Auxiliary Memory

The Memory Gym—Exercising Our Words

by James Wallace Harris, Thursday, January 26, 2017

I don’t believe I have Alzheimer’s or any other form of dementia – yet, but I am having memory problems, ones that are common to getting old. All my friends are having this problem. We especially have trouble recalling names, titles or proper nouns. Quite often we say things like, “Oh, you know, what’s her name, you know, who was in what’s that film, the one about, you know, that thing …” Everything is on the tip of our tongue. Often the word or name we’re looking for will pop up in our head hours later, which implies an access problem and not a storage issue. It’s like having a junk drawer with all kinds of stuff, and we know a 1/4 teaspoon measurer is in there somewhere, but we can’t find it. We can usually find the 1 tablespoon measurer because we use it more often.

Is that the key – using our words more often?

I had an idea in the shower. What if I made a list of all the subjects I want to retrain mastery of as I get old, and then for each topic make a list of key words and names that associate with that idea, and then study those lists regularly, would that help? Or does it matter? I have to consider I might be forgetting these words because they aren’t worth remembering. On the other hand, maybe I’m becoming forgetful because I’m not exercising those words enough. What if language is like muscles and could be exercised? We go to gyms to keep our bodies in shape, why not have a gym for pumping words?

Yesterday’s experience of “What Was Her Name?” left me feeling slightly despondent. I have two natures, ones I call Western and Eastern, for their philosophies. My Buddha natures allows me to graciously accept the fate of getting old. It’s natural and inevitable. On the other hand, my Puritanical heritage tells me I should fight till the bitter end – to conquer nature, to stomp it in the ground. If I had been on the Titanic the western side would make a raft out of deck chairs. My Eastern side would sit in a deck chair cherishing the experience.

What’s fascinating about this morning idea of a memory gym is realizing there are cognitive areas I want to maintain and those that I would abandon. That I’d be willing to commit triage on my memories. I’m also fascinating by which topics I’d pick to study. Would I study jazz or politics? Science fiction or science? History or current events?

When they attacked what’s his name for not knowing any world leaders I thought, “Well, shit, I can’t think of any either.” Actually, as time passed I thought of a few. Should I waste time learning the names of Trump’s cabinet? Or would those memory cells be better used memorizing the best jazz albums of the 1950s?

I had a friend who told me before he died, and it was probably suicide, that he had gotten down to loving only two things in life – Benny Goodman and Duane Allman. I thought that very sad, because I loved countless things at the time. I thought his depression had limited his interests, but now I wonder if it was memory. I can’t remember all those things I loved when I had that last phone call with John.

Growing up we chase after many interests, but as we get older, it gets harder to keep up with all our passions. Our brains get stuffed, and then they start to leak. Do we need to consciously make an effort to retain what we love most?

I’m learning there’s a relationship between words and what we love. Without words to define our memories, everything fades into the background chaos of reality. I have had two experiences of losing my ability to use words. Once in the sixties when I took too much acid, and once when I had a mini-stroke. In each case, as my ability to use words returned I realized their power. I can’t tell you what that feels like, but I can give you something to contemplate. Think of you, your dog and a ball. Both of you see the ball, but what does words give you?

For a Zen master, collie dog, baby, and old person without words, a ball is just a ball. Now think about a football player and fan, and how words let them make so much more of a ball. Right now I love listening to jazz and knowing its history. When my words are gone I’ll still love listening, but I’ll miss the history. What is “A Love Supreme” without the words of the title or the words John Coltrane? Without words it will only exist when playing, like a tree falling in the forest. With words it can exist as part of my personality.

JWH

What Was Her Name?

by James Wallace Harris, Wednesday, January 24, 2017

Today I went to a lecture on Berthe Morisot by Dr. Pamela Gerrish Nunn at the Dixon. The whole time I kept telling myself to remember those two names, practicing them in my head. But later that afternoon when friends asked me what I did today I had forgotten both names. That is very frustrating.

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was a French women Impressionist painter who’s work was concurrent with all the other Impressionist painters we now think of as famous, and she showed in nearly all of the famous Impressionist exhibitions. I’ve probably heard about her before, seen her paintings, and just don’t remember. Of course, I’ve seen the one the Dixon owns.

Here are 30 paintings by Morisot to view online at good resolutions and color reproduction.

