Guide to the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Records
SC1041
SC1041
Daniel Hartwig & Jenny Johnson
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
April 2011
Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford 94305-6064
specialcollections@stanford.edu
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory records
creator:
Stanford Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory.
Identifier/Call Number: SC1041
Physical Description:
184320 megabyte(s)
Physical Description:
40.75 Linear Feet
Date (inclusive): 1963-2009
Abstract: The materials consist of SAIL Dump And
Restore Technique (DART) backup files, 1972-1990; digital copies of 16 mm films created from
1963-1980; handbooks; log books; manuals; and photographs and videos from the 35th SAIL
reunion held in 2009.
Immediate Source of Acquisition note
The materials were transferred from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 2011;
2016.
Information about Access
The materials are partially restricted. Users may access the public corpus of the SAIL DART
files from the SAILDART website:
http://saildart.com/ .
Cite As
Stanford Artifical Intelligence Laboratory Records (SC1041). Dept. of Special Collections
and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Biographical/Historical note
The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (also known as Stanford AI Lab or SAIL) is
the artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory of Stanford University. It was started
in 1963 by John McCarthy, after he moved from Massachusetts Institute of Technology to
Stanford. From 1965 to 1980, it was housed in the D.C. Power building, in the foothills of
the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking Stanford. During this period it was one of the leading
centers for AI research. In 1980, its activities were merged into the university's Computer
Science Department and it moved into Margaret Jacks Hall in the main Stanford campus. SAIL
was reopened in 2004, with Sebastian Thrun becoming its new director. SAIL's 21st century
mission is to "change the way we understand the world"; its researchers contribute to fields
such as bioinformatics, cognition, computational geometry, computer vision, decision theory,
distributed systems, game theory, general game playing, image processing, information
retrieval, knowledge systems, logic, machine learning, multi-agent systems, natural
language, neural networks, planning, probabilistic inference, sensor networks, and
robotics.
Scope and Contents note
The materials consist of SAIL Dump And Restore Technique (DART) backup files, 1972-1990;
digital copies of 16 mm films created from 1963-1980; handbooks; log books; manuals; and
photographs and videos from the 35th SAIL reunion held in 2009.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Artificial intelligence.
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Dump And Restore Technique (DART) backup tapes Series 1
1972-1990
Physical Description: 229 computer
tape(s)
Scope and Contents note
The materials consist of 229 reels of DART tape backups. These tapes were created from
3228 original backup tapes.
DART was a program that saved disk files on magnetic tape and restored files from tape
to disk. DART was used to make periodic backups of the file disk, approximately once a
week for the permanent backups.
Conditions Governing Access note
The materials are restricted. Users may access the public corpus of the files from the
SAILDART website: http://saildart.com/.
Backup files
Physical Description: 52.6
gigabyte(s)
Physical Description: (41,594 computer
files)
Original tapes
Physical Description: 0 computer
tape(s)
box 1
P3000-P3010
1988-1990 Mar 30
box 2
P3010-P3019
1990 Apr 30-May 5
box 3
P3020-P3029
1990 May 7-10
box 4
P3030-P3039
1990 May 11-18
box 5
P3040-P3049
1990 May 17-22
box 6
P3050-P3059
1990 May 22-30
box 7
P3060-P3069
1990 May 30-Jun 3
box 8
P3070-P3079
1990 Jun 4-14
box 9
P3080-P3089
1990 Jun 15-26
box 10
P3090-P3099
1990 Jun 27-Jul 1
box 12
P3110-P3119
1990 Jul 7-12
box 13
P3120-P3129
1990 Jul 12-20
box 14
P3130-P3139
1990 Jul 20-26
box 15
P3140-P3149
1990 27 Jul-1 Aug
box 18
P3170-P3179
1990 Aug 9-12
Use copy
2011
Other Finding Aids note
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note
From the DART tapes the content of 137,000 files were converted into current 2011 web
formats. The exact bits are available as an octal listing of the original PDP-10
36-bit words of file content. Since larger documents and the system files were
published while smaller personal files remained out of sight, the 12.3 GB of published
data comprises only 14% of the file names but contains 36% of the total 33.7 GB
corpus.
Audiovisual material Series 2
1963-1980
Audiovisual material: 1963-1980
Scope and Contents note
The materials are open for research.
Automated Pump Assembly
1973-04
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Richard Paul, Karl Pingle, and Bob Bolles, "Automated Pump Assembly", color, sound, 5
minutes.
