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Hardware Technology

Bill Godbout, Early S-100 Bus Pioneer, Perished In the Camp Wildfire (vcfed.org) 124

Posted by BeauHD from the rest-in-peace dept.
evanak writes: Bill Godbout was one of the earliest and most influential supports of the S-100 bus in the mid-1970s. He passed away last week due to the Camp wildfire in Concow, California, according to a Vintage Computer Federation blog post. More than 50 other people also died in the fires, but chances are Mr. Godbout was the only one with a license to fly blimps. "Godbout was born October 2, 1939," the blog post reads. "He talked about his introduction to computing in an interview with InfoWorld magazine for their February 18, 1980 issue. 'My first job out of college was with IBM. I served a big-system apprenticeship there, but I think the thing that really triggered [my interest] was the introduction of the 8008 by Intel,' he said. 'I was fascinated that you could have that kind of capability in a little 18-pin package.'"

Godbout's family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to support their needs in this difficult time.
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Bill Godbout, Early S-100 Bus Pioneer, Perished In the Camp Wildfire More

Bill Godbout, Early S-100 Bus Pioneer, Perished In the Camp Wildfire

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  • Donate... but carefully! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17, 2018 @05:37PM (#57661792)

    By all means, donate what you can to help the CA fire victims. Most donation centers are now saying they have enough of many supplies (clothing, etc, are just piling up), and they mostly need money now, which can be converted into whatever the most urgent local needs are.

    However, be careful: there have been a number of "disaster scammers" setting up fake donation sites and absconding with the money. So donate via reputable organizations, or do your due diligence to verify what you are donating to.

    But do donate! A whole city was wiped off the map. 71 confirmed deaths so far, with over 1000 missing and many of the missing being elderly people who could not quickly evac and probably burned to death. Firefighters are finding charred remains huddled in cars. Tens of thousands have lost their homes, their pets, and the very fabric of their lives.

    It's really bad. So go donate. Just use some common sense in the process.

  • A rock star of the Microcomputer Revolution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17, 2018 @05:58PM (#57661842)

    Godbout dates from the wild west days of personal computers. It was a bottom up phenomenon, driven by legions of hackers who passed knowledge through users groups, 73 Magazine, self-published mimeographed "books". In the early days, a 300 baud modem and a real keyboard were a dream. An old Model 33 ASR TTY meant you had hit the "big time". Corporate American hadn't a clue. The personal microcomputer revolution happened under the radar in garages, basements, and bedrooms. Godbout was there front and center, and anyone who was there in those days knows him, or about him, or did business with him.

    Rest in peace, old timer.

  • Very Sad News. (Score:5, Informative)

    by eastjesus ( 3182503 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @05:59PM (#57661844)
    I remember spending many a pleasant Saturday out at the electronic junk store at the Oakland Airport back in the early 1970's where Bill worked. I can't think of the name of the place at the moment but I'm sure it will all come back later tonight for surely I'll be remembering him and his personal contributions to my life. I remember helping him sort and test parts in between spending hours perusing all of the amazing things there. Bill could explain it all and he was on top of everything going on in the industry back then and I learned much from him. He handed me the first microprocessor that I ever held in my hands. Sometimes he had rejects from the new companies down the road and he would come up with things to do with them anyway. Later he went on to design many things and had success at S100 memory boards but I had gone in other directions and never saw him again. So sad to hear this news. I've often wondered where he ended up. He was one of the people instrumental in making the better parts of the world what they are today. RIP.

    • Re:Very Sad News. (Score:5, Informative)

      by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @07:43PM (#57662080)
      Mike Quinn's. I worked out on Edgewater Drive off of Heganburger and took Doolittle Drive home to my studio apartment in Alameda. I would swing by Mike Quinn's several times a week. I remember Bill, Vinnie, Mike, and Jay. Those were great times. Mike Quinn died many years ago. The store moved out near San Leandro, and closed a few years ago. I miss them all.
      • Quintronics! Yes! The best of times in that smoky shack of a store with Mike (in his hat) dealing and Bill showing the ways!

  • One of the true Open Source Founders (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @06:07PM (#57661868) Homepage

    I only talked to Bill through mail when I was in University - I was building an S-100 Z-80 CPM system and needed some suggestions on how to architect the video driver. Bill pointed me to some reference drawings on the MOT 6845 (same as the original IBM PC) that I could use along with providing me with some software to go with it. The only thing he asked of me was that I pass along the information to anybody who asked.

    We lost touch after I got my system working and I always wondered what happened to him.

    RIP. He showed me the value of Open Source.

    • Re:One of the true Open Source Founders (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17, 2018 @10:17PM (#57662356)

      I only talked to Bill through mail when I was in University - I was building an S-100 Z-80 CPM system and needed some suggestions on how to architect the video driver. Bill pointed me to some reference drawings on the MOT 6845 (same as the original IBM PC) that I could use along with providing me with some software to go with it. The only thing he asked of me was that I pass along the information to anybody who asked.

      We lost touch after I got my system working and I always wondered what happened to him.