What troubles me about my poor memory is I remember just enough to know I’m accumulating a bit of knowledge about Impressionism. But those memories are just a vague pile of blowing leaves. I’ve seen many exhibits of their work, read novels and books about their lives, watched movies that fictionalized their times, attended lectures on the movement, but I just can’t hold all the details together in my mind. As Nunn spoke, things she said would make me recall other facts I had once encountered, but only in the vaguest of ways. For example, I knew I had heard a lecture on another female Impressionist, but I couldn’t recall her name until Nunn said it – Mary Cassatt. And I’ve seen some of her paintings, so it’s a shame I can’t remember her name.

During the lecture I even wondered if I should create flash cards about Impressionism to see if I could burn the essential details in my mind. Last year I wrote “Why Read What We Can’t Remember?” for Book Riot about this frustration. Why spend so much time learning when I can’t retain what I study? Would it be of any value to study facts at night, in hopes I could retain them? I wonder if I made up a pile of cards of everything I’d want to remember how many cards would I have?

The answer to why study what I can’t remember, is for the hour during the lection, and an hour creating this essay, I was focused on Berthe Morisot (I have to look the name up every goddamn time). There’s pleasure in those moments, even if I can’t retain the data that describe them. I might not even remember this tomorrow. But someday I’ll attend another lecture on Impressionists, and maybe I’ll see one of Morisot’s paintings, and I’m remember I had seen a slide of it at the lecture. Or just have a vague sense of déjà vu.

I was able to remember one thing from the lecture, and I’ve very glad I did. I guess I can trust my mind a tiny bit. After the lecture I spoke with Nunn and she mentioned one book, The New Painting. Kirkus Reviews says, “Quite possibly, the most important art book published in this decade; certainly one of the most impressive.” So I ordered it. (It looks familiar, but I don’t think I own it. But I might. I can’t find it at the moment. Damn my memory! I do remember the painting on the cover, and who knows, I might have seen the original.)

JWH

Keeping Up With My Routine

by James Wallace Harris, Tuesday, January 24, 2017

It feels like I’m in a faster rat race now, in retirement than when I worked. I haven’t published anything at this blog for twelve days. I have all my time free, but every night I go to bed wishing I had more. I mostly work at writing essays. I’ve started a couple dozen in January, and they are in various stages of completion.

Four were published at Book Riot this month:

And a couple at Worlds Without End:

I’ve been trying to find time to get back into programming. I have an idea for a little program I want to develop to help me manage book lists, but I just can’t get down to work. I keep thinking I want to embrace Python and dedicate myself to learning it. But it’s not GUI based, so I wonder if I should be more ambitious and aim for C#. But that might be as realistic as wanting to become a rock star this late in life. I keep watching documentaries about computer history and they make me want to play with computers. I sometimes wistfully wonder if that time in my life is over.

I also wanted to start learning how to draw, but I keep putting it off. I did start coloring. Here’s my third effort. Coloring is a pleasant activity to do while listening to an audiobook or visiting with a friend.

I hope I stick with it and see if I can develop a sense of color. It might inspire me to eventually try drawing. I know my work above is about what a second grader could do, but I sense I have room to progress, even at age 65.

Here’s one from my friend Connell sent me, which I like a lot. He got into coloring and it inspired me to give it a try.

Of course I’ve been watching a lot of TV. My recent favorites are The Crown, The OA, Victoria, Chance, and The Man in the High Castle season 2. I’ve gotten out of the habit of watching a Perry Mason every night, and I miss that. I went to lunch with an old friend I hadn’t seen in years and found out she watches Perry every night at 10:30. That makes me want to get back into that habit. (Time, time, time…)

Which brings up the topic of routines. Retired life is one of routines. My usual routine is to get up, shower, exercise, eat breakfast, and then start writing. If I’m lucky, I’ll write for hours and exhaust myself. I then eat a late lunch, followed by a nap in the den while listening to loud music (mostly jazz of late). I love listening to music while drifting in and out of sleep.

After I get up, usually around four, I wish I could squeeze in a new hobby around this time. But often this is my social time. Friends come over to watch TV, and sometimes stay for dinner. I like having people over in the afternoon or evening to watch TV, and consider TV watching a wonderful social activity. I would never want to give up social time for another hobby, but I still wish I could squeeze a couple more hobbies into my routine.

However, if I’m not socializing I usually end up reading. I just don’t have the energy to write at night, nor start up a new project like programming. I have discovered I can muster the energy to color and listen to an audiobook, or color and listen to an old favorite movie. The other night I colored while watching an old John Wayne movie. That’s rather a strange contrast, don’t you think? The childlike pleasure of coloring while listening to people violently killing one another.