Shows the hand-eye system assembling a simple automobile water pump using vision to
locate the pump body and to check for errors. The parts are assembled and screws
inserted, using some special tools designed for the arm. Some titles are included to
help explain the film.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Paul, Richard
Pingle, Karl
Avoid
1969-03
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Gary Feldman and Donald Peiper, "Avoid", color, silent, 5 minutes.
An illustration of Peiper's Ph.D. thesis. The problem is to move the computer
controlled mechanical arm through a space filled with one or more known obstacles. The
film shows the arm as it moving through various cluttered environments with fairly
good success.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Feldman, Gary
Peiper, Donald
Butterfinger
1968-03
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Gary Feldman, Karl Pingle, Jeff Singer, Bill Weiher, "Butterfinger", color, sound, 8
minutes.
Describes the state of the hand-eye system in the fall of 1967. The PDP-6 computer
getting visual information from a television camera and controlling an
electrical-mechanical arm solves simple tasks involving stacking blocks. The
techniques of recognizing the blocks and their positions as well as controlling the
arm are briefly presented. Gary Feldman supervised filming, Karl Pingle programmed the
visual processing, Jeff Singer programmed arm control, Bill Weiher dealt with systems
issues and this project was initiated by Les Earnest.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Feldman, Gary
Cart2
1963
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Paul W. Braisted, "Prototype Moon Rover," B&W, silent, fast motion, 9
minutes.
Mechanical Engineering graduate student Paul W. Braisted devised a scheme to improve
the controllability from Earth of a Moon rover taking into account the 2.6 second
round trip communication delay. It had an analog computer that functioned as a
predictor that took into account preceding steering commands and put a bright dot on
the television screen at the predicted location of the cart when a current steering
command would begin to take effect. With this feature the vehicle could be controlled
at 5 mph (8 kph). These experiments were conducted on the playing fields of Stanford
and the speed of the cart was chosen to match the sustainable jogging speed of a
graduate student. For more on the Stanford Cart see
http://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/cart.htm.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Braisted, Paul W.
Cart4
1979
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (mov)
Scope and Contents note
Hans Moravec, "Stanford Cart", color, silent, 1.5 minutes.
The Stanford Cart was an experimental mobile vehicle whose television camera could
move from side to side, allowing multiple views to be obtained without moving the
wheels. Images were sent to a DEC KL10 computer, which interpreted the
three-dimensional information and directed the cart to navigate around obstacles. The
cart moved in one meter spurts punctuated by ten to fifteen minute pauses for image
processing and route planning. In 1979, the cart successfully crossed a chair-filled
room without human intervention in about five hours, as shown here.
Computer Interactive Picture Processing" (MARS Project)
1972
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (mpg)
Scope and Contents note
Lynn Quam, Robert Tucker, Bo Eross, Larry Ward, "Computer Interactive Picture
Processing" (MARS Project), color, sound, 8 min.
Describes an automated picture differencing technique for analyzing the variable
surface features on Mars using data returned by the Mariner 9 spacecraft. The system
used the DEC-10 timesharing computer of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab
(SAIL) and was used by Carl Sagan and his astronomical colleagues to detect and
analyze variable features on the surface of Mars (i.e. things that changed with
time).
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Ward, Larry
Display Simulations of 6-Legged Walking
1972
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
D.I. Okhotsimsky & A.K. Plantonov, "Display Simulations of 6-Legged Robot
Walking", Institute of Applied Mathematics -- USSR Academy of Science. Titles
translated by Stanford AI Lab and edited by Suzanne Kandra. black and white, silent,
10 minutes.
A display simulation of a 6-legged ant-like walker getting over various obstacles.
The research is aimed at a planetary rover that would get around by walking. First
presented at the Second CISM-IFToMM International Symposium on Theory and Practice of
Robots and Manipulators, Warsaw, Poland, Sept. 1976.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Okhotsimsky, D. I.
Ellis D. Kroptechev and Zeus, his Marvelous Time-Sharing System
1967-03
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Art Eisenson and Gary Feldman, "Ellis D. Kroptechev and Zeus, his Marvelous
Time-sharing System", B&W, sound, 15 minutes.
The advantages of time-sharing over batch processing are revealed through the good
offices of the Zeus time-sharing system on a PDP-1 computer. Our hero, Ellis, is saved
from a fate worse than death.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Eisenson, Art
Feldman, Gary
Hands
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Hanoi
1972
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Richard Paul, "Tower of Hanoi," Color, silent, 2 minutes.