      RIP. He showed me the value of Open Source.

      I am Bills daughter in law, and the whole family appreciates you taking the time to post some kind words. You were lucky to have had Bill touch your life in some way, everybody who met him were better for it, he will be missed greatly. I thank you again for your taking the time to acknowledge a great man, Bill Godbout R.I.P

  • Nuff said.

    • The HCF reference outs you as an old-timer.

      And my saying that outs me as an old-timer.

  • Why did so many people die in this fire? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Did the authorities screw up and not tell people to leave? Did people not leave? Were people unable to leave?

    The stories all cover the amount of people dead or missing, but there seems to be no coverage as to the why.

    • They weren't culling deadwood and managing the forest around their town. All the dead wood and brush is/was a tinder box waiting to flame up. That said, burn offs are completely natural and part of the cycle of life for woodlands.

      • They weren't culling deadwood and managing the forest around their town. All the dead wood and brush is/was a tinder box waiting to flame up. That said, burn offs are completely natural and part of the cycle of life for woodlands.

        Where I used to live people were prohibited from removing built-up fuel near their homes Such deadwood/brush was considered a habitat for some local endangered ground squirrel type critter. Structures and lives were lost as a result, this was decades ago. I'm sure things have gotten no better, probably worse.

      • Name another year in recorded history where there was zero rain in Paradise into November. Burn offs are completely natural... in the summer, but in a typical year they've had about 8 inches of rain already by November.

        Forest management could certainly be better, the national forest service needs to improve. Might help if any significant fraction of California's forests were under state control instead of ruled from 3000 miles away. But they do prescribed burns every spring to try to clear out brush, I can

    • Fire don't slow down when the roads get congested and grind to a halt.

    • Re:Why did so many people die in this fire? (Score:5, Informative)

      by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @07:43PM (#57662078)

      The fire moved *extremely* quickly. Winds up to 50mph (80km/h), and it's been a very dry summer and fall so things caught fire fast. 20,000 acres were ablaze within twelve hours, and it only spread from there.

      AFAICT most of the casualties so far were people caught in their cars while evacuating. Lots of people got encircled by fire, no way out but through. Others were trapped in traffic and the fire caught up.

      (As usual, you should ignore Trump's attempts to somehow blame this on Democrats, saying they weren't "managing" the forests properly. This is both incorrect - better forestry would at best have slowed the fire's spread by a small amount - and improper - most of the forests affected are on federal land. Weather conditions were so ripe for a wildfire that the power company considered shutting off power, since wind blowing down power lines can ignite fires. This wasn't done (shutting power off is itself dangerous to the public), and a downed power line is now the primary suspect for the immediate cause of the fire.)

      • ... As usual, you should ignore Trump's attempts to somehow blame this on Democrats, saying they weren't "managing" the forests properly ...

        Don't let your politics fool you. Science does in fact say we are mismanaging forest and brush lands. Trump may be an idiot but via the broken clock effect he is occasionally correct. In this case our hyper aggressive firefighting over many decades, overseen by both republicans and democrats, has let fuel accumulate. The result has been more and larger fires that are more difficult to contain.

        There are many ways to f' up the environment. Some of them are industrial, some of them are well meaning and sup

        • Re:Actually science say we do mismanage (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @08:51PM (#57662210)

          You're not entirely wrong, but not entirely right either.

          Controlled burns just aren't possible in every part of the country. Nobody's going to let their house burn down to prevent theoretical worse fires further down the line. You can let acres of grassland or pasture burn, or remote forests - but not woods that are laced with homes.

          It's also questionable whether that would even have helped. Accumulated fuel can make fires spread fast, and probably contributed here, but there was also plenty of dry grass due to aforementioned dry summer. And what was the natural rate of fires, pre-humans? My reading claims it's been ten years since a fire swept through the affected area, which doesn't seem particularly long for any specific location. I really doubt every part of the forest burned every single year, ten thousand years ago.

          There are clearly improvements we need to make. But I don't think your suggestions (which seem based on Great Plains policies) are the right ones for North California.

          • The problem is, these are fairly low income types of places. If you have trailer parks in the woods, they're going to burn. If you have retirement villages, they're going to burn.

            Rich people's estates on the same type of land will have some fire protection; fire breaks, sprinkler systems that can wet down an area and slow the spread of the fire; this lowers the fire intensity in the immediate area, even though it doesn't stop the fire. This, combined with rooftop sprinklers, can save buildings.

            There isn't e

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              The problem is, these are fairly low income types of places. If you have trailer parks in the woods, they're going to burn. If you have retirement villages, they're going to burn.

              No, the problem is that people have all sorts of kindling around and on their domiciles:

              * https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Wildfire/Preparing-homes-for-wildfire
              * https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/By-topic/Wildfire

              If you have pine needles on your roof, and an ember makes contact, they will ignite regardless of how rich or poor you are. Get rid of kindling between 0-6 feet (0-2m) around your house, clear back large vegetation between 0-30' (0-10m), and thin out trees (though clear cutting is

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by drnb ( 2434720 )
            Actually we know the sizes of fires with and without hyper aggressive fire suppression by comparing similar regions of the US and Mexico. Mexico with less suppression has much smaller fires that create less damage. There is effectively a patchwork of firebreaks from previous year's small fires. The problem with the US is that we don't have such a patchwork and this allows fires to more easily traverse terrain and reach much larger sizes.