I bought myself a little mini-MIDI keyboard for Christmas, but I’ve yet to make it work with the software that came with it. I leave myself so little creative energy after I stop writing that I don’t have none left to even figure this out. But that’s what I dream of doing. I know this will sound like a Catch-22, but I want to do something creative that’s not writing, and not give up writing either, but it seems I’d have to give up writing to do it. I hate to think I’m a one hobby person. I’ve wondered about setting aside some days for writing, and dedicate other days when I’m mentally fresh to try something new and different. On the other hand, if I don’t write during the day, I feel like I wasted that day.

In some ways I feel the movie Lifeboat is a great metaphor for getting old. The characters in the lifeboat have limited resources to survive, and must ration them out carefully. But instead of food and water, I have to ration mental energy.

Oh, I have been reading some great essays lately:

JWH

Am I Going Blind in My Dreams?

by James Wallace Harris, Thursday, January 12, 2017

For months now I’ve been noticing how my dreams are getting darker. Not psychologically dark, but dark like the night. Events seemingly take place at night, or the daytime feels like nighttime – like those old day-for-night shots in westerns. I don’t know if this is a new condition of my dreams, or they’ve always been dark. I can vaguely remember having some well-lit dreams, but I’m not sure. Memory is such an unreliable source of information. Do you dream about brightly lit places?

Last year I realized I had aphantasia, what some people call mind blindness. It’s the inability to recall visual memories when you close your eyes. I wrote “What Can You See That I Can’t” and “What Do You See When You Read?” I thought it was 2016 when I first discovered this condition, but I found an older essay, “How Good Is Your Visual Memory?” from 2012. What I wrote prefigured the 2016 discovery that the condition has a name. Last year I assume I had poor visual memory during the day, but my brain could generate visuals just fine at night in my dreams. Now I’m wondering if that was a false assumption. Or, am I changing, and my dreams are actually getting darker. I woke up the other night and wondered if I was going blind in my dreams.

Sometimes I feel like I live in a black and white world and crave color and brightness. Now this might be my own fault. In recent decades I’ve become an indoor person and even more of a bookworm. Maybe I spend too much time looking at black and white letters and not enough time at the full spectrum world. I also spend more time listening to music with my eyes closed thinking about what I’m writing, and that’s not very visual either.

I should say that I see color. And my daytime world is bright. I am very nearsighted, but my vision is healthy enough.

In recent months I’ve been getting out of the house even less. I used to walk and ride a bike for exercise. I have spinal stenosis and in the last couple months my back, hip and leg pains have been reduced 90%. I learn that when I stopped walking or biking because of bad weather. I’ve been feeling better by not exercising outside. But that means I spend even more time indoors. Could this cause reduce light in my dreams? I’ve been wondering if my dream world is becoming darker because I don’t feed my mind enough light during the day. Maybe I should sit outside, or go on drives.

I’m also looking at art less. I’ve stopped going to museums and studying art books. Can art fuel visual imagery in dreams? I wish I could draw. I see websites like Urban Sketchers or bloggers like Peggy Willett and wonder if I paid more attention to the visual world if it would improve my visual memory, and enhance my dreams with better lighting and color?

I also have to consider aging. I know getting old means mental and physical decline. Maybe darker dreams and fading visual memory is just a side-effect of getting old?

The other night I had a beautiful dream. It was dark, and I was outside with other people. Someone pointed up and said there was a comet. I looked, and there was a greenish comet in the sky. I said, “That’s a good one. I never seen one so bright.” It actually looked very realistic, and not like astronomy photos. It was just a bright green head, bigger than any star, with a long triangular trail of faint green gas behind it. But even inside this dream I wondered why everything else was so dark.

JWH

Rereading: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

by James Wallace Harris, Friday, January 6, 2017

I first read The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder just after it came out in 1981, before it won the Pulitzer and National Book awards in 1982. I read it again at the end of 2016. Thirty-five years later it is still a stunning book, even though the Data General Eclipse MV/8000, the title character, died long ago, and few remember. As I read The Soul of a New Machine a second time, I kept thinking, “What happened to these great people who worked so hard?” I decided I’d provide a review with research/annotations/links. If you haven’t read The Soul of a New Machine I highly recommend you do. Most books about science and technology date very quickly, but this one hasn’t. Why? Because it’s about people, not a machine. The story reads like a novel.