The robot hand solves the Tower of Hanoi puzzle using only four blocks instead of
disks. The pauses between hand motions are due to the trajectory planning for the next
move, including dynamics and control parameters, which is performed before the hand
moves. Notice that the hand turns and re-grasps the block it just placed to ensure
that each stack remains centered.
Hear! Here!
1969-03
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Raj Reddy, Dave Espar and Art Eisenson, "Hear! Here!", color with sound, 15
minutes.
Describes the state of the speech recognition project as of Spring, 1969. A
discussion of the problems of speech recognition is followed by two real time
demonstrations of the current system. The first shows the computer learning to
recognize phrases and second shows how the hand-eye system may be controlled by voice
commands. Commands as complicated as "Pick up the small block in the lower left-hand
corner", are recognized and the tasks are carried out by the computer controlled
arm.
Produced by the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab; Principal Investigator: John
McCarthy. Written by Raj Reddy and David Espar; photographed, directed & edited by
David Espar assisted by Sheri Espar; programming by Pierre Vicens, Raj Reddy, Jeff
Singer, Karl Pingle; music by Leland Smith and the PDP-6. Additional filming by Art
Eisenson assisted by Mel Paul; technical advisor Gary Feldman. Sponsored in part by
the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Reddy, Raj
Espar, Dave
Eisenson, Art
Instant Insanity
1971-08
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Richard Paul, Karl Pingle, Jerome Feldman, & Alan Kay, "Instant Insanity" color,
silent, 6 minutes.
Shown at the Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)
in London.
A computer vision system and robotic arm solve the Instant Insanity puzzle, which has
been around for more than a century under various aliases. It consists of a set of
four cubes with one of four colors on each of their six faces. The goal is to arrange
the four cubes in a row so that all four colors appear on each of the row's four long
sides. The order of the cubes doesn't matter, but that simplicity is deceptive. There
are 41,472 different ways of arranging the four cubes in a row, so this is not a
trivial task.
The computer vision system first finds each of the four cubes by matching the visual
edges to a prototype cube. In the case of a cube with only two faces visible, the arm
turns the cube 45º so that three faces will be visible. The colors of the faces are
then determined by reading in the scene again under three different color filters. The
cubes are then turned over so that the three hidden back faces are visible to the
camera and the process repeated. Once a solution is found the computer directs the arm
to stack the blocks in the required order.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Paul, Richard
Pingle, Karl
Motion and Vision
1972-11
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Suzanne Kandra, "Motion and Vision", color, sound, 22 minutes.
Presentation of three research projects completed in 1972: advanced arm control by R.
P. Paul, visual feedback control by A. Gill and representation and description of
curved objects by G. Agin.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Kandra, Suzanne
Pump
1974
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Scope and Contents note
Karl Pingle, Lou Paul, and Bob Bolles, "Programmable Assembly, Three Short Examples",
color, sound, 8 minutes.
The task is to mount a bearing and seal on a crankshaft. The first segment
demonstrates the arm's ability to dynamically adjust for position and orientation
changes. Next, the arm is shown changing tools and recovering from a run-time error.
Finally, a cinematic first: two arms cooperating to assemble a hinge.
Programming by Robert Bolles & Richard Paul, Hardware by Vic Scheinman, Filming
by Karl Pingle, Sound by Kenneth Zander, Narration by Robert Bolles, Project Direction
by Jerome Feldman.
Skyhook
Physical Description: 1 computer file
(MPEG-2)
Handbooks, log books, and manuals Series 3
Handbooks, log books, and manuals
Scope and Contents note
The materials are open for research.
Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP-6 brochure
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP-6 Handbook
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP-6 Handbook
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP-6 handbook
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Steve Russell, John Sauter, Phil Petit, Dave Poole, Raj Reddy, Bill Wieher,
et al., SAIL Hardware Log Book
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Use copy
1967 Apr 7 - Sep 25
Steve Russel, John Sauter, et al., SAIL Hardware Log Book
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Use copy
1967 Sep 26 - 1968 Jan 8
Phil Petit, Steve Russell, John Sauter, Dave Poole, et al., SAIL Hardware Log
Book
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Use copy
1968 Jan 8 - Mar 20
William Weiher, Description of the Triple-I Display Processor
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP-10 System Refence Manual
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Brian Harvey, Monitor Command Manual
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Martin Frost, UUO Manual
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Les Earnest, Find a Font
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Bruce Baumgart, Geometric Modeling for Computer Vision
Physical Description: 1 computer
file(s) (pdf)
Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP-6 Price List
Physical Description: 2 computer files
(JPEG)
35th Reunion Series 4
2009 Nov 22
35th Reunion: 2009 Nov 22
Scope and Contents note
The materials are open for research.
