Memory Lane

Errol Morris has a great piece on his Opinionator blog for The New York Times.  It is an awesomely researched account of the invention of electronic mail in conjunction with other developments that took place at Project MAC at MIT in the Sixties.  What I most enjoyed, however, was that Morris included a photograph of two key figures “present at the creation,” taken at Technology Square, just off the MIT campus, in 1966 by Tom Van Vleck.  The photograph shows Jerry Saltzer and Fernando J. Corbato.  I was immediately reminded that I received my first class in computer programming from Corbato, and Saltzer was his teaching assistant at the time!