Current Occupant: WPI Archives & Special Collections
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In and around basement level.
Current Occupant: WPI Archives & Special Collections |
"In 1969 when I started at WPI Norm Sondak's office was in the library in what
became Jim Jackson's office. I know I was meeting with my freshman advisor John
Sistare (CS) in what became WACCC, possibly in what
became AEJ's office. There were often 2 sections of CS courses and one was what
even as WACCC we called the classroom (other room would be in a random room in
Stratton). My sophomore year when I started working at WACCC matching up card
decks with output, WACCC had moved IO and student keypunches to the other side
of the machine room (along the library windows) and the professors were no
longer in the library. So CS moved out of "WACCC" Summer of 71." -- Ben Thompson
"It started in Gordon Library co-sharing space with Jim Jackson and the
computer center." -- Steve Alpert
"When I first taught Operating Systems in AY7879, WACCC was in the lower floors of the Gordon Library. All courses were taught using cards and jobs were submitted in 'batch mode' using a card reader. Several of WPI's undergraduate CS majors worked part-time in the WACCC. Two of the students that I remember were Eric Hahn (who actually gave a WPI Commencement speech once he made a fortune from his work involving one of the first browsers, Netscape) and a student known as 'Wookie' because he had a lot of hair like the Star Wars character. Ben would know these guys. I believe all of WPI computing was done on a single DEC10 machine." -- Bob Kinicki
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In and around SL-04.
Current Occupant: Prof. Roger Gottlieb (HUA) |
"I was hired in 71 and there was no room at the inn so the department set up in the basement in Salisbury. That was quite full - I started in a "closet" outside of the lecture hall. Everyone else was on the basement floor (walk-in from AK)" -- Steve Alpert
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In and around HL-121.
Current Occupant: Electrical Room (ME) |
"Salisbury was going to be remodeled so we were forced to move. The ME dept
was nice enough to give us room in the front left corner of
Higgins." -- Steve Alpert
"When I interviewed for a job at WPI at the end of February 1978, the CS Department was located in Higgins Labs. Its location was in the corner near West Street and where the big tree that sits in front of the Admissions building. Norm Sondak was the Department Head when I interviewed. Greg Scragg was already in an office in Washburn in AY7778 on the second floor as a first step to moving the whole department into Washburn. (The department only had around nine faculty with Joe Soetens as divided between Management and CS). I gave my interview talk in Higgins 102." -- Bob Kinicki
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In and around WB-217.
Current Occupant: Foisie Business School |
"ME wanted
their space back and since Norm Sondak was "going on
leave," they made room for us in the 2nd floor of Washburn Labs. As new
department head, I had to organize that move and had an
office that was actually reclaimed from a stairwell!" -- Steve Alpert
"When I began as a faculty member in September 1978, Norm Sondak had left
warmer climates. Steve Alpert was now serving as Acting CS Department Head
and CS had completely moved into Washburn. My first office was on the
second floor with a window directly over a dumpster and a view of the
smokestack. The janitors used to use my window to dump trash directly into
the dumpster at night when no one was around." -- Bob Kinicki
"Directly across the hall was the CS Office (essentially where the Management
Office resides, but much smaller). Steve and Maddie were there. The upper floor
(third floor) was incomplete back then with a few grad students living there and
they would sneak up into the Washburn tower at night. Mark Freitas was one of
those grad students and my first MS thesis student. This was all before the
major renovation to Washburn and when the nuclear reactor was still
active." -- Bob Kinicki
"I arrived at WPI in 1980, and I know that we were in
Washburn for at least a year. My fondest memories
of Washburn (right above the Grunge Lab) were of
a pew by or in the departmental office, and Maddie's
smiling face that made us all happy." -- Stanley Selkow
"There was a narrow conference room next to the CS office in Washburn. I remember having some Comp Exam orals there, with very little space between the examiners and the student who was standing at the blackboard. I remember at least one student breaking into tears." -- Dave Brown
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In and around AK-128.
Current Occupant: Dean of Engineering Office |
"I was the primary contact,
and with Ray Scott's help, designed the space in AK.
The week before the fall term a year later, an AC pipe burst and flooded the
new space! The old floors warped and carpet was
ruined. I spent a lot of hours trying to reorganize the space. We then added
space on the far side (near West St) as the faculty increased.
I also recall that the space in AK once held the EE library whose books were
moved to Gordon Library, which created a space for us."
-- Steve Alpert
"CS owned the offices around there, plus the labs that are now used for
Robotics. Larry, Moe and Curly Vaxen. At some point we were also
downstairs as well, right underneath that space. Only faculty offices I
think. My AK faculty office used to look out over the trees on the hill,
where Fuller is now." -- Dave Brown
"One of my favorite activities in AK was in the basement hall.
Some evenings we'd open the office doors, turn on the
lights in the offices, and toss a frisbee from one end of
the hall to the other. It really seemed to bounce in flight
because when it sailed by an office it would seem to rise,
and then it'd disappear in the dark. A hard throw would be
scary, but luckily my colleagues didn't have strong arms." -- Stanley Selkow
"Remember the great flood? The central room around which the faculty and the CS offices were arranged was used for storage.
A pipe burst and water seeped out under the door into the nearest faculty offices, including mine. Maybe 1/2 an inch of water?
The office directly below mine (Mark Ohlson's?) got rained on, because the
floorboards weren't that tightly together. " -- Dave Brown
"I think I was one of the first CS faculty to use the Internet, having a terminal in my office that allowed me to login to Rutgers CS so that I could use their very good LISP system for research. We used LISP for AI at that point. We'd used it earlier (while we were still in Washburn I think) for what we called the LISP/Algol course. That had been developed by Steve Alpert, and I also taught it at some point: challenging students with symbolic differentiation, modeling paper folding, and mechanism movement prediction." -- Dave Brown
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In and around FL-233.
Current Occupant: Computer Science Department Office |