Photographs
Physical Description: 40 computer
file(s) (jpg)
Entire program
Physical Description: 4 computer
file(s) (mpg)
General note
Contact Public Services (e-mail: speccollref@stanford.edu) for information on
accessing these digital objects.
Individual presentations
Scope and Contents note
Recipients of the John McCarthy award for excellence in research and research
environments
Sebastian Thrun, Welcome to the SAIL reunion.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 28:39 min:sec
Sebastian Thrun, presents awards to the New-SAIL gold
medalists.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 02:53 min:sec
Mike Montemerlo, talk, gold medal for DARPA Grand Challenge technical
leadership.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 05:12 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Mike Montemerlo was recognized for leadership and technical contributions that
led to the DARPA Grand Challenge victory. Michael Montemerlo is being recognized
for his leadership in Stanford Autonomous Driving Team, which led to the victory
in the DARPA Grand Challenge. Mike was the chief software architect of the system,
and his work influenced all aspects of Stanley's software, from hardware
interfaces, perception, mapping, path planning, and control. Mike was the
technical leader for the entire team, and his vision and technical strength guided
all other team members in this successful project. The DARPA Grand Challenge was
widely considered a milestone event for robotics. For the first time, robotic cars
proved their ability to navigate extensive desert trails completely
autonomously.
David Stavens, talk, gold medal for DARPA Grand Challenge vision
algorithms.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 03:49 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Honored for computer algorithms that led to the DARPA Grand Challenge victory.
For his groundbreaking contributions to the winning DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle,
and in particular his algorithms for adaptive speed control. His adaptive speed
control algOlithm selected the best speed autonomously with machine learning,
considering features such as road roughness, slope, and width. The algorithm could
be trained to closely match a human driver's speed choices. This allowed Stanford
to avoid massive human-tweaking of the race route, known as "pre-planning," that
characterized some other teams. The algorithm includes a band-pass filter,
designed by Gabe Hoffmann, to isolate the vehicle's suspension. David made
contributions to several other aspects of the robot, including the watchdog
program for software health monitoring and the adaptive vision system. In
addition, David was on the launch team responsible for the vehicle on the morning
of the race and, as TA for the Grand Challenge class, oversaw the very first
end-to-end development of Stanley. He was also the principal safety driver for
in-the-desert road tests. His other responsibilities included team coordination
and media and investor relations. Using data from the event, David later published
a self-taught learning algorithm that used haptic feedback from the IMU to enhance
the laser perception beyond race performance.
Hendrik Dahlkamp, talk, gold medal for DARPA Grand Challenge
"self-supervised learning".
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 03:58 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
For computer vision that led to the DARPA Grand Challenge victory. For his
contributions to Stanford's autonomous vehicle Stanley, and specifically its
computer vision system for long-range road detection. Called Stanford's "secret
weapon" by a PBS documentary on the DARPA Grand Challenge, this system enabled
Stanley to perceive and classify desert terrain in the distance as drivable or
undrivable, and determine a safe traversal speed. The algorithm was a crucial
contribution in two ways: First, it allowed Stanley to extend its sensing range
from a classical laser-based perception range of 20 meters to a camera-based range
of 40 meters, which led to a 40% increase in top speed and a win in the race.
Second, it advanced a new paradigm in ru1ificial intelligence called
"self-supervised learning", where the output of one sensor modality, the laser
range finder, is used to generate online training data for a second sensor
modality, the camera. This allowed Stanley to constantly adjust its road model to
the environment, taking time-of-day, surface material, texture, shadows etc into
account. Together with Intel Computer Vision Researcher Adrian Kaehler, Hendrik
implemented a perception system that was able to react even to obstacles such as
tank traps that it had never encountered before.
Pieter Abbeel, talk, gold medal for autonomous helicopter.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 07:29 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Pieter Abbeel for acrobatic flight maneuvers of the Stanford autonomous
helicopter. Autonomous helicopter flight is widely regarded to be a highly
challenging control problem. It is particularly difficult to design controllers
for non-stationary maneuvers in which the helicopter goes through various flight
regimes, extensively exposing the great complexity of helicopter dynamics. Despite
these challenges, human experts can reliably fly helicopters through a wide range
of maneuvers, including aerobatic maneuvers at the edge of the helicopter's
capabilities.