            Yes 10 years is not very long but its not about one particular area

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shilly ( 142940 )

              A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
              https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]

              "Trump probably has in mind how a century of putting out wildfires in the American west has caused forests to grow dense with trees, making large, hot fires more common than they once were. This is not the predominant cause, however, of the fires currently making the news. To comprehend what is currently taking place in California, you have to comprehend how it has historically burned – and the vast changes now occurring across t

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by drnb ( 2434720 )
                I am not speaking of only forested areas, I am referring the grass/brush covered regions as well. The disparity observed between the US and Mexico includes grass/brush covered regions. I have also lived in such a region for several decades. The gov't induced problems are many. For example in one locale homeowners were prevented from clearing brush near their homes, brush that was a fire danger, because it was considered habitat for some sort of ground squirrel.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          There's a few things going into creating more favorable conditions for fires.
          The amount of beetle die off is increasing much faster then can be managed. Beetle killed trees, usually pines, burn really well. It is really hard to manage large areas of beetle killed trees. The beetles are worse as winters are not cold enough to kill them off.
          Springs are happening earlier, causing much more undergrowth, which then dries out and becomes potential fuel. You'd have to burn everything yearly, which is not practical

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          Science does in fact say we are mismanaging forest and brush lands.

          Yes, but the mismanaged forest is FEDERAL, not State owned. Meaning Trump is blaming the California state government for his own failure.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by drnb ( 2434720 )
            There is no shortage of forest fires in California on non-federal land.
            There is no shortage of mismanagement at the state and local levels, it is not a problem specific to the federal level.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              That would still be Trump trying to pass his share of the blame to the state of California at best.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by drnb ( 2434720 )

                That would still be Trump trying to pass his share of the blame to the state of California at best.

                So what? Who cares what he says? What he like or dislikes has no influence on any idea, the accuracy of ideas stands apart from him. If what Trump say is important to you, seek help.

    • If you say so. I figured it started from a small campfire or a small housefire. If you're implying that something much bigger happened and you can back it up, I'll believe you. All the police reports are available in multiple locations. Unless someone is hiding something or just sending out bullshit info you should be able to make a case.

    • They say Paradise burned in 36 minutes. The fire was moving as fast as 80 MPH. There were only 3 roads out of town, all of which were so clogged that many people gave up, got out of their cars and ran for it on foot. And most of the dead were elderly who take a longer time to evacuate due to their mobility issues.
       

  • Who could forget Ample Annie?

  • A Good Guy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by charlie merritt ( 4684639 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @08:03PM (#57662108)

    I used to buy memory chips from him. Wonderful guy full of excitement concerning anything having to do with building your own computer. An information spreader. Serial Good Guy that would help anyone out with tips on DIY, and "where to get it" advice.

  • RIP (Score:3)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Saturday November 17, 2018 @08:25PM (#57662152)
    My first home computer was an S-100 computer with 2 8" floppy drives, I built from parts in a 5' Sperry-UNIVAC rack in my living room. Had a Hazeltine and 2 Televideo green screen monitors.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • I was lucky. (Score:4, Informative)

    by kurt555gs ( 309278 ) <kurt555gs@nOsPaM.ovi.com> on Saturday November 17, 2018 @11:27PM (#57662480) Homepage

    I was lucky to have been involved in the beginning of the Micro Computer era. I worked for Mt Takayoshi Shiina at SORD Computer of Japan in the early 1980's. I remember talking with Mt Godbout, George Morrow who passed away some time ago from cancer I believe and Mt Shiina as a 20 something starry eyed kid that was totally enthralled with microcomputers and watching the business explode with ideas.

    God's speed Mt Godbout!

  • I lived vicariously the golden, heroic days of microcomputing via my S-100 computer hobby, and the Godbout cards are some of the nicest, best engineered ones. From everything I read about him, I could deduce that he was a generous, giving and thriving man, a pillar of the home computing community.

    He will be missed dearly.

  • I can't bear to part with my S100 computers; Vector Graphics and Alpha Micro. I'll take them to my grave. My Alpha Micro colleagues feel the same way. IIRC, at the Atlantic City Computer Festival (August 1976?), I rode the elevator up with Carl Helmers, editor of Byte Magazine. He was excited by a meeting where the various hardware manufactures agreed on a moniker of S100. I also had a conversation with Steve Jobs at his cardtable booth. He claimed to have advanced orders for 600 Apple 1 boards. I thought t

  • "Bill Godbout was one of the earliest and most influential supports of the S-100 bus in the mid-1970s."

    Most machines of that time were using little bits of plastic or even metal supports, so he was really thinking outside the box. Or maybe /. needs editors that know how to edit.

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