[TUHS] Bell Labs Holmdel site coming down

[patv at monmouth.com]

Just a personal commentary on that article from the local newspaper.

I live in Freehold, a few miles from the Holmdel facility, and I used to
work in Holmdel some time back.  I worked on several 68K based boards used
in a product called DACS.  I worked on both hardware and firmware,
maintained UNIX for several groups, struggled with nmake and software
manufacturing for several products (bugging both Glenn Fowler and David
Korn when new nmake releases broke builds), supported the pcc compiler as
a cross compiler, etc., for DACS and other products.  I was also
responsible for the architecture of something called the Line Monitoring
Equipment (LME), used in some undersea cable systems, well before
Submarine Systems was sold off to Tyco.  I can't tell you how many hours I
spent in that building.  It was fun.

Another loss to the UNIX community that I can personally report was the
closing, one year ago this month, of the old DEC Manalpan facility (UNX).
 This was the home of VAX System V, a large portion of Ultrix, and
everything that made up OSF1/Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX except for kernel,
drivers, and several other components (although I personally did some
kernel work on occasion).  We did shell and utilities, about 1/2 of X,
Motif, CDE, installation, mail, and other parts of the OS that made it
useful.  If you look at old uucp headers anywhere on usenet, any of the
traffic with headers that included systems with "unx" in the name was
routed through this facility.  I was there from when it was Digital
through Compaq and finally HP, almost all the way through to the closing.

In general, the whole area is undergoing a massive transition.  If I had
to guess, I'd say it is mostly due to the downswing in telecom, followed
closely by the closing of Fort Monmouth.  The latter, I think, is the
death blow for technology in this region.

For hardware developers, not much left at all around the area, and
software people have to either go financial in NYC, or work for a
pharmaceutical or insurance company.  Not much room left for innovation
here.  Sad.

Pat


> 
> http://app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060430/BUSINESS/604300358/1003
> 
> Coming down
> 
> The developer buying Lucent Technologies' 472-acre campus in Holmdel 
> plans to tear down the massive 2-million-square-foot research center 
> that has been home to Bell Labs for the past 44 years.
> Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/30/06
> BY DAVID P. WILLIS
> BUSINESS WRITER


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