I’ve spent days struggling to write this essay. The book is about engineers who push themselves to produce a new computer, working 80+ hour weeks, not for money, fame, or rewards. They are driven to invent by their desire to master knowledge and skills. I’ve always wished I had that kind of passion. A few days ago I read “How to Become a ‘Superager’” in the New York Times, that reports that older people who push themselves mentally stay cognitively healthy longer. It’s more than doing crosswords though. I believe what they were talking about is like how the folks worked in this book drove themselves to master a problem. You just keep going, keep working, keep trying, keep pushing, until the problem is solved. Because I’m retired, I know I can quit and kick back at any time, when I tire of a task. But I want to finish this essay, and I’ve had to constantly push myself. I wanted to reread this book, carefully summarize it, and find out everything I could about what happen to the people in the story since it’s publication.

I’m going to hyperlink the hell out of this review for two reasons. First, if you just read The Soul of a New Machine and have the same questions I did, this should be a handy resource. Second, if you haven’t read the book, seeing why I’m so fascinated with a 36-year-old book about a forgotten minicomputer should make you want to read it. The Soul of the New Machine is a perfect example of what is now called creative nonfiction, but that term didn’t exist back when it was first written. It essentially means using techniques borrowed from novelists to write compelling nonfiction. This writing technique is old, but I first noticed it in the 1960s. Truman Capote used it in his 1965 book, In Cold Blood, which he called a nonfiction novel. Tom Wolfe used it for The Electric Kool-Acid Test in 1968 and called it New Journalism. So by 1978, Kidder had plenty of models to choose from.

What’s particularly impressive about The Soul of a New Machine is Kidder didn’t know anything about computers. His editor at The Atlantic told him to write about computers. He didn’t want to. Then Kidder went sailing with Tom West, the god of the new computer, and became part of the story. That’s another common aspect of creative nonfiction – the author becomes a character in the story, letting us readers know how the story came to be.

Here’s a Zen koan. Who would you want to be – the storyteller or the subject? Back in 1978 would it have been more rewarding to be Tom West or Tracy Kidder? Or Carl Alsing, Chuck Holland or Ed Rasala. A Hardy Boy or Microkid? But I’m getting ahead of myself, because you probably don’t know who those people are. My point is Tracy Kidder had to learn about computers, but he also had to learn about why computers were so fascinating to this small group of people, and why they wanted to build a new one. Kidder had to go beyond that, he had to learn what how each of these engineers got on the path that led them to become creators of a computer. His effort was no less than the engineers building the Eagle.

When I reread a book I love, I want to know everything I can about it, especially about how it was written, and if the book is about real people, what happened to them after the book came out. This review will be full of links to the articles that answer some of those questions. I wish I could write like Tracy Kidder and write the 2017 update to the story. But just writing these 2,000+ words showed me how much work that involves. Writing 100,000 words is beyond my comprehension.

Plot

- CPSC 330 – Chapter Notes for The Soul of a New Machine
- CPSC 330 – Questions on The Soul of a New Machine
- “Flying Upside Down” by Tracy Kidder (The Atlantic, July 1981 – early version of the story)
- “Willy Loman and the ‘Soul of a New Machine’: Technology and the Common Man” – 1983
- “Flight of the Eagle: The Birthing and Life of a Super-Minicomputer” by John Faughnan, Sanja Stevanovic (3/16/96)

In February of 1978, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduced the VAX, a groundbreaking line of 32-bit minicomputers. The story opens at Data General, DEC’s competitor, and their need to quickly produce a 32-bit supermini to compete with the VAX. Data General had a popular 16-bit minicomputer called the Eclipse, but decided to design a whole new 32-bit computer, code named Fountainhead, that would be superior to the VAX. As a backup, manager Tom West proposed a second project, to upgrade the Eclipse to 32-bit, which they code named the Eagle. The Soul of a New Machine is about the tremendous management and technical effort to redesign a 16-bit machine to work flawlessly as a 32-bit machine without a mode-bit. So owners of the 16-bit Eclipses could buy the new machine and run all their old software without any conversion. This rush effort took place in 1978 and 1979. In many ways it prefigures Steve Jobs’ effort to produce the Macintosh a few years later. Because they are stories about the men and women working long hours, sacrificing their personal lives, to give birth to a machine.

Setting

Most of the events in the story take place during 1978-1979, at Data General’s headquarters in Westborough, Massachusetts, off Route 495, in building 14A/B. I wish I could find photos of the actual offices and labs, especially where the Hardy Boys and Microkids worked. I’d like to see what their debugging tools looked like, and the prototypes named “Coke” and “Gollum.” This one photo from the early 1980s is the best I could do.

