Lee Felsenstein | Hacker News Reader

Lee Felsenstein

en.wikipedia.org

66 pointsnickt35 comments

> Felsenstein was influenced in his philosophy by the works of Ivan Illich, particularly Tools for Conviviality (Harper and Row, 1973). This book advocated a "convivial" approach to design which allowed users of technologies to learn about the technology by encouraging exploration, tinkering, and modification. Felsenstein had learned about electronics in much the same fashion, and summarized his conclusions in several aphorisms, to wit – "In order to survive in a public-access environment, a computer must grow a computer club around itself." Others were – "To change the rules, change the tools," and "If work is to become play, then tools must become toys."

I highly recommend Tools for Conviviality, it's extremely poignant and ahead of its time.

If this guy is interesting to you, I recommend "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry"[1]. Really good computing history book, and I've read a lot of them. Lee is a major character in the book.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said

Lee will be speaking next month in San Jose at an event for the 50th anniversary of the Byte Shop computer store. Incredible opportunity to hear from the man himself. For computer designers of the 8-bit era, I’d say he ranks next to Woz in terms of importance: the Sol-80, Osborne, Homebrew Computer Club, member of the Berkeley free speech movement. Curious to hear his thoughts on the industry today.

Are you related to Paul? I noticed the last name. :)

Yep! Paul is my uncle. My parents had a franchise Byte Shop in Greensboro, NC when I was a kid.

This is so cool. How lucky to have such a close experience to that scene. I'm jealous.

That's really neat. I had no idea there was a Byte Shop in Greensboro. My wife's family is from that area. I live in Raleigh, NC. Now I am wondering if my nerdy father-in-law ever visited it back in the day.

Any link or details for the event?

I tried looking for SJSU events and found the earlier Vintage Computing Fair talks, but at least I can trade this time capsule link from that era even if it doesn't quote me toon the Byte Shop specifically: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1977/04/04/bytes-and-chip...

I know it's been days but since you asked he made a link:

https://byteshop50thyearbirthdayp.rsvpify.com

This was an era before my time but the book "Hackers" by Steven Levy does a great job of painting an evocative picture of this era. It evokes a feeling of nostalgia (as in, we missed being in those times) but when you think properly, you see that you still have the same types of opportunities in a field where the frontiers are ever widening.

I remember the quote, maybe not word for word, but Lee said something like:

"You're going to do all that for the computer? What are you going to do for the people?"

Lee is so cool and humble.

In my mid 20s, I ran the SF Hardware Meetup, and Lee came and just told me something like: "Oh yea, I've been into hardware for a long time.", and only later did I realize who he was haha.

Like others here, I was concerned seeing his name trending here, and I'm so glad he's still alive.

Lee represents the best of mentalities of the tech scene, and I hope we can get back to a more pro-social place and away from this profit-first bubble shit.

For someone whose claim to fame was during the onboarding of the personal computer, I wish Wikipedia would provide period-appropriate images.

For example, I found this one of a younger Lee: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/still-i...

Good idea! Anyone should be able to add it if it's in the public domain.

I asked Lee about that great photo and he wrote:

Prototype for the Automatic Photoelectric Keratometer, (US 4,345,437 - 1966, to Westheimer and Felsenstein). Taken by myself in the lab of Gerald Westheimer in 1965.

Vacuum tube electronics of my design controlling an oscilloscope pattern focused on a sumulated eyeball with two photomultiplier tubes catching the glint (specular) reflection and reversing the sweep direction.

A poor idea which went nowhere but it got a patent for the professor who generously included me as co-inventor and coauthor of a paper.

UC Berkeley School of Optometry — I was a Lab Helper at $2.03/hour. Prof. Westheimer later moved to Physiology. He was 99 in 2023 when we last met.

For the primary photo on biographies of living people, Wikipedia prefers photos to be as current as possible.

Could we maybe change the title to something like "Lee Felsenstein is still alive"? I was worried when I saw the title.

i'd suggest "Lee Felsenstein turned 80 this year" :)

Good call. I would feel extremely weird seeing "[my full name] is still alive" as a title somewhere...

Oh, yeah, my suggestion was pretty dumb.

especially on a website formatted like a todo list :)

Yeah, that’s a good one. I also thought that he had passed away because of his age and how the title was not very informative.

( ;^^)b

Please, this was my first thought too.

Brother of the famous (in phylogenetics circles) Joe Felsenstein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Felsenstein

For those afflicted by Meta syndrome, Lee F is a fairly regular poster and commenter in the Vintage Computer Club group. :-)

If you haven't read his book, check it out: Me and My Big Ideas: Counterculture, Social Media, and the Future http://amazon.com/Me-My-Big-Ideas-Counterculture/dp/B0DJ8T45...

Interview with Lee at the end of 2024 on The Amp Hour podcast: https://theamphour.com/684-lee-felsenstein-the-computer-revo...

Just recently read his memoir, "Me and My Big Ideas," which gives a fascinating look at the meeting of modern computing and the counterculture. It feels more and more important to get these stories down while we still can.

To quote Lee: "To change the rules - change the tools!"

http://www.FelsenSigns.com

He's reissued the classic Homebrew Computer Club t-shirts he sold at the final meeting, and also posters!

https://felsensigns.com/engineers-and-programmers-with-attit...

>The cartoon shows a caricature of Chares Proteus Steinmetz – a hero of mine, posing for a photograph at the inauguration of one of his big generators (he taught American engineers how to calculate with alternating current starting around 1890). He was a German immigrant hunchback dwarf and was never admitted to “polite society” of the day, but he changed to world.

>The front of the shirt shows him in front of the massive, throbbing machine – hand on the switch, dressed in formal wear. The rear of the shirt shows the rear view, with Steinmetz’ fingers crossed as the photographer takes his shot.

I wanted an Osborne 1 so badly when I was a kid - all that power in a handy portable suitcase form factor!

8 bit guy on YouTube has a nice three part series on restoring and demoing the Osborne 1, I watched the last part this morning.

Looked like a neat little machine but (just a little) before my time, I’d have been in nursery when it released.

Coding on an Osbourne Executive.. portable yes, but the screen was so small, the external monitor was essential. Pick green or orange monitor phospher (very different looking). Big floppy disks and CP/M, Wordstar and .. Visi-Calc? Basic language.. authors workstation and could dial in with a modem to a BBS.

I was in my late 20s when one of the trust managers at the bank I worked for brought in his Osborne. I was so very, very jealous. I'd just purchased the CP/M cartridge for my Commodore 64 and tried to convince him let me borrow the WordStar disk, but he wouldn't do it (and I really never went anywhere with CP/M on the C=64).

Jesus Christ you just scared me. Next time, post a title like "Lee Felsenstein (is fine)," please!

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