Pieter Abbeel and Adam Coates developed apprenticeship learning algorithms that
leverage expert demonstrations to efficiently learn good controllers for the tasks
being demonstrated by an expert. These apprenticeship learning algorithms have
enabled their helicopters to significantly extend the state of the art in
autonomous helicopter flight and aerobatics. Their experimental results included
the first autonomous execution of a wide range of maneuvers, including flips,
rolls, loops, auto-rotation landings, chaos and tictocs, which only exceptional
human pilots can perform. Their results also included complete air shows, which
required autonomous transitions between many of these maneuvers. Their system
performs as well, and often even better, than an expert human pilot.
Adam Coates, talk, gold medal for autonomous helicopter.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 06:25 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Adam Coates for acrobatic flight maneuvers of the Stanford autonomous helicopter.
Autonomous helicopter flight is widely regarded to be a highly challenging control
problem. It is particularly difficult to design controllers for non-stationary
maneuvers in which the helicopter goes through various flight regimes, extensively
exposing the great complexity of helicopter dynamics. Despite these challenges,
human experts can reliably fly helicopters through a wide range of maneuvers,
including aerobatic maneuvers at the edge of the helicopter's capabilities.
Pieter Abbeel and Adam Coates developed apprenticeship learning algorithms that
leverage expert demonstrations to efficiently learn good controllers for the tasks
being demonstrated by an expert. These apprenticeship learning algorithms have
enabled their helicopters to significantly extend the state of the art in
autonomous helicopter flight and aerobatics. Their experimental results included
the first autonomous execution of a wide range of maneuvers, including flips,
rolls, loops, auto-rotation landings, chaos and tictocs, which only exceptional
human pilots can perform. Their results also included complete air shows, which
required autonomous transitions between many of these maneuvers. Their system
performs as well, and often even better, than an expert human pilot.
Ken Salisbury, talk, gold medal for robotic hand.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 07:40 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Ken Salisbury for the design and build-up of the Salisbury robotic hand. Ken
Salisbury designed the "Salisbury Hand" (originally known as the Stanford/JPL
hand) while he was a graduate student at Stanford as an advisee of Prof. Bernie
Roth in Mechanical Engineering. In collaboration with Carl Ruoff at NASA/Jet
Propulsion Labs and Prof. Roth, the hand was designed to be a platform for
investigation of robotic grasping and dexterous manipulation. Commercialized
through Ken's "Salisbury Robotics" company in the early 80's this hand became a
popular research platform for many years and continues to be an icon symbolic of
robotic dexterity. In the years since, Ken's labs have spawned an number of
well-known robotic and haptic devices, including the MIT-W AM arm (now known as
the Barrett Arm from Barrett Technology), the PHANToM Haptic Interface from
Sensable Technology, telesurgical devices commercialized by Intuitive Surgical,
and most recently the first version of the Personal Robot that is now being
commercialized by Willow Garage.
Dan Klein, talk, gold medal for unsupervised probabilistic language
parsing.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 09:55 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Dan Klein for revolutionary contributions to unsupervised probabilistic language
parsing. Dan Klein wins this award for his pioneering contributions to the
unsupervised learning of natural language structure. Klein's thesis work
demonstrated the first computer system capable of acquiring high-quality grammars
from raw text alone, answering a long-standing open question about the
empiricallearnability of human languages. Along with his group at UC Berkeley, he
has since continued to advance the state of the art in natural language processing
using unsupervised and latent-variable methods. In addition to constructing fast
and accurate syntactic analysis systems, his recent research has successfully
tackled a variety of other language tasks. In the area of machine translation, for
example, his work OIL syntactic correspondence has produced the best systems for
learning latent translation alignments. In the area of reference resolution, his
research has led to a fully unsupervised system that outperforms its supervised
competitors. Recent results on historical reconstruction have demonstrated the
most accurate system for the automatic inference of ancestral words from modern
forms. Klein is the recipient of multiple academic honors, most recently including
the ACM Grace Murray Hopper award, a Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship, a Sloan
Fellowship, and multiple best paper awards.
Raj Reddy, presents awards to the Old-SAIL gold medalists.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 10:16 min:sec
John McCarthy, reminisces on the founding of SAIL and comments on three
of the medalist talks.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 13:52 min:sec
Bruce Baumgart, talk, gold medal for creating the SAILDART
archive.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 07:36 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Bruce Baumgart for creating the SAILDART computer archive. Preserving digital
records and making them accessible for the long term is a difficult task both
because digital recordings, especially those on magnetic media, don't last long
and because write/read technologies keep changing as do file formats. Bruce
Baumgart, with help from Martin Frost and others, has been able to preserve most
of the records of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab from the 1970s and '80s
and has made the public files from that period publicly accessible on
http://www.saildart.com . Private files are accessible there to their
owners via logins. He did this with a great deal of personal effort and at his own
expense. The problem of preserving such records for the very long term, as we
believe they should be, is not yet solved but this effort constitutes a big step
in the right direction.