Kidder interviewed his subjects secretly at Data General, and outside of work, going to their homes, parties, outings and even sailing with Tom West. I wish I could find photos of those events and locations, but so far I haven’t. It’s weird to think such an heroic project took place in a dull basement of a nondescript building.

Characters

“Souls, Lost and Found” (Wired Magazine, 12/01/00)
“O, Engineers!” (Wired Magazine, 12/01/00)
“Tom West: The Soul of a Development Manager”
“Books You Should Read: The Soul of a New Machine” by Adam Fabio (Hackaday, 8/26/16)

The first report from Wired Magazine shows the photograph on the right and lists who they were and where they are now. Unfortunately, the photo does not include Tom West, the Ulysses of the story. West was the manager who gathered a team of about two dozen men and one woman to build the Eagle, essentially in secret. Data General gave the real Fountainhead project publically to the engineers who had moved to North Carolina. There were two teams – The Hardy Boys who worked on hardware, and the Microkids who wrote the software. West had two lieutenants, Carl Alsing, who supervised the Microkids, and Ed Rasala who bossed the Hardy Boys.

Tom West – was the top level manager, and essentially the protagonist of The Soul of a New Machine. The best post-book profile of West I found was “O, Engineers!” from Wired Magazine, for the 20th anniversary of the book. This essay is well worth reading because West talks about how the book affected his memory of events. He didn’t always appreciate the fame the book brought. Plus it’s a good summary of the story and an update about how people came to judge the book. I also found The Computer Museum Report from Spring, 1983 which reprints a dialog between Kidder and West. West died at 71, in 2011. Here is his obituary at the New York Times, and one at the Boston Globe.

Steven J. Wallach – was the Eagle’s architect. A 2008 New York Times piece that chronicles Wallach’s whole career. He continued to design computers and start companies after he left Data General.

Carl Alsing – was probably the second most important character in the book. Tom West was often a mystery to the Hardy Boys and Microkids. Alsing was his John the Baptist. This 1974 DataGeneral newsletter has some photos of younger Alsing and West.

I found this YouTube video for the Science Friday Book Club that interviews Asling, Holland and Shanahan in 2015. It briefly shows the ball maze Chuck Holland created and mentioned in the book. When I read that part I really wanted to see it.

Carl Asling, Chuck Holland, Betty Shanahan 2015

Just look at Goodreads “Popular Computer History Books” – The Soul of a New Machine comes in at #2. I’ve read many of these books over the years, and I find them incredibly inspiring. I worked with computers most of my working life, but I was always a low-level programmer, web designer, or computer tech support guy. I guess reading computer history books for me is about envy. Rereading The Soul of a New Machine is like reading family history, but about my cousins who succeeded in the big time. I’ve always loved science fiction and computers. I’m not the only one, became that combo is common. The Soul of a New Machine is also #2 on “50 All-Time Classic Books About Computers and Computing.” I have to assume there are many readers out there like me.

Yet, as I reread this book I constantly asked myself why I was reading about technology that went to the scrapheap decades ago, was never famous other than being in this book, and about computer engineers that few people remember today? Yet, reading The Soul of a New Machine was just as much fun in 2016 as it was in 1981. The Soul of a New Machine is about how hard work leads to creativity. It’s about being different. The men and women in this story have keen intellects, were often loners, and all had unique hobbies peculiar to engineers. It’s a story about people who can focus on one goal with such concentration that they almost forget everything else in life. Tracy Kidder tells an amazing story about amazing people in amazing detail. Yet, in 2017, why would anyone want to read about the design and engineering team that built a long forgotten minicomputer, or a company that went out of business, and was never legendary or insanely great? I doubt younger people even know the terms mainframe, minicomputers and microcomputers. Or care about a time when a business struggled to bring out a 32-bit computer to market when 16-bit was the standard.

All of that technical history doesn’t really matter. What matters are the people. Rereading The Soul of a New Machine makes me ask the question at the top of the essay. Most kids today daydream of growing up to be a star – whether in sports, movies, music, television. They want to be rich, famous, or some kind of superhero. If I was a kid reading this book, I’d want to grow up to be like Tracy Kidder, Tom West, Carl Asling, or any of the people in that group photo above, or the people profiled in the books at Goodreads. Most kids won’t become Beyoncé. I didn’t become Bill Gates. When I reread The Soul of a New Machine I experience a beautiful sense of regret. I lived through some of the most exciting times in technological history. I was in the stands watching, and that was great, it wasn’t the same as being on the field, but it was still very cool.

Update:

There’s a discussion about this blog post and The Soul of a New Machine at Hacker News (11/29/22). The comment section is worth reading.

JWH