was one of the few universities to actually purchase the commercial version of that product. We used it for a number of years for things like the faculty/staff directory, indexing finding aids in our Special Collections office and so on. There was a time when that was the most powerful web-based search system available—in fact, I remember getting really excited when it became web-enabled. I also remember getting really upset when he sold the company to AOL. He recounts that sale and explains how he viewed where AOL might take the product so I guess I forgive him (he can’t be blamed for the shift in focus that AOL made shortly after the acquisition).
Episodes I’ve listened to thus far (and each was one way or another well worth the time): Bill Joy (creator of Java and co-founder of Sun Microsystems); Mac OS programmer Andy Hertzfeld; and Internet Archive/WAIS/Thinking Machines founder Brewster Kahle. May catch the Tim O’Reilly interview during my commute tomorrow.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv
Podcasts are available via iTunes and QuickTime downloads can be found on the www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv site.