Bruce Buchanan, talk, gold medal for expert systems.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 07:55 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Bruce Buchanan for pioneering contributions to knowledge based systems. As a
Research Associate for the DENDRAL Project, Bruce Buchanan used the SAIL
time-sharing system in his pioneering work on knowledge acquisition from experts,
and knowledge representation for the DENDRAL experiments. That and subsequent
contributions in knowledge-based systems, and in machine learning, led to his
Research Professorship at Stanford; his University Professorship at the University
of Pittsburgh; his election to the National Academy's Institute of Medicine; and
the Presidency of the AAAI.
John Chowning, talk, gold medal for computer music systems.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 11:01 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
John Chowning for creating the computer music synthesis system John Chowning
initiated the computer music project at SAIL, with the indispensable help of
undergrad student David Poole, that became the internationally recognized Center
for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Along the way he discovered
a frequency modulation scheme that could closely emulated the sounds of known
musical instruments and many that are unknown. Software was not patentable at that
time so he recruited grad student Andy Moorer to translate it into a hardware
design that was patented through Stanford and licensed to Yamaha, which eventually
incorporated it into a wide range of digital synthesis devices, from organs to
cell phones, including the most widely sold synthesizer ever, the DX 7. The
proceeds from that licensing agreement helped CCRMA get through a critical phase
of its development-including the acquisition of the Foonly F2, built by David
Poole-and eventually endow the ongoing programs at CCRMA.
Whit Diffie, talk, gold medal for public key cryptography.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 11:10 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Whitfield Diffie for initiating the public key cryptography development.
Whitfield Diffie originated the important idea of public key cryptography, which
he then turned into a PhD dissertation and inspired others, such as SAIL alumnus
Ron Rivest to further develop this idea. The creation of practical public key
encryption systems has had a big effect on protecting personal privacy and moving
away from the idea that only governmental agencies have the right to encrypt and
protect their records.
Les Earnest, talk, gold medal for FINGER, an early social networking
program.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 03:03 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Les Earnest for helping to start ARPAnet and creating the social networking
program FINGER. During 1967-68 Les Earnest was a member of the ten person startup
committee for the first packet switching network, which came to be called ARPAnet
and later turned into the Internet. Their initial performance specifications were
not too foresighted in that only two functions were specified: file transfer and
remote computing, which came to be called Telnet. However the file transfer
capability was adequate to support email when it came into use a short time later
and the tight round trip communication requirement needed for Telnet made possible
the much later interactive web services.
In the 1970s Les created the FINGER program, which could show who was currently
logged in and, if not, when they last logged out. This was to help keep track of
SAIL people who worked at all hours of the day and night. Given that nearly all
SAIL software was made publicly accessible, a number of other laboratories with
similar computer systems took copies of FINGER for their own use and soon
requested that a network versioij be developed that could check on people at other
sites, which Mark Crispin developed. FINGER also allowed each person to create a
Plan file, tied to their email address, to describe such things as their planned
work schedule or vacation plans. However in short order FINGER became a de facto
social networking system, given that it facilitated finding which of one's friends
were online and allowed people to post what amounted to personal blogs some 30
years before the term "blog" came into use. For more see
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/pcperipherals/0,39051168,61998604,00.htm .
A Unix version was created by a UC Berkeley group that unfortunately had a
security loophole that was exploited by the first Internet Worm, resulting in
FINGER being suppressed on security grounds. Google is now developing a modem
version called WEBFINGER.
Ralph Gorin, talk, gold medal for spell checker.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 04:04 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Ralph Gorin for creating the first spelling corrector. The first spelling checker
was created at MIT in 1961 by Les Earnest as part of the first cursive handwriting
recognizer and used a list of the 10,000 most common English words. In 1967
Earnest recruited a SAIL graduate student to make a spelling checker for text
files, which was written in LISP, used a suffix stripping scheme to effectively
increase the vocabulary of the word list, and rather slowly produced a list of
unrecognized words and their locations in the file. In 1971 Eamest recruited Ralph
Gorin to make an interactive spelling checker. Gorin wrote SPELL in machine
language, for faster action and made the first spelling corrector by searching the
word list for plausible correct spellings that differ by a single letter or
adjacent letter transpositions. The program became more useful by allowing each
user to extend the dictionary interactively and use those extensions in the
future. He made SPELL publicly accessible and it soon spread around the world via
the new ARPAnet, about ten years before personal computers came into general
use.
Anthony Hearn, talk, gold medal for the Standard LISP System.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 05:06 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Anthony Hearn for creating the Standard Lisp System. After the Lisp programming
language was created by John McCarthy and his colleagues at MIT during the late
1950s, it became the most widely used language in artificial intelligence research
because of its versatility and extensibility. However its extensibility became a
problem as many different versions began to appear which were incompatible with
each other. After Tony Hearn began developing a symbolic computation system called
REDUCE, he addressed this problem by creating and documenting Standard Lisp in an
attempt to bring the diverging branches back together. This idea was later picked
up by others to create Common Lisp.
Victor Scheinman, talk, gold medal for robotic arms.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 16:19 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Victor Scheinman for developing high performance robot arms. A computer should be
able to do physical work. A big computer should be able to work fast. As a
Mechanical Engineering grad student, Vic was engaged to design and build a series
of robot arms and other gadgets for the PDP computers to play with. With Bernie
Roth, Larry Leifer, Don Pieper, Mike Kahn, Lou Paul, Bruce Shimano and others we
learned from his pneumatic snake like digital arm (the ORM-1966), and a powerful
and fast hydraulic arm (1967) which ran in "spacewar mode" and shook the building
that the design of the robot needed to be compatible with the brain and it's
environment. His electric "Stanford Arm" (1969) became the Hand-Eye group standard
research robot manipulator for many years. He built several of these arms for
other research groups including General Motors, National Bureau of Standards (now
NIST), and AT&T. He also had a strong hand in the development of Hans Moravec
's cart. The MIT AI Lab wanted their own robot so in 1973 he designed the "MIT
Arm" which he commercialized as the PUMA robot (Vicarm, Unimation, Westinghouse,
Staubli). The first, delivered to General Motors, is now in the Smithsonian
collection. Fortune called him the "Father of the Modern Robot" (1980). More
recently (2009), the IET (UK) named him "Godfather of Robotics".
Dan Swinehart, talk, gold medal for SAIL programming
language.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 06:24 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Dan Swinehart for contributions to the SAIL programming language. The SAIL
programming language and system was developed in the late 1960's by Bob Sproull
and Dan Swinehart, with later contributions by Jim Low, Hanan Samet, Russ Taylor,
Kurt van Lehn and others too numerous to mention. Derived from a class project,
called Gogol, the language began with something resembling Algol-60 and then
layered on contributions from many emerging language trends, including associative
processing (based on Feldman's LEAP), records (typed compound data structures),
references (typed pointers to same), support for multiple threads, and
variable-length strings with automatic storage management, the latter inspired by
a Bill McKeeman PUI-like project on campus. The system was coded entirely in Phil
Petit's FAIL assembly language to support hard-core systems applications for which
LISP and other available languages were arguably inappropriate. Among others,
notable well-known applications developed in SAIL include Larry Tesler's PUB and
early versions of Don Knuth's even more ambitious TEX document composition
systems.
Larry Tesler, talk, gold medal for PUB document compiler.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 08:00 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Larry Tesler for creating the PUB document compiler. In 1971, Les Earnest
recruited Larry Tesler to create a document compiler that would go well beyond
RUNOFF by supporting advanced publishing features. The software Larry built during
the ensuing six months featured automatic numbering, headings, multiple columns,
figures, footnotes, front and back matter generation, and cross-references. Its
power was unprecedented. It also was evidently the first document compiler that
provided for embedded spreadsheets. Today, we would call it a "scriptable markup
language". The scripting language was a subset of SAIL. In that pre-SGML era, the
markup syntax was non-uniform but it did allow arbitrary text to be bracketed by
tags.
Because it was written in SAIL and because its syntax required use of the entire
SAIL character set, the audience for PUB was limited. Nevertheless, at
ARPANET-connected universities with PDP-lOs, many a thesis was formatted using
PUB. Because the code was open-source, Russ Taylor added FR-80 microfilm output
and Rich Johnsson of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) added font capabilities.
As with other markup languages, the output was often difficult to predict. At
least two PUB users reacted to these shortcomings by developing better languages.
Brian Reid, then at CMU, developed Scribe for nontechnical users. He implemented
the first version entirely in PUB. Don Knuth developed TeX for authors of
mathematical texts. Meanwhile, SGML and C took over as the basis for most future
markup and scripting languages, and PUB became a forgotten milestone in digital
publishing history.
Martin Frost, talk, gold medal for first computer network news
service.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 11:25 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Martin Frost for creating the first network news service. Martin Frost, with
input from John McCarthy and Les Earnest, created two successive news services
that each was the first of its kind. Beginning in 1972, APE could be used either
to connect to the Associated Press newswire or to search recent stories based on
combinations of pre-selected keywords. Beginning in 1974 NS (for News Service)
indexed and stored stories from both the Associated Press and New York Times news
wires and allowed users to either search for recent stories using any combination
or words or leave a standing request to be notified whenever a story appears that
contains the specified words. NS was widely used by people on ARPAnet for general
news information.
During the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in 1979 the emergency response team
at Lawrence Livermore Lab found that they needed up-to-the-minute information on
developments at the site but couldn't get it until they were provided with access
to NS. During the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, Chinese students in the U.S.
wanted to pass information to friends in China but there were no Internet
connections there then. NS was then set up to locate news about China and forward
it to a student distribution list so that they could print the stories and fax
them home. Commercial news services were developed later that now provide similar
functionality to anyone who wants it and is willing to pay a subscription fee.
Phil Petit, talk, gold medal for SUDS, electronic design
system.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 03:39 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Phil Petit for initiating the first interactive electronic design system, SUDS.
Phil Petit initiated the development of the Stanford University Drawing System
(SUDS), which was the first graphical computer aided design system used for the
design of a real computer. It allowed designers to do both logic drawings and
physical layouts on printed circuit cards and cross-check them for consistency.
When the design was complete it produced artwork for printed circuit cards and
backpanel wiring instructions that would control an automatic wiring machine. Dick
Helliwell subsequently took over further development and maintenance of SUDS and
went with it to the Digital Equipment Corporation, where it was used as their
primary design tool for at least a decade. It was also used by Information
International Incorporated (III), Foonly Inc., Valid Logic, and Cisco Systems.
SAIL user Andy Bechtolsheim used it to design both the original SUN (Stanford
University Network) workstations and all of those manufactured by Sun Microsystems
for a number of years.
Steve Russell, talk, gold medal for SPACEWAR, the first
videogame.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 02:25 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Steve Russell for creating SPACEWAR, the first videogame. There were several
early board games that ran on digital computers, such as Tic Tack Toe, and "Tennis
for Two" ran on an analog computer. However the first dynamic videogame was
Spacewar!, as reviewed at
http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/computingthen/2009/03/CT-Lowood.pdf .
It was originally developed for the DEC PDP-I computer at MIT by Steve Russell and
his colleagues in the Tech Model Railroad Club. Spacewar! spread through PDP-I
installations, and many others who had different computer and a display wrote
versions for the equipment at hand. Steve then brought it to Stanford when he
moved here to join John McCarthy and he and others then improved it. Meanwhile a
company called Atari was formed to convert Spacewar into a commercial videogame
called "Computer Space" using TTL electronics and no programmable computer.
However Bill Pitts of SAIL beat them to it using a PDP-II computer to create
"Galaxy Game" and put it into the Stanford coffee shop and a local bowling alley.
While the Galaxy Game was quite popular, Atari observed that their version of
Spacewar was expensive to reproduce and somewhat hard for people to learn, so they
instead introduced the game of Pong which was cheap to make, easy to understand,
and a great commercial success. This allowed Atari to thrive for a time.
Lynn Quam, talk, gold medal for Mars image processing.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 03:36 min:sec
Scope and Contents note
Lynn Quam for creating an image retrieval system for planetary exploration. Lynn
Quam and his colleagues developed an image indexing scheme for planetary
exploration and picture differencing techniques to facilitate identification of
things that changed over time. This was used by Carl Sagan and other astronomers
who visited SAIL every few weeks to evaluate satellite photographs of Mars. Quam
successfully solved the problem of detecting small changes in the planet surface
in the presence of several extraneous factors. His system was subsequently applied
to pictures of Mars taken by the Mariner 9 spacecraft while the mission was in
progress.
Les Earnest, Call for Sustainable Archiving of SAIL unto the year Y3K and
beyond.
Physical Description: 1
computer file(s) (m4v)
Physical Description: 11:01 min:sec
item 1-3
User Disc Pack (UDP) backup tapes Series 5
1987 Nov-Dec
Physical Description: 41 computer
tape(s)
Photographs Series 6
Photographs
Additional records Accession ARCH-2017-025
2016
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Baumgart, Bruce.
Box 1
Baumgart, Bruce Guenther, "SAILDART Prolegomenon